Chapter Five
RACHEL
“ W hy are we walking so fast?” Cassie asks, more than a little out of breath as she rushes to keep up with me.
I feel bad–mostly–considering she’s nearly slipped at least twice trying to catch up with me, but I can’t help it. I need to get out of the town square and away from Levi as quickly as possible.
“Did I interrupt a moment? I thought you might have needed saving,” Cassie says as she catches up with me, her cheeks pink from her efforts.
“There was no ‘ moment .’” I retort a little too quickly.
There was…something. The version of Levi I just met with wasn’t like the one I’ve been trying to forget. He seemed so sincere in wanting to know why I’ve been trying to avoid him, even though I am still shocked he has no idea why I would be feeling this way. I thought it was pretty clear how we left things at the wedding.
“Sure looked like a moment,” Cassie huffed.
“We just ran into each other while getting our clues, that’s all.”
“Hmm,” she says, looking down the street.
Cassie yelled my name, distracting me from almost telling Levi I wanted to forgive him and even try to talk through what happened at the wedding.
Almost.
Thank goodness Cassie interrupted us. Even if it means that I will have to tell her everything.
I stop and turn to her, which almost makes her crash into me.
“Woah! Sorry. You really walk fast. It must be a city thing. Holly did that when she first moved here, too.” She places her hands on her hips and takes a couple of deep breaths. “I thought I was in good shape, but I guess it’s not ‘city’ good shape. Oh, man.”
“Do you need a minute?” I ask, chuckling.
“No. Back to Levi. What happened with your ‘non-moment’ there? And what happened between the two of you at the wedding, anyway? I know Levi. He promises he didn’t do anything too bad, and I want to believe him. Even if that was a horrible pickup line he used on you.”
“Which one?” I ask, curious as to which one he admitted to. He’d had some really over-the-top ones that caught my attention and some that made me laugh just by how bad they were, not that I would have admitted that to him. It added to his charm.
“There was more than one?” she exclaims, her eyes widening. “He only told us about the Christmas tree.”
I snicker. “That wasn’t even the worst one.”
“No, stop!” Cassie says, playfully hitting my arm with her hand. “You have to tell me more now. Come on.”
“Hmm,” I smile, thinking back at some of the lines he had said. I think he started getting more and more ridiculous because of the way I would laugh and then playfully brush him off. It’s what made me think he was charming and that we possibly had a connection. One that I’ve never felt before. “ I think one of the best was ‘Are you made of tinsel? Because you make everything sparkle.’”
“No, he didn’t,” Cassie said, laughing.
“I think my favourite was ‘Is it just the winter air, or did you take my breath away?’”
Cassie bends over, laughing even harder now, holding her stomach in her crossed arms as she gasps for breath. “No…oh my…he didn’t.”
“Oh, I promise you, he did.” I join her in her laughter, both from seeing her reaction and reliving that night.
Despite my initial reaction to his absurd line, I’ve thought fondly of it over the past year. He really did make me laugh that night in a way no one has ever made me do before–or since.
Once we sobered enough to stand up and wipe the tears from our eyes, Cassie tilted her head and looked at me with a hint of sadness in her eyes. “So what happened?”
I let out a deep sigh. “To be honest, I don’t know. I thought we were having a great time and getting along. We danced all night. He even gave me his number.”
“But…?”
“But when it came to the end of the night, and we found ourselves dancing underneath the mistletoe–nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that we looked up and saw the mistletoe, but he didn’t do anything. He laughed and joked about how funny it would be if they threw mistletoe instead of Holly’s bouquet, and then that’s it. Once the song was over, he went to get a drink and left me standing on the dance floor alone.”
I didn’t expect a grand gesture or for him to profess his love to me after only meeting me a few hours before, but I had expected something . The mistletoe had been right there. It would have been so easy for him to lean down and kiss me at that moment, letting me know that my feelings for him were being returned. Instead, he made a joke and left me alone .
He didn’t owe me the kiss. He still doesn’t owe me anything. If anything, it’s only that my feelings–and pride–were hurt, and he didn’t feel the same, even if it was after only knowing him for one night. Eventually, that hurt turned into anger, and when I saw him again in the cafe yesterday, it just came bursting out.
“Hmm…” Cassie says, looking over my shoulder as if in a daze.
“You seem to be full of a lot of ‘ hmmm’s’ today.” I retort, her gaze falling back on me.
“Hmm,” she says one more time. This time, the corner of her mouth ticks up in a slight smile. “What if your Love Search match is Levi?”
“You can’t be serious,” I say, rolling my eyes as I begin walking down the street again.
“I am! What if it’s all part of God’s plan? You were brought back here and signed up for the Search. He’s signed up last minute by his sister…”
“How do you know all this?” I ask as she catches up to me.
“My cafe is gossip central, only second to the town hall meetings.”
Figures.
“Shouldn’t you be more focused on your match?” I ask, picking up the pace.
“I don’t want to talk about that. We’re talking about you and Levi.”
“My match is not Levi,” I huff, rolling my eyes. “Not that it matters anyway. I don’t even live in Candy Cane Creek.”
As much as I’m not interested in truly discovering who my random match is–even if it’s Levi—I convince myself that I’m doing it for my readers and that they’ll enjoy the thrill of the hunt.
But what if it is Levi?
What if I get to the barn tonight and find out that my whole day has been spent running around town for clues that lead me to him? I’m supposed to learn about him through the clues, but I don’t see how it would be about Levi. I’ve been sent to the tree—which doesn’t tell me anything about him—and now I’m going to the library. As intelligent as I think Levi is, he doesn’t strike me as a reader, so I’m sure I’m getting myself worked up for nothing. It’s not as if this Search means anything, anyway. In a couple of days' time, I’ll be back home in Vancouver, and this will be nothing more than a little social experiment that will help me with my blog.
“Why are you coming with me on my hunt anyway? Shouldn’t you be following your own search? I know you got your candygram this morning.”
“How do you know about that?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest as she walks.
“Small town, remember?” I chuckle. “The lobby of the Inn was buzzing once the grams started being delivered. Everyone was especially excited when Jacob got his.”
“Jacob got one? Did you see it? Where did it lead him? What did it say?” Her voice keeps getting higher and higher with every question.
“What happened to you not caring about him?” I chuckle.
She stops in her tracks, dropping her hands. “I don’t.” I tilt my head and narrow my eyes at her. “What? I really don’t.”
“Hmm…” I say back to her, mimicking her response from earlier.
Something across the street catches her eye, making her stop.
“Are you okay?” I ask, looking over my shoulder, trying to find what she’s looking at. People are milling about, stopping to look in shop windows or chatting as they stroll along the sidewalk.
“Huh? Yeah. I, uh…I think I’m going to go after my Search match after all. I’ll see you later.” She crosses the street and sl ips inside the diner, which is currently aptly named ‘Taco ‘Bout Love.’
Odd.
Squinting through the late-morning sun, I think I see Cassie talking to someone who looks a lot like Jacob through the window, but I can’t be sure from where I’m standing. Although, with how hard she’s been arguing how much she doesn’t have feelings for him, I shouldn’t be surprised.
Shaking my head, I pull out my own card and open it, sighing at the words looking back up at me.
Love isn’t something you can see,
Blink too fast, and it might flee.
But if you gaze into the great expanse,
You’ll find that your match likes adventure while you like romance.
Shaking my head, I look up at the building holding my next clue, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
I can’t help but smile as I run my fingers along the spines of the books as I stroll down the aisle. The names on the shelves remind me of all the places I’ve visited in books. From the midwestern ranches to the big cities, these romance novels were gateways to my love of travel. It’s where I got the idea to start my blog. I wanted to show people that there are places like the ones in the books. If they wanted, they could pack a suitcase and find the love they were searching for, either in a partner or a city or town they have always dreamed of living in.
There’s something about a good book that feels like a warm hug right from the author. It’s as if they wrote it just to make me warm and happy as they share the world within their mind with me. Back then, I would also use it to dream of falling in love. I thought one day my life would be filled with happy meet cutes and romantic stories that one day I would be able to tell my kids and grandkids about.
Instead, all I have is a life of meaningless dates with men who had no desire to get married or people who were so opposite that no amount of ‘opposites attract’ could have salvaged it.
But then there was Levi. That night, I envisioned being able to tell our future kids about how we met at my best friend’s wedding, how he tried to impress me with the corniest pick-up lines, and how I playfully pushed him away, making him work harder and harder to make me laugh. I thought telling them about our first kiss under the mistletoe on Christmas Day would be romantic.
Is it too much to expect on the first night of meeting someone? Absolutely, but if there’s one thing these books and all the cheesy romance movies have taught me, it is that love doesn’t have boundaries. It doesn’t have expectations or fit into a box. When you meet the right person, all that fades away, and everything makes sense.
Until I realized just how wrong I was about Levi.
“Are you following me?”
Speaking of…
His voice chimes from the other side of the bookshelf. I can only see his smirk through a gap in the books.
But what a smirk.
“No. Maybe you’re following me,” I joke back.
Even though being hidden behind the bookshelf means I can’t see his green eyes–that I most certainly have not been thinking about for the last day–it helps me focus on the situation. I don’t need to be flustered by how attractive he is. Or how his eyes light up when he knows he’s telling a funny joke. Or how they look at me like maybe–just maybe–he might feel the same connection I was feeling.
After I got over the initial shock of seeing him in the cafe yesterday, all that came flooding back, along with the memories of how I felt toward him the night of the wedding. It also helps me let my guard down. Just a little, even though I’m not sure I want to. Yet another reason why I’m so confused. If he was going to leave me stranded on the dance floor at the wedding, why does he seem to be going out of his way to talk to me now?
“Nah, I’d like to think I would be much stealthier if I followed you. I certainly wouldn’t be watching you from the other side of the bookshelf.” He begins walking slowly down the aisle. I can’t see him anymore, but I can hear his smile in his voice.
I slowly take a step in the same direction he did. “Is that what you’re doing? Watching me?” I can’t help but smile at the thought of being under his watch.
“No. Not intentionally, anyway. I guess this meeting is more like a happy accident.”
“‘ Happy ’ is still to be seen,” I say quietly, mostly joking.
He stops walking. “Rachel, I hope you know that I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you so upset with me. I promise you it wasn’t intentional.”
Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.
“Don’t worry about it.” I rush my acceptance of his apology. It irks me a little that he doesn’t know what he did, which bothers me, but now I realize that maybe I saw the situation differently. Instead of being scorned and left alone, did he get detained talking to someone? Did he get held up grabbing a drink? Maybe ran to the bathroom, and there was a line?
Maybe my perception of time was so off that I thought he was gone longer than he really was .
No, that can’t be possible. Surely I haven’t spent over a year mad at someone that didn’t deserve it.
“I can hear you thinking from the other side of this bookshelf.”
I don’t know what it is about not being able to see him entirely, which makes it easier to talk to him, but I feel like this is the time to clear the air. Maybe what I really need is just to get all my feelings out, and then I can move on. Maybe with my Love Search match or with someone else, but either way, I can get his heavy feeling off my chest.
“I was thinking about the night of the wedding.”
I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction. Through the gaps in the books, I can see his body stiffen.
“And?”
“And I’m wondering what happened,” I whisper.
He sucks in a breath. “I wonder that, too.”
“What do you mean?” My hands involuntarily grip on to the shelf in front of me. Whether from support or it being the closest thing to touching him, I’m not sure.
“You left without a trace, Rachel. I thought we had a connection, and then you just–vanish.”
“ I vanished?” I exclaim, much too loudly for what is acceptable in a library. “You were the one that vanished, Levi. I waited for you to come back. I waited so long I felt like a fool standing there, waiting, under the mistletoe all by myself.”
“The mistletoe? What?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks. I start to claw at the neckline of my shirt, already feeling the redness on my chest. “We were having an amazing night; we were dancing under the mistletoe, and you just left.”
“Hold on.” His body disappears from my view between the books, and I hear him stomping away. The next thing I know, he’s rounding the corner into my aisle, a look of determination on his face.
He doesn’t say anything. His eyes are locked on mine as if his laser-focused gaze is a radar locked onto its target.
And I’m the target.
“Levi, I…” I’m not sure what I was thinking to say, but whatever it was is gone now as he’s standing in front of me.
I haven’t been this close to him since that night. The smell of his cologne–a mix of campfire and spice–stirs up more memories of us dancing, the way he would make me laugh, and the way my heart fluttered just to be around him.
And there it is. My heart is fluttering again.
“Why did you say that?” His voice is low and deep. Not like the charming Levi, or the flirty Levi. This is a different side of him, and I don’t know how to handle it.
“Why did I say what?” I breathe out. I find it hard to think with him this close to me, smelling like he just came out of the woods from camping.
“Why did you say that I left you? I wasn’t the one that did the leaving that night.”
“Wait, what?” I snap out of the rustic lumberjack haze he had me under and take a step back. “I certainly wasn’t the one that did the leaving if that’s what you’re implying. At least not until I realized I had been alone standing on the dance floor like a lost puppy.”
“A lost…” He sighs loudly as he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose with his hand. “I didn’t leave you anywhere. Not for long, anyway. I went to get drinks just like I said, but when I came back, you were gone.”
“I waited…at the drink table…for a long time,” he says, placing his hand on his hips and leaning into me.
I open my mouth to answer, but then it hits me, maybe I was the one that read too much into that. Maybe what I thought felt like a long time really wasn’t. “Well…there was still the mistletoe. ”
“Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says with a huff, lowering his hand from his face.
“We danced under the mistletoe…”
He tilts his head at me, confused, encouraging me to continue.
“You joked about Holly throwing mistletoe instead of her bouquet…”
He shakes his head.
“You’re really going to make me spell this out for you, aren’t I?”
“Yes, because I literally have no idea what you’re talking about or how this relates to you being mad at me.”
And just like that, I think that maybe I did get it wrong. I may have blown my chance at getting to know this great guy over the past year.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m the problem.