"I'm a disaster on skates."
"Then I'll catch you."
The words came out before I could stop them. I kept my eyes on the road and pretended I hadn't just said that.
“So, let me guess, you’re probably have the skills of like, an Olympic figure skater,” she said.
I laughed, admitting, “Not even close. I haven’t put skates on since Elena was a kid. I’ll probably be just as bad as you think you will be.”
“Then why are we doing this?” she asked in a wail that was almost comical.
I revealed my ulterior motive. “Because at Ashford’s gala I caught wind that Councilwoman Janetta Oliver is going to be there today with her family and she happens to be best friends with Eleanor Ashford. Being seen together out in the wild is the best way to sell the story that we’re more than just a photo op. Hartford is far enough away to be thought of as a private outing, but close enough to actually bump into people we know.”
“Who’s thiswein your pocket? I don’t know any of these people,” she grumbled, tucking her arms across her chest. “This job doesn’t pay well enough to give up my day off. Come to think of it, I’m not getting paid, period. I think I need to renegotiate.”
“Too late for that, darlin’,” I grinned, finding her pique damn adorable. “Play your cards right and there’s a hot chocolate in your future.”
She rolled her eyes but added, “You’re springing for extra whipped cream.”
Hartfield looked like a postcard had vomited onto reality.
Cobblestone streets lined with boutiques and bakeries. Lampposts wrapped in fairy lights. A town square dominated by a skating rink where couplesglided hand-in-hand, their breath visible in the February air.
Willow pressed her face to the window like a kid at Christmas.
"Okay," she admitted. "This is annoyingly charming."
"High praise."
"Don't let it go to your head." She was already unbuckling her seatbelt. "Is that a bookshop? That's definitely a bookshop. Can we go there?"
"After skating."
"Before skating. As a reward for putting up with you."
"The skating is the activity. The bookshop is the reward."
"Who made you the arbiter of reward sequencing?"
"I'm the one with the car keys."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Tyrant."
"Pragmatist."
We compromised by getting hot chocolate from a café before hitting the rink. Willow cradled her cup with both hands, steam rising against her pink cheeks, and I had to look away before I did what I really wanted to do.
Which was kiss her. Right there on the cobblestones. In front of the bakery with the steamedwindows and the elderly couple walking their corgi and the teenagers taking selfies by the lamppost.
No audience that mattered. Just want, pure and inconvenient.
I didn't.
We got skates. We laced them up on a bench near the rink's edge, and I watched Willow eye the ice with the wariness of someone approaching a feral animal.
"You know," she said, "I once broke my wrist rollerblading. I was twelve. It was very traumatic."
"This is different."
