Perfect Pairing (It Happened Up North #6)

1. No, Seriously. Where’s My Car?

no, seriously. where's my car?

Marnie

This was not the van she'd signed off on.

Marnie Cole stood in the parking lot of Evergreen Estates Winery, her leather portfolio clutched against her chest like a shield, and stared at the vehicle that was supposed to carry her and her meticulously planned promotional tour across two provinces.

It was a bus.

Not a sleek, branded sprinter van with wrap-around graphics and ergonomic seating.

Not the mobile wine bar on wheels she'd pitched to the board three months ago.

Not the climate-controlled sanctuary where she'd imagined spending her evenings reviewing analytics while soft jazz played through premium speakers.

A bus. An honest-to-God retrofitted school bus, painted an aggressively cheerful teal and covered in decals that read WINE & CHEESE: A LOVE STORY in looping, artisanal font.

Someone had glued fairy lights to the windows.

Marnie had prepared for this tour the way generals prepared for war. She'd packed matching signage binders, two emergency corkscrews, breath mints, backup pantyhose, and a portable steamer for her blazers. She'd printed laminated schedules. She'd color-coded her file folders by region.

She had not prepared for a bus with fairy lights.

"Marnie! You made it!"

Kayla Tran, the PR firm's lead handler, came bounding over in platform sneakers and a jumpsuit that looked like it cost more than Marnie's first car. She had the kind of energy that made Marnie tired just looking at her.

"Kayla." Marnie gestured weakly toward the bus. "What is that?"

"Isn't it amazing?" Kayla clasped her hands together. "The client loved the idea of going retro-authentic. It tested really well with the 25-to-40 demo."

"The client," Marnie said slowly, "was me."

"Well, your boss signed off on it after the focus group. Didn't you get the email?"

Marnie had received approximately 400 emails in the last week. She'd been too busy finalizing tasting notes and confirming venue contracts to notice that someone had swapped her elegant marketing vehicle for a school bus.

She took a breath. Held it. Let it out through her nose.

This was fine. She was a professional. She'd worked trade shows in heels with broken zippers and managed product launches during literal thunderstorms. She could handle a bus.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Who else is here?"

Kayla lit up. "Oh, you're going to love the team! Clara's our social media intern, she's already filming B-roll. Darnell's our videographer, super chill, very artsy. And then there's..."

A voice, low and bemused, came from somewhere near the bus's open door.

"There's cheese in the bathroom."

Marnie turned.

The man standing on the bus steps was tall, broad-shouldered, and holding a wheel of something pale and wax-covered like it was a newborn he'd just rescued from danger.

He had dark, wavy hair that looked like it had last seen a comb sometime in July, and forearms that suggested he did a lot of manual labor.

He was also wearing a T-shirt that said FROMAGE: C'EST LA VIE in faded block letters.

Marnie blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

He stepped down off the bus, careful with the cheese. "Someone put a case of Brie in the bathroom. Next to the toilet."

"Why would anyone..."

"Probably because there's no refrigeration back there and it's the coolest spot." He looked at her fully now, dark eyes amused. "You must be the wine person."

"Marnie Cole. Marketing manager, Evergreen Estates." She stuck out her hand automatically, then realized he couldn't shake it because he was holding a cheese wheel.

He glanced down at his hands. Back up at her. One corner of his mouth twitched.

"Gabriel Bouchard. Fromagerie Bouchard, Eastern Townships." He shifted the cheese into one arm and shook her hand. His grip was warm, callused, and brief. "Sorry. Occupational hazard."

"You're the cheesemaker."

"Guilty."

Marnie had seen his name on the roster. She'd skimmed his bio, fourth-generation cheesemaker, artisanal producer, some kind of viral video incident, but she hadn't expected... this.

Actually, she had skimmed it pretty quickly.

Something about a political rally? She had a vague memory of a thumbnail: a confused-looking man in flannel holding cheese while a politician gestured enthusiastically behind him.

The headline had read "Rural Cheesemaker Accidentally Delivers Keynote at Agricultural Summit.

" She'd mostly noted that his social media numbers were decent and moved on to the next file.

That had seemed like the smart, professional thing to do.

Now, looking at Gabriel Bouchard in person, all solid presence and gentle amusement, she was starting to think she should have read the whole thing.

She also hadn't expected to be sharing a bus with him for a week.

"So," she said brightly, "you'll be riding with us for the week?"

"That's the plan." He tilted his head slightly, studying her. "Unless you've got a problem with cheese in close quarters."

"No. No, I'm very pro-cheese."

"Good to know."

There was a beat of silence. Marnie became acutely aware that she was still holding her portfolio like a shield and that Gabriel Bouchard was still looking at her, trying to figure out whether she would be fun or exhausting.

"Great," she said. "Well. I should probably..."

"Marnie!" Kayla reappeared, trailed by a twenty-something with purple hair and a phone permanently attached to her hand. "This is Clara, our content queen. Clara, this is Marnie."

Clara didn't look up. "Hey. Do you have a signature pose? For the grid?"

"A... what?"

"Like, a thing you do. For photos." Clara finally glanced at her. "You know, arms crossed, hands on hips, the lean-against-a-wall-with-a-wineglass thing?"

Marnie did not have a signature pose. She had a resting face that her ex-boyfriend, Derek, once described as "intensely professional."

"I'll work on it," Marnie said.

"Cool. Can you hold this?" Clara shoved a ring light into her hands and darted toward the bus, already filming.

Gabriel was still standing there, cheese in hand, watching the chaos unfold with the calm of a man who had seen worse.

"First time on a promotional tour?" he asked.

"First time on a bus," Marnie admitted.

"You get used to it."

"Have you done this before?"

"No. But I grew up in a house with six people and one bathroom." He shrugged. "How hard can it be?"

Marnie looked at the bus. At the fairy lights. At Clara, who was now filming the interior of the bathroom.

"I'm going to regret this," she muttered.

Gabriel's smile was small, but it reached his eyes. "Probably."

* * *

An hour later, Marnie had toured the bus, met Darnell (a man of few words and excellent cheekbones who communicated primarily through nods), and discovered that her bunk was directly across from Gabriel's.

The bunks were stacked three high on each side of the narrow corridor, with curtains for privacy. Hers was middle left. His was middle right.

Which meant that every time she opened her curtain, she'd be looking directly at his.

Marnie stood in the narrow hallway and did the mental math. Morning bedhead. Potential snoring. Accidental eye contact at 2 AM when one of them needed the bathroom. The possibility of their curtains getting tangled when someone pulled too hard.

She tried to imagine a week of this, and her brain offered up a montage of increasingly horrifying scenarios.

"Hey, Kayla?" she called toward the front of the bus. "Is there any chance I could switch bunks with someone?"

Kayla popped her head around the corner. "Oh, the only other bunk left is over the composting toilet. It gets pretty fragrant at night. You want that one instead?"

Marnie looked at her assigned bunk. Back at Kayla.

"I'm good here."

"Thought so!"

"Cozy," Gabriel said from behind her, tossing his duffel onto his bunk.

Marnie stared at the space. It was roughly the size of a coffin. A well-lit, moderately comfortable coffin, but still.

"This is fine," she said.

"You keep saying that."

"Because it is."

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "You don't seem fine."

"I'm fine." She smoothed her hair, which didn't need smoothing. "I'm just... adjusting."

"To the bus? Or to me?"

Marnie's brain short-circuited for half a second. "What?"

"You've been looking at me like I'm a health code violation since we met."

"I have not."

"You absolutely have."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "I don't know you. That's all."

"Fair." He straightened, nodding. "For the record, I don't bite. The cheese might, depending on the age, but I'm harmless."

Before she could respond, Kayla's voice rang out from the front of the bus.

"Okay, people! We're wheels-up in five! Everyone buckled?"

Marnie glanced at Gabriel. He raised an eyebrow.

"You ready for this?" he asked.

No, she thought. Absolutely not.

"Let's go," she said.

* * *

The bus lurched out of the parking lot with all the grace of a shopping cart with a broken wheel, and Marnie gripped the edge of her seat as Kayla narrated their route from the front.

The interior of the bus was somehow both cramped and chaotic.

The seats had been reupholstered in what appeared to be vintage floral fabric.

There was a small kitchenette wedged behind the driver's seat: a one-burner stove, a mini fridge that hummed ominously, and a cutting board labeled, in Sharpie, CHEESE ONLY.

Marnie tried to get cell reception. One bar. Then none. Then one bar again.

She resisted the urge to check her email.

"So, first stop is Prince Edward County, gorgeous boutique wineries, super Instagrammable. We'll do a tasting event tomorrow afternoon, then hit Ottawa on Friday for the ByWard Market pop-up. After that, we're headed into Quebec."

Gabriel, seated across the aisle from Marnie, was reading something on his phone. He looked up briefly.

"Charlevoix?"

"Yep! And then we finish in Tadoussac for the grand finale livestream."

"Livestream," Marnie repeated. "We're doing a livestream?"

Kayla turned in her seat, grinning. "Didn't you see the campaign deck? It's going to be huge. Wine and cheese pairings in real time, viewer call-ins, the whole thing."

Marnie had not seen that part of the campaign deck.

She made a mental note to murder someone later. Politely.

"Sounds great," she said.

Gabriel caught her eye. He was smiling again, just barely.

"You really don't like surprises, do you?" he asked.

"I like surprises that I've planned for," Marnie said.

"That's not a surprise. That's a scheduled event."

"Exactly."

He laughed, actually laughed, low and genuine, and Marnie felt something small and annoying flicker in her chest.

Oh no, she thought. Do not find him charming. Do not.

Gabriel reached into his bag and pulled out a small wooden case. He flipped it open to reveal a set of cheese knives, each one nestled in velvet like tiny swords.

Marnie stared. "You travel with those?"

"Always." He selected one and held it up to the light, checking the edge. "You never know when you'll need a good knife."

"For what, exactly?"

"Cheese emergencies."

"That's not a thing."

"It absolutely is." He tucked the knife back into its case with the care of a surgeon. "Imagine you're at a party, and someone brings out a wheel of aged Comté with a butter knife. You're going to stand there and let that happen?"

"I..." Marnie realized she had no response to that. "You're very intense about cheese."

"You're very intense about everything," he said mildly. "We all have our passions."

From the front of the bus, Clara's voice rang out. "Hey, lovebirds! Smile!"

Marnie's head snapped up just in time to see Clara aiming her phone at them.

"We're not..." Marnie started.

The camera clicked.

"Cute," Clara said, already typing. "This is going to kill on TikTok."

Gabriel looked at Marnie. She looked at Gabriel.

"I'm going to need wine," Marnie muttered.

"Good thing you brought some," he said.

And as the bus rumbled toward Prince Edward County, Marnie Cole realized she was going to be spending the next week trapped in close quarters with a man who smelled like woodsmoke and good decisions, traveled with a case of cheese knives, and apparently found her control issues entertaining.

She had absolutely no plan for that.

Cool, cool, cool.

Not panicking at all.