If keeping to oneself was the same as owning the only market on the summit, the sort that allowed customers to keep a running tab and offered friends and family discounts to practically all of their shoppers. Main Street Market was a well-known staple in the mountain town community, a Mom and Pop store in the truest of senses.
Rachel didn’t want Buddy putting those pieces together. It had been embarrassing enough when Monica called her out, drawing attention to her parents’ odd obsession over their tree. She didn’t want Buddy sharing those same judgmental thoughts too.
Reading her boundary, he left it at that.
“Any progress with the mistletoe?” He placed his mug on the armrest next to him.
“I’ve decided to take a break from it for the time being. I’ve got a while before I need to hunker down and figure all of that out. For now, I just want to enjoy my time in Snowdrift.”
“And are you? Enjoying your time?”
“I am.”
He might’ve edged closer, or it could’ve been Rachel’s thumping heart that propelled her toward him. They were suddenly shoulder to shoulder on the sofa. But when Buddy’s arm draped across her back, his hand curling around her to draw her near, her breath hitched.
“Is this okay?”
She nodded. She moved her mug to the coffee table, then angled her body back into his on the couch. He had the perfect arm for sliding under and curling up beneath, that protective, secure strength that blanketed her with calm.
“I feel like I have to ask…” His words and volume trailed.
This was it. This was where he discovered her identity and her cover was blown. He’d asked her name before, but had never called her by it. Had he even heard her? Was this going to be the point where he learned of her ties to the Joy family noble-fir-nonsense and he politely asked her to leave? Sure, it sounded farfetched and vastly out of character from the man she’d gotten to know over the last few days, but stranger things had happened.
Should she just make up an entirely different name? Some undercover alias?
Her brain scrolled through a list of viable options, only interrupted when he finally asked, “You’re not already in a relationship, are you?”
She exhaled so loudly, Scout startled from her place on the floor next to them.
“Relationship? Goodness, no.”
“Because you don’t do relationships,” he inferred.
“Because I’ve found I don’t have much time for them.”
His mouth remained a thin line. “Or interest?”
Until meeting Buddy, she would have said no. But each encounter had her thinking differently about her priorities. Had her pondering the true definition of success and if she’d had it wrong all along.
“I have the interest.” Snuggling deeper into his side, Rachel’s mouth twitched into a grin.
“Good to know,” was all he said in response, and Rachel suddenly wanted to know more about the man next to her. Wanted to know everything she could.
Starting with his full name.
“This is going to sound really strange, but—”
The sharp trill of his phone ringing with an incoming call lopped off the end of her sentence.
“You can get that,” she encouraged with a nod to the cell phone discarded on the table.
He grunted a sigh and glanced at the phone screen. “It’s my mom. I probably should. It’ll only be a minute.”
“Take all the time you need.”
He offered his apology with a brief squeeze of her arm and soft smile before bending forward to lift the phone and accept the call. “Hey, Mom. Can I call you right—?”
Color instantly drained from his face, his features going slack.
