He glanced over at me, then back at the road. “So. The bus ride. How bad was it?”
“Fourteen hours.” I shifted to face him better, tucking one leg underneath me. “There was a woman two rows back who snored like a freight train the entire way. And the guy next to me ate hard-boiled eggs for breakfast somewhere around hour six.”
Kross winced. “That’s rough.”
“The gas station coffee was surprisingly good, though. Small miracles.”
He almost smiled. Almost. He didn’t give smiles away easily, which only made me want to earn them more.
“What about you?” I asked. “You said you’ve lived here for a while?”
“Six years.” He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, and I noticed the way his forearms flexed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel. Noticed and appreciated. “Moved out here after my mom passed. Needed a change, I guess. Somewhere quiet.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
He nodded, accepting my condolences without making it awkward. “She would’ve liked you. She always said I needed someone to shake things up.”
“Is that what I’m doing? Shaking things up?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” He shot me another glance, this one warmer than the last. “That’s already more excitement than I’ve had in years.”
I laughed, and something flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe. Like he hadn’t expected to make me laugh and wasn’t sure what to do now that he had.
“What do you do for work?” I asked, steering us back to safer ground. “You mentioned construction in your messages, but you were pretty vague.”
“Little bit of everything. Framing, finish work—whatever needs doing.” His shoulders loosened slightly as he spoke. “Keeps me busy.”
“Do you like it?”
He considered the question longer than most people would have. “Yeah. I do. There’s something satisfying about building things. Seeing something take shape that wasn’t there before.” He paused. “That probably sounds stupid.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”
We rounded the curve at the bottom of the ramp, and the town revealed itself all at once—tucked away, hidden until you were right on top of it. To our right sat a charming buildingwith an English Tudor façade, dark timbers crisscrossing white stucco. A sign proclaimed it the Wildwood Valley Inn.
“That’s where Bobbi holds court,” Kross said, nodding toward it. “She’s the one who helped me set up the profile.”
“She sounds like quite a character.”
“That’s one word for her.” He said it with affection. “She’s matched up half the guys in town at this point. Has a gift for it, I guess.”
“Or a meddling streak.”
“Probably both.”
Next door to the inn, sharing the same Tudor style and matching signage, sat the Wildwood Valley Pancake House. Across the street, I spotted a building that looked like a rundown dive bar from the outside—The Soda Jerk, according to its sign. A steep hill rose sharply to the left of it, blocking whatever lay beyond the ridge.
We continued onto Main Street, and the scenery shifted. An enormous fire station dominated one side of the road, all gleaming trucks and modern architecture. It looked almost aggressively new compared to the quaint Tudor buildings we’d just passed.
“New fire hall,” Kross said. “Town’s pretty proud of it.”
About thirty feet from the fire station sat a small trailer—modest, almost pitiful compared to its neighbor, but well-kept, with a neat sign out front.
“Vet clinic,” he continued. “Dr. Hanson runs it. She’s been working out of that trailer for a while now, but the permits finally came through for a real building. Should break ground soon.”
“That’s great.” I’d always loved animals. My parents had never let me have a pet—too messy, too much responsibility, too much of anything that might have brought me joy. “Maybe I could volunteer there once I’m settled.”
He looked at me then, really looked, and something warm bloomed in my chest at the approval in his eyes. “I think she’d like that.”
