“You’re not interrupting.” She straightened from her seat, coming to her feet. “I’ve been hunched over the machine for hours. I’ll wind up with a kinked neck if I don’t take time to look up now and then.”
Standing put her in sudden, close proximity with her guest considering the cramped space and low ceiling.
“You want to go for a walk? Get some fresh air?” He stared down at her from his spot less than a foot away.
She glanced over to the windows looking down on Main Street. The sidewalks were full of tourists, although—she could see now, thanks to Gavin—not as many as in the days when her father was a driving force in the town.
Two days ago, she wouldn’t have wanted to face the snubs. But after making the effort to smooth things over with many of the people she’d been closest with last night, she found she didn’t feel like hiding out in the house today. Also, Gavin Blake’s personal magnetism was way too high when she stood so close to him in this private spot.
“Definitely.” She would have lunged for the stairs if he hadn’t been standing in her path, stirring butterflies she tried hard to ignore. “That would be nice.”
Ten minutes later, they walked away from the town square, toward the Tinsel Trolley station. Rachel hugged her white parka tighter even though it hadn’t been that cold this week. The temperature hovered right around freezing, which wasn’t bad for a city in the mountains that routinely showed up on the weather news as the coldest spot in the nation.
They bought hot cocoa at the kiosk near the skating pond—a man-made addition to the town with a booth to rent ice skates and a canopy of lights strung between the trees overhead. The place was full of teens and young families. The bright lights made for good photo opportunities since the sun set so early this time of year. Holiday music—ever present around here—was piped in over hidden speakers. The choices were more modern though: pop singers interpreting the classics or crooning newer tunes.
Sipping her steaming hot chocolate carefully, Rachel followed Gavin’s progress to the far end of the skating rink where an empty wooden bench sat between two huge oak trees.
“I wanted to apologize for last night.” He waited for her to take a seat and then settled beside her on the bench. His knee brushed hers. “I know it’s not my place to tell you where to live or what to do.”
He laid an arm on the bench behind her, making himself more comfortable in a way that made her entirely too aware of him.
“I know you meant well.” They definitely hadn’t said much of anything on the short ride home. She’d been battling her frustration about Luke’s disappearing act. “This place gets under my skin—even more than I expected it when I came back.”
Although tonight, beside Gavin under the white lights, she didn’t feel quite so much opposition to her hometown. Sipping hot cocoa beside a charming, handsome man bearing an apology was definitely kind of nice.
“So what were you working on at the sewing machine?” he asked, resting one boot on his knee in a way that made his legs sprawl a little more. “Are you filling an order for a custom design through your store?”
She felt flattered he remembered. “No. I’m making some adjustments to the bridesmaid dresses for Kiersten’s wedding.”
He nodded, waving at a couple of skaters who called out to him as they passed. “That must be what was in the garment bag we brought home from the party.”
“Yes. We did some fittings upstairs last night while I waited for you to work your charm on our hosts.” She breathed in the crisp night air, the scent of pine not bothering her as much outdoors.
Fragrant roasted chestnuts filled the air too, a specialty of the kiosk where they’d bought the hot chocolate.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain so well.” Frowning, he leaned back to toss his empty cup in a bin behind them. “I’m especially disappointed in Luke, who could have made a lot of the ill will go away if he’d just greeted you normally.”
“I know you and Kiersten think he’s not holding a grudge, but from my perspective, it doesn’t seem like he wants anything to do with me.” That hurt because she’d been very forthright with Luke when they’d broken up. She’d only kept quiet about it because he’d asked her to. “I’m not sure how to approach him at this point.”
Distracted by her own thoughts and memories, it took her a moment to realize Gavin looked uncomfortable. He opened his mouth and then clamped it shut again, shifting positions beside her.
“What?” Straightening, she set her empty cup on the ground under the bench and pivoted so she faced him. “Do you know why he’s acting that way?”
Gavin huffed out a sigh. “He’s got some notion in his head that your dad told you he was leaving ahead of time. And that even though you didn’t know he was taking the money, you still kept quiet to give him time to get away.”
She remembered a tense, angry confrontation with Luke two days after he’d caught her kissing Gavin. He’d come over to her house full of indignation. Frustration. Snippets of those old accusations came back to her now. “He thinks that because I didn’t cry wolf and go running to find my dad that day, somehow that means I was complicit in his embezzlement? How could he claim to have known me well enough to propose and have thought that of me? He clearly didn’t know me at all.”
“He just thinks you might have known your dad was leaving.” Gavin made an awkward shrug, like he didn’t believe it…but sort of wondered about it.
Or was she just being prickly again?
Forcing herself not to react with the same resentment she always used to feel about that day, she remembered how hard Gavin had fought for her to be accepted around here. He’d put his own reputation on the line for her last night, and he had to live among these people. In light of that, she thought he deserved an explanation.
Bridging the space between them, she rested a hand on his knee to draw his attention.
“I swear to you, I had no idea he was going.” She tried not to think about how deeply that cut her. Under all the layers of tangled emotions from eight years ago, that underlying hurt resonated the most. “My father was a rock in my life every moment up until that day. I didn’t need to go running to him because in my heart, I knew my family—and Dad, especially—would back me no matter what.”
Gavin’s hand covered hers, a warm weight that comforted her. Anchored her from getting too lost in those emotions.
“You must have been devastated,” he said simply.
“It was awful.” She could remember returning to the house that night. Finding her mother crawling the walls, wondering why he wasn’t answering her calls. Rachel’s worries had flipped from her own romantic troubles to far bigger concerns. And maybe she felt safe sharing her real feelings with Gavin because he was probably the only person in town who didn’t see her father as a cartoon villain, but a multi-dimensional man. “I didn’t know it until that night, but he’d been on medicines to help him with depression, insomnia, impulse control…a lot of things.”