Chapter Nine
We collect our things from the coat check and step outside into the warm evening air.
“It’s a nice evening. We could walk back and leave the truck here overnight,” I suggest, looking up at the starry sky.
“Okay.”
We start walking. The road is quiet, with just the occasional car passing, and the sound of the lake somewhere through the trees.
My heels are not exactly built for a country road, which I should have thought about before suggesting this.
I manage about four minutes before I wobble on a patch of uneven gravel.
Broven’s hand catches my elbow before I’ve even registered losing my balance. Then, without a word, he turns his back to me and crouches. “Get on.”
“What?”
“Get on, Daisy.”
I do what he says, because how could I resist a piggyback ride from a gorgeous orc?
“So, that was Greg,” I say after a while.
“Yes.”
“Was he everything you expected?”
He shakes his head. “Less than I expected.”
I laugh. “He’s not exactly intimidating, is he.”
“No.”
“He thinks he is though. That’s the thing about Greg. He has this way of making you feel like his opinion is the only one that counts. Anyway. That’s enough about Greg. I’ve given him enough of my brain space tonight.”
“Smart.”
“Tell me something about you instead.”
He glances at me over his shoulder. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything.”
“I grew up with Meldrick and my parents. Left at eighteen for work. Spent about ten years moving around to different sites and different towns. I went wherever the work was.”
“That sounds lonely,” I say.
He shrugs. “It was fine. I liked the work.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“You said you came to Cedar Lake for the work and stayed on. Meldrick’s here, so that’s part of it, but is that all?”
“You’re perceptive.”
“I serve ice cream for a living. When you talk to people all day, you learn to read them.”
He’s quiet for a moment. The road curves gently and the Birchwood Inn comes into view ahead.
“I walked past your shop during one of my lunch breaks and saw you through the window. You were dancing and using a waffle cone as a microphone. Cedar Lake felt different after that. It felt like home in a way no town ever had before.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure I could, even if I wanted to. The waffle cone thing is something embarrassing that I do when the shop is empty and I think no one can see me, but it’s not why I’ve gone quiet.
It’s the rest of it.
Ten years of him moving from town to town, going wherever the work was, and then he walked past my shop, saw me, and stayed.
We reach the inn. The front door is unlocked, but the small lobby’s empty. Somewhere in the back, someone’s watching a television show.
At the suite door, Broven slides the key card in the slot and pushes it open. The room is exactly as we left it with the flower petals slightly squashed from where I sat my purse on the bed earlier and the swan towels listing to one side.
“Margaret was right, you know. About the way you look at me. You’re very convincing,” I say, trying to keep my voice light and breezy.
“Daisy.”
“I know, I know. It’s the fake dating arrangement. You’re just pretending and you’re great at it.”
“It’s not the arrangement.”
He looks at me the way he looked at me the very first time, across the counter of Daisy’s Scoop Shack, and my heart does a funny tumble.
“What is it then?” I ask.
“Something I’ve been certain about since the moment I walked into your shop,” he says.
I look at him for a long moment before reaching up and placing my hand on his chest. I can tell his heart is beating very fast.
I pull him toward me by his shirt and kiss him.