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This kiss was public. Anyone on that sidewalk could see it, and Griffin did not hesitate.

His mouth was warm. The volunteers nearest the stage stopped talking, and somewhere behind us a coil of wire hit the sidewalk. His hand settled against my jaw as it had in the barn, and my fingers curled into his jacket sleeve. Half of Main Street watched with the satisfaction of people who had seen this coming before we had.

When we pulled apart, my hands were shaking. His thumb stayed at my jaw while voices picked up around us. I didn’t step back, and he didn’t let go.

Wanting him made the thought of losing him worse. My first instinct was to step back before the feeling got any bigger.

What I said was, “Well. That’s going to complicate tomorrow’s emergency committee meeting.”

“Probably.”

“Pearl’s going to be insufferable.”

“She interrogated me at six this morning through a screen door.” He kept hold of my hand. “I’ve been threatened with a filleting knife by a woman holding a tray of scones.”

“Keep doing things like that and I could fall in love with you.”

His expression softened. “I’d love the chance to earn it.”

“You say that like it comes with a spreadsheet.”

“No. I say it like it’s the first thing I’ve wanted that I can’t schedule.”

Up the block, the high schoolers argued over which bare lamppost should get the last wreath.

“What did Victor Crane say when he called you?” I said.

His hand went still in mine.

“Janet said he spoke to you Wednesday. We kissed in the barn that night, and you promised to tell me bad news the day you got it. So what did Crane say?”

Griffin explained without hiding behind contract language. Crane had seen the festival photographs and figured out that I mattered to Griffin. He reminded Griffin that starting the repair on January second would protect the block and close my shop for five weeks. If Griffin delayed to protect my business, Meridian could buy all six buildings at cost while Griffin still owed the loan. Griffin had told me about paragraph nine when he found my damaged footing. He had not told me Crane was using it to make him choose between my shop and the block.

“When did Crane call you?”

“I’ve known what I signed since September.” He made himself finish it. “Crane called Wednesday the nineteenth, in Mrs. Morrison’s driveway, while you were walking into the barn.”

The lights were coming on all down the block now.

“Say that again.”

“I took his call after we arrived. Then I came inside, listened to everything Mrs. Morrison told us, and never mentioned him.”

I stood up from the stage. “I shook that man’s hand on my own sidewalk yesterday,” I said. “I complimented his coat while he knew he had used my shop to threaten you, and I had no idea he’d even called. Everyone on this street watched me smile at him.”

“Nora—”

“You made me one promise. One.” My voice was doing something I couldn’t stop. “Tell me the bad news the day you get it. Not the day you’ve solved it. You made that promise in the barn four hours after Crane called. You had a phone in your hand, and you put it face down.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself, then stopped. What came out was worse because it was true. “I wanted one more day,” he said. “Then I kept wanting one more. By the time I told you, I’d taken six days.”

“That’s what I told myself in May when the roof over my stockroom started leaking. I hid it from Pearl until I had a patching crew because I didn’t want her worrying about a problem I hadn’t solved.” I got my jacket off the beam. “It’s a very good excuse. It works until it doesn’t.”

“Then tell me what to do with it now.”

“I don’t know yet. That’s the answer you’re getting.” I pulled on my jacket, missed the second sleeve, and had to wrestle with it in front of him. It was exactly the kind of indignity I did not need. “Tomorrow morning we go into that committee. We are competent, we are pleasant, and we are thirty-one percent short on food coverage. After that, I need a day where nobody hands me another deadline I have to absorb.”

“Nora.”