“All of them,” Vicki said almost immediately. “How am I supposed to choose? Oh, but that’s pretty, though…” She traced an orange-and-red-stained fingertip above one of the gowns, lingering over the fitted bodice, particularly. Zane reached over and made a checkmark by the bodice, and checked off other elements she liked from different sketches. Vicki, skeptically, said, “You can’t put all those together into one dress, can you?”
“Maybe.” Zane took the sketchbook back, flipping through the sketches he’d marked thoughtfully. “You have rather classic tastes in a lot of ways, and the simple lines can mean getting away with a lot of extras, as long as we don’t go overboard. I’llrefine these more and text them to you until we’ve got something that makes your heart sing.”
Vicki gave him a shy smile. “That sounds wonderful and exciting. Oh, God, so does breakfast. I’m starving.” She pulled the paper placemat in front of her again as the waitress returned with enormous plates of hash, eggs, and biscuits, as well as giant glasses of orange juice precariously balanced on the edge of the tray. Zane glanced at the time and decided he’d better eat quickly, although he didn’t really want to leave Vicki.
Virtue, yes. It was something close to a miracle that he’d been in town almost thirty-six hours without running into his father, and he badly wanted to get out of town before his luck ran out. But he also wanted to sweep Victoria Hawthorne up and bring her back to LA with him.
For a moment, he imagined proposing that, and ended up chuckling quietly into his orange juice. Maybe she’d go with him, but not, he bet, until after the school year was over. There was fated romance, and then there were contracts and thirty little kids who needed a teacher. He knew which onehewould consider more important, in terms of where he needed to be for a certain amount of time, and he was pretty sure Vicki would feel the same way.
Not that he could reasonably ask a woman he’d known for a day and a half to run away to Los Angeles with him. Zane chuckled again, and Vicki lifted her eyebrows, inviting explanation. “Aaah, just trying to think of how to do measurements and fittings and things,” he said, notentirelyuntruthfully. “It’d be easier to take you to Los Angeles with me.”
Vicki snorted, which gave him all the answer he needed. “Easier for you. It’d wreak havoc with my life.”
“Well, I don’t want that,” Zane said with genuine sincerity. “I’ll just have to come back.”
“I look forward to it.” Vicki sounded wistful again, which seemed hopeful, to Zane. He thought it probably meant she liked him, even if heshouldbe sure of it, with the whole fated mate thing. “When do you leave?”
“Pretty much now,” Zane said apologetically. “I have enough time to pour a bunch of honey onto this biscuit, shove it into my mouth, pay the bill?—”
“I can get the bill!”
“Business expense,” Zane said, which let him skip over the fact that he got paid a haute couture designer’s salary and she got paid a first grade teacher’s salary.
It might have let Vicki skip over that too, because she paused briefly, then shrugged with a quick, agreeable smile. “Fair. In that case, thank you.”
“My pleasure.” Zane finished pouring honey onto the biscuit and did, in fact, shove it in his mouth to keep himself from daring a kiss. Vicki laughed as he went all squirrel-cheeked, and did a little bobbing thing like a curtsey when he stood and sketched a quick bow, since his mouth was now too full to talk around.
“Do you need me to call you a taxi?”
He nodded, still squirrel-cheeked as he went to pay the bill, and by the time it was paid and his mouth was clear, the taxi was idling at the door. Vicki had gotten up to walk him out, and he smiled down at her, oddly nervous. “Thank you. I’ll text you?”
“I look forward to it. Better go before you’re late.” Vicki nodded reluctantly at the door, and Zane went out with more than one glance back at her, although the parking lot was so slippery with snow over the black ice that he had to watch his feet as he approached the taxi. Once inside, though, he waved at Vicki as he was driven away. The memory of her pink cheeks and smiling face stayed with him until he was nearly at the B&B and his phone chimed with Dion’s notification sound.
Zane muttered, “Yeah, I’m on my way,” as the taxi pulled up. He paid for it and got out, digging his phone from his pocket on his way into the B&B.
A blast of welcome warmth hit him just as he read the text:Might as well linger with Ms. Hawthorne for your breakfast discussion. The airport is closed for the next 24+ hours due to freezing rain.
“What? No! No! Dion! No, I can’t stay here through the weekend!” Zane ran upstairs to thump on his assistant’s door.
Dion opened it with the expression of a man prepared for all the arguments. “I’ve already called around to the various private airfields. Nobody’s flying. They’re either snowed in or frozen to the ground. We can’t drive down to the city, or even Albany, because the roads are terrible, like, somebody skidded through the guard rail on one of the bridges levels of terrible. Most of the bridges are closed to traffic now, so unless you intend to hoof it through three hundred miles of bad weather, we’re stuck, Zane.”
We could paw it,his wolf said hopefully.
Despite his frustration with the situation, Zane almost smiled. ‘Hoof it’ means walk, whether we have paws or feet or hooves.
The wolf, having woken up only for its hopes to be dashed, informed him that human language was dumb, and went back to sleep.
Dion was still staring at him belligerently, clearly expecting an argument, possibly a tantrum, from his boss. Zane felt more than a little tantrumy, but ended up sighing. “All right. Okay, if there’s nothing to be done. Can you extend our stay at the B&B, or do we need to find somewhere else?”
“I already did,” Dion said rather gently. “Our flight’s been rescheduled for Monday, but I’ll keep an eye out for whether any of the private airfields start flying sooner. I know you don’t want to be in Virtue any longer than you have to be, Mr. Z, but look,everybody thinks we’re leaving. You can hide out in the B&B if you want, and nobody’ll know any better.”
Or, Zane thought, he could go hide out with Victoria Hawthorne, and see if she believed fate was real, too.
Maybe being stuck in Virtue a few more days wouldn’t becompletelyawful.
CHAPTER 9
The problem with being up early on a Saturday was that Vicki had too many things to do to go back to bed. Cutting out crafty things for school on Monday, in this case, but it was always something. She thought she could talk herself back into bed if she could also lure Zane Bellamy into it, but since she’d watched him drive off into the…
