Chapter Nine #2
Which was why it threw me out of sorts when we’d arrived at the tree lighting and Winter was standing with a group of men.
I hadn’t expected him to be surrounded by guys.
I knew most of them, by name, mostly. I knew Hamish and Ren because their dog Chutney was on my roster.
I knew Jayden from the diner. I knew Clay Henderson from the sawmill.
Plus, he’d grown up here. I knew Deputy Price, and Doctor Rob, of course, because he was my doctor, and I knew Gunter because he’d opened the youth center.
But I didn’t know them.
And there were a lot of them, all standing around. It was a large group, a circle of friends that I was not part of and therefore was an outsider to, and meeting that many people at once was not a good thing for me.
Winter was supposed to be meeting me, not them.
Wasn’t that the assumed thing? Did I misread his intent?
He was wearing the scarf I gave him, and he did smile at me when he spotted me, and Gunter gave Winter a nudge—I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Why would he nudge him like that? And why was Winter’s coat so puffy at the front?
He looked pregnant and he kept rubbing his front, as I’d seen pregnant folk do.
What was that about?
Disappointed and sad that things weren’t going as I’d expected, I faced the tree, waiting for it to be all over, wishing I’d stayed at home.
“Did you want to go over and say hello?” Mom asked me.
I shook my head. “No.”
She gave me one of her sad smiles but then brightened when she looked over my shoulder. “No need. He’s coming over.”
I turned around to see Winter walking toward me, his orange beanie pulled low, his smile wide. “Hello again,” he said brightly.
“Hello,” Mom said. “Glad you could make it.”
“Hey, Winter,” Dad said. “How was your first day at the store?”
“Amazing,” he said, grinning now.
I liked his smile so much.
“Couldn’t have asked for a better opening day.” Winter’s eyes met mine. “This is a great turnout, huh?”
Small talk was never my strong suit. Especially when I couldn’t stop noticing his gloved hand rubbing over his protruding tummy. “You look pregnant.”
He laughed and slowly unzipped his coat a little, and a tiny white-and-ginger kitten poked his head out, then another. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh.”
“I have the boys with me,” he said. “Evie babysat them all day for me and she had the baby carrier pouch thing. Turns out they love it, so she insisted I borrow it. I think Merry loves it because he’s warm and cuddly, but Bright loves it because he can see everything and has a better vantage point for mischief. ”
Bright meowed his agreement.
It made people turn around and they smiled too when they saw him.
I gave Bright a little scratch on the head and Merry popped his little face out. “Hello to you too,” I said.
Winter was smiling at me, and it made me all swoopy inside, but I couldn’t look at him. “Yes, the turnout is always good for this.”
He nodded back to the group of guys he’d been standing with. “I met all the crowd tonight. Such a great group of friends,” he said. “They wanted to meet you, but I said maybe another time and maybe not all at once.”
I looked at him then.
He was still smiling. “They understood. There’s a lot of them and it’s kind of overwhelming. Hamish said you care for his dog?”
“Chutney.” I nodded. “They have a coat and matching shoes. And yes, maybe another time and not all at once. I wasn’t expecting you to be with all of them, and I don’t do well with unexpected things.”
“Me either,” he said. “I need fair warning. Especially when it involves a lot of people. I’ve seen just about all the people today that I can handle, and I’m honestly hoping tomorrow is a bit quieter.”
That made me chuckle. “Probably not a good business plan.”
He laughed. “Probably not. But I’ll be very glad to go home where it’s quiet. Except for these two,” he said, and the bulge under his coat shifted. “They’ve certainly entered their gremlin mode.”
“Is your aunt Ro not here with you?” I asked.
He gestured to the crowd. “Oh, yes, she is. Probably off talking to anyone and everyone. She, unlike me, is a social butterfly.”
I was smiling at him. “Unlike me, too.”
Then the mayor took to the microphone and did his spiel of good wishes and happy holidays before announcing it the official Hartbridge holiday season, and after a dramatic pause, the tree lights flickered on.
Bright blues and reds and greens shone against the dark night, and everyone cheered. And then, like it was all part of the show, it began to snow.
People laughed and clapped, some folks began to sing “Silent Night,” and I was very pleased that Winter did not.
He looked at me though, grinning, then he looked up at the sky in wonder. “How is this even real?”
I knew a rhetorical question when I heard one, even though I almost itched with the need to tell him about barometric pressure and precipitation.
I was saved by his aunt Ro. She came up behind him and, putting one arm around his shoulder, gave him a hug. “Isn’t it magical?” she asked.
“It really is,” he replied.
Then she was talking to my mom and Winter was still smiling at me. “I should get these little ones home where it’s nice and warm,” he murmured. “I left my car behind the store. Want to walk with me?”
Yes, I did. But . . . “Oh.” I paused. “My mom and dad—”
“That’s fine,” Dad said, interrupting us. “We can wait.”
“I can drop him home,” Winter suggested. “It’s not far. Well, I assume it’s not far. This is Hartbridge. Nothing is too far.”
Dad faced me. “Deacon, are you okay with that? It’s okay if you’re not. Pretty sure your mom will be chatting a while.”
I appreciated my dad asking because this was not planned, but . . .
I wanted to.
“I’m okay with it,” I said. Then I turned to Winter, his eyes on mine. “You can drive me home?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Okay, have fun,” Dad said, then implanted himself into Mom’s conversation, leaving me and Winter.
He nodded up the hill. “Should we go . . . ?”
The flurries of snow were heavier already. “Yes.”
Winter waved goodbye to his group of friends, and they all waved back. Pretty sure they’d been watching us, if their smiles were anything to go by. I pretended that was fine and fell into step beside Winter as we headed up toward Short Street.
“A good opening day means more inventory,” I said. “Though I’m sure you’re aware.”
He grinned at me. “I am, yes. I’ve already placed another order. It’s incredible. This town is incredible, and the people, of course.” He stopped walking as we crossed the street and waved his gloved hand at Main Street. “Have you ever seen anything so pretty?”
I looked around, wary and concerned, uneasy.
I wanted to grab his arm and urge him to safety but stopped myself.
“It’s not sensible to stop on the street.
This isn’t a pedestrian crossing and there are too many parked vehicles, which further impede visibility.
The dark and snow make it even more dangerous. ”
“Oh, yes,” he said, hurrying to the sidewalk.
“You are quite correct. I shouldn’t stop in the middle of the street.
” I thought he might have been annoyed by my little lecture on street safety, but he just smiled at me as if I’d done him a favor.
Which I had, but probably not as patiently as I could have.
“I was just so distracted by how picturesque Main Street is,” he said, looking again up the street.
“I was told the town goes all out on the Christmas decorations, and I thought I was prepared, but it stopped me in my tracks when I walked down here tonight. The little Christmas trees, the decorations. It’s just . . . it’s just so lovely.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Guess I’m just used to it.”
One of the kittens inside his coat moved and meowed, and he rubbed them gently. “Okay, okay. We’re going.” He began to walk again, slowly though, as though he wanted to prolong his time with me.
That’s what I liked to believe anyway.
He even seemed content to walk in companionable silence, or perhaps he thought that was what I wanted?
It made me nervous; trying to fill the void with small talk was not one of my strengths. “Have Bright and Merry taken to their new diet?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he replied, his smile wide. “Very much. And they’re playing more now. They’re just so cute. Bright is still bigger and more adventurous, but Merry’s not far behind him. I think he’s just quieter by nature.”
“You’re still keeping their names, I take it.”
He laughed. “Yes! They suit them now; like they’re growing into them. It was a great suggestion.”
I don’t know why it made me so happy that he liked the names. “I’ve never named someone else’s pets before,” I said. “It’s a first for me.”
He grinned at me. “Well, I’m honored.”
We turned into the short road where his store was. It was all dark, save lights strung up in a zigzag between the roofs of the buildings.
“Ahh,” Winter said, putting his arms out and doing a spin. Then he put his hands to his face and looked at me. “It’s even prettier now. Look at it!”
It was pretty. The soft glow of the lights overhead, the falling snowflakes. Him.
Mostly him.
Definitely him.
His cuteness, his excitement, made me smile and feel a little embarrassed, but mostly I just felt . . . excited and happy. Maybe a touch nauseous, but that was just the giddiness. It was a good-tummy feeling, not a bad one.
“It is quite remarkable,” I said. If he took my comment to mean the lights were remarkable or that he was remarkable, I wasn’t going to clarify.
I meant both.
Why on earth I felt so brazen tonight, I wasn’t sure. Maybe because he’d told me he liked me, because he wanted to walk with me, spend extra time with me, and drive me home.
These were all positive signs, right?
I was painfully aware my ability to read cues wasn’t great, but I wasn’t stupid.
Far from it.
Intelligence I had in spades. Social skills, not so much.