12. Madison #2
I gave him a wry grin. “Fine, then you’re going to help.” I took his hand and tugged him over to the table. “The first thing we need to do is create some dimension. Alistair, can you grab those wooden crates under the table?”
He handed me one. I flipped it over, using it to create height on the table, setting one of the ring displays on top of it. Alistair copied me on the other end of the table.
“People can’t buy what they don’t notice,” I said to Leah. Next, I grouped the jewelry not by type, but by tone. Warm tones together. Cool silvers in another group. I leaned a flat display of rings against the crate so they could be seen from the street.
I took a step back, inspecting my work.
“That looks so much better!” Leah said, grinning. “Thank you.”
I nodded. “I’m not done yet.” I walked around the back of the table, waving to her to follow me. Alistair leaned against one of the tent posts, watching. There was an intrigued smile on his face, and it left me a little warm under the collar.
A group of giggling girls passed with cups of hot chocolate and small gift bags. They were exactly the kind of customers that should be interested in Leah’s display.
“Hey, quick question,” I called to them, summoning my most charming smile. “Do you guys usually go for gold or silver?”
They glanced at each other, wondering who would speak first. One of the girls shoved at her friend. She stepped forward. “Uh, silver?”
I nodded. That was the answer I’d hoped for. “Then you totally need to check out these rings.”
The girls wandered closer at my invitation.
“Aw, that one’s so cute,” one of them said. She plucked it out of the case and tried it on.
“That looks lush,” her friend said.
Leah beamed next to me.
I leaned forward like I was sharing secret information. “That actually used to be a spoon.”
“Wait, really?” the girl said.
“Yeah,” I said with a grin. “Vintage silver. And definitely a one-of-a-kind piece.”
Another girl reached out for a ring. “That’s cool.” She tried it on. “I like the designs on this one.”
“Ooh,” I gushed. “That looks great on you. You could totally double it up with this one here.”
The rest of the group crowded in, picking things up, trying them on, comparing. And now that there was a crowd, more people on the street noticed, drawn in but the girls’ squeals of delight.
I turned to Leah. “I think my work here is done.”
She wrapped me in a hug, squeezing hard. “You’re the best, honestly.”
I left her stall with my own silver ring in a tiny brown paper bag.
“That was incredible,” Alistair said, sounding impressed as we wandered down the street. “I’ve never seen anyone build rapport so quickly, and I’ve been pitched by the best.”
I lifted my shoulder, flushing at his words. “I couldn’t bear the look on her face as people kept walking past. I just knew if I got a few people looking at the display, more would come.”
“I’m just amazed that you sold those girls on spoons.”
“Hey, everyone likes a one-of-a-kind piece. And it’s kind of cool knowing you’re wearing a little piece of history instead of some mass-produced piece of dreck churned out from a factory, you know?”
“What about that stall over there?” Alistair asked. “See any pieces you fancy?”
I turned to find a dazzling display of Celtic knotwork, my eyes widening as I inspected every piece. The wire work was incredible. I knew how tedious and time-consuming some of these items had been to create.
It was truly a labor of love.
I brushed my hand over a beautifully beaded chain with a silver thistle pendant I immediately adored. I’d grown fond of the purple flowers during my road tripping—of course, that had been before winter set in.
“This one,” I said.
“May I?” Alistair asked the woman standing behind the display, gesturing to the thistle necklace. She nodded for him to go ahead. He picked it up, deftly undid the clasp, and held it out to me. “Turn around.”
I did, pulling my hair out of the way so he could clip the necklace at the back of my neck. I felt goosebumps in the wake of his fingertips and fought off a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.
I twisted around, touching the chain. It was longer than a lot of my current pieces, and I liked that. “What do you think?”
“Silver is your color,” the woman said.
Alistair nodded in agreement. “It goes perfectly with your eyes.”
Perfectly. The silence between us thickened the longer he looked at me, charged with an emotion I wasn’t sure how to name.
What if I was reading things wrong? That was what I always did—I’d jump in too fast and assume the other person was right by my side…
all the way until I crashed down to reality all alone.
But despite the little voice in the back of my head telling me to be wary, heat stirred in my chest, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
I couldn’t be the one to break the spell.
“What about a nice pair of earrings to match?” the woman suggested. “I saw you admiring the Celtic knots. I’ve got a small pair of earrings with that same design.”
Alistair finally glanced away, and I turned to see the earrings she was pointing out. “Oh, those are gorgeous,” I said. They were silver and dangly.
“The interwoven design symbolizes eternity and connection.”
“A connection? Well, that feels just right,” Alistair said.
He took the earrings, holding them up to the side of my face.
He reached out with his other hand, tucking my hair behind my ear to see how they looked.
There was no hiding the blush this time.
I knew he could see the pink spreading across both cheekbones and probably right over the bridge of my nose.
He was so close, the space between us crackling with such heat, I couldn’t even blame it on the cold.
“You did say you were looking for connection, didn’t you? ”
I nodded.
“Well,” he said, the minty warmth of his breath ghosting across my face. “Maybe these will bring you some good luck in that department.” He glanced at the vendor, and I could finally breathe again. “We’ll take both of these, please.”
While she carefully folded the pieces into tissue paper, I watched the way the nearby vendors chatted, laughing and smiling like old friends.
Perhaps they were old friends. Everyone was local, if not from Braeburn itself then from one of the nearby towns.
The sense of community was strong, and I was glad Alistair was supporting a local business.
“You know,” I said, “maybe you should stop investing in random projects on the other side of the world and invest more in businesses like these.”
His lips twisted in amusement. “How do you know my businesses are on the other side of the world?”
“Pretty sure you were up yapping with someone from Singapore the other night,” I said.
The vendor handed me a brown paper bag stamped with her business name—Highland Silver Co.
I thanked her and followed Alistair down the road.
“Seriously, though. This stuff is so special. It needs support more than whatever the latest time-wasting app is.”
Alistair shrugged off the suggestion. “Maybe someday I’ll look at more grassroots investing, but for now, supporting local vendors isn’t going to make the splash I need.”
“It would make a splash for this community,” I pointed out.
“True. But no one in London cares much about what goes on in Braeburn.”
“True,” I admitted. It didn’t seem healthy to worry so much about what London thought, especially after the way he’d been treated there, but all the same, I understood that was exactly why it was important to him.
He had something to prove, and after everything the guy had experienced, he deserved to stick it to them all.
But if Braeburn was where he was going to settle, where Kenna was going to grow up, wasn’t that worth investing in too?