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“That you’re weird as fuck, and I’m into it?” Noelle asked, against her mouth, confused but not complaining.

There was no response, except a little squeak of lust and Miriam pressing her body closer.

Noelle let herself sink into the kiss, wrapping one hand around Miriam’s hips and bracing the other against the dashboard to give herself leverage. They frantically explored each other’s mouths, tongues and teeth and hands everywhere. When Miriam leaned back to unbutton her shirt, her back hit the horn on the steering wheel. A tiny piece of logic entered Noelle’s lust-addled brain. Beyond the fogged-up windows of the truck, the snow was falling even harder.

“Babe, we are going to get ticketed for public indecency and stuck in this snowstorm overnight, neither of which is a way to spend your birthday. You would miss Mrs. Matthews’s cake.” She pushed Miriam’s curls away from her face, dragging a thumb over her kiss-plumped lips.

“It sounds like the best way I can imagine spending my birthday,” Miriam said, grinning, “but I’ll behave myself.”

She resettled herself in the seat next to Noelle, and Noelle kicked herself for being way too rational for her own good.

“Did you find any inspiration for the tree at the shop?” she asked, to distract herself.

“I think all the inspiration I need is already at Carrigan’s,” Miriam said, cryptically.

The snow kept falling, and they only made it inside by following the Christmas lights to the front of the house.

Cole opened the front door, to her surprise. “I was worried you died in the snow,” Cole whined.

“What are you doing here?” Miriam squeaked, throwing her arms around him.

“It’s yourbirthday, Mimi,” Cole said, picking Miriam up and swinging her around. “Mrs. Matthews baked acake. Also, you need help with the Christmas tree lighting.”

“Well, you can help me go up to the attic to find more materials,” Miriam said. “I think we’re going to be snowed in up here for a couple of days, so I should have plenty of time to finish all the decorations before the carnival.”

“So,” Hannah drawled, peeking into the bags, “do you know what your theme is going to be, yet?”

“I do,” Miriam laughed, snatching the bag back, “and it’s a secret! Cole?”

“To the attic!” They linked arms and skipped up the stairs. At the top, Miriam looked back down at Noelle and winked.

Shit, she was a goner.

Chapter 16

Miriam

Ihave never seen this many Miriam Blum originals in one place,” Cole said, circling the attic.

“I gave them to Cass over the years. She’s the one who pushed me to make a career out of turning mild-mannered antiques into kitschy wonders,” Miriam said, half-lost in memories of the girl who’d made them, the woman who’d collected them, and the one who treasured them now. She ran her hands over a rocking horse with cellophane, sequin-covered dragon wings, and giant, mirrored reptile eyes. “I went through a weird dark phase where I made a lot of creepy animal mash-ups.”

“You have a lot of potential money up here, Mimi.”

Miriam surveyed the attic. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Especially if I parceled the pieces out and sold them over a couple of years.” She touched pieces she hadn’t seen in a decade, parts of her past she’d thought were gone forever. “It could help keep Carrigan’s afloat.”

“But you wouldn’t have all the pieces you gave to Cass that she kept all these years,” he pointed out. She should have known he would see how hard that choice would be, even if it were the rational one.

This attic felt like another message Cass had left her: “I never stopped loving you or supporting you.” If she sold all of it, she would lose another string tying her back to Cass.

“I can always make more art.” Although it wouldn’t be art she’d made for Cass, where she’d pulled a part of her heart out and gifted it to her favorite person, the only way she had known to show her gratitude.

“Can you?” Cole asked skeptically. “You haven’t actually made any art you’re happy with since you got here, I notice.” Damn Cole. He chose the least opportune moments to be perceptive.

“I can,” she said, picking up a miniature Ferris wheel covered in spikes. “I can feel the inklings of that creative itch with this tree project.”

“What do you think the block was?” Cole sat on a trunk that was too short for him, his knees up around his ears. “Was it like a walking and chewing gum thing, where you could either experience deep emotion or make art, but not both at once?”

Miriam wandered around, picking things up and blowing the dust off as she went. “That was part of it. It’s going to take some practice getting my feet underneath me.” She hadn’t realized that her walls being so low made her much more vulnerable when she went into her art zone. “I feel like I have a sunburn I keep forgetting about until I bang it up against something. And until this tree project, nothing was clicking. I couldn’t quite drop into that mental place.” She held up a three-headed cat statue and hmmed at it. “But it’s also, you know, the farm’s been in danger, I’ve been grieving, reconnecting with Hannah…”