Page 5 of A Heart of Winter (Fairy Tale Retellings #4)

Milk and Bread

A blizzard.

I hadn’t even had a chance to call Kai yet—it had been less than a day since we’d met, and the news was predicting a blizzard. Since it was all over the weather channel, it probably wasn’t my fault.

At least, I tried to keep telling myself that.

The snow I caused in the past had always been called “freak storms,” and people had always complained about how they’d come on with no warning. They hadn’t been something about cold fronts and warm fronts and pressure systems or . . . whatever.

I was a witch, not a meteorologist.

On the other hand, puberty had ended for me before modern meteorology had existed. Maybe I did cause all that atmospheric disturbance, and I’d just never known.

It had taken hours for the kettle to thaw, and when I’d apologetically told Kai that the kettle was frozen with water inside—well, he’d been sweet.

He’d insisted on coming in and getting a fire restarted in the stove, and then asked if I knew how to take care of it and keep the house heated.

When I’d said yes, he hadn’t insisted on explaining to me, but he’d clearly still been worried about my wellbeing.

I’d half expected him to show back up after his meeting the previous night, but that would have been a lot.

Maybe.

Infatuation, I had one.

But his smile. And his eyes, and his . . . everything. The man couldn’t have been more gorgeous if he’d tried.

I didn’t have time to worry about that right then, though.

Morwenna had called first thing in the morning to inform me that the appropriate human course of action was to rush to the grocery store in town to buy milk and bread, to prepare for the storm.

I wasn’t sure what milk and bread had to do with anything, and hoped it was acceptable that I also planned to buy the ingredients for a stew I had always made in the winter.

And rice pudding. And wine. And toilet paper.

Those things seemed more important than milk and bread. Though bread would go well with the stew, and rice pudding did have milk in it. Maybe I should buy extra milk, just in case. But could I even use up a whole gallon before it went bad?

That sounded like a lot of rice pudding.

I stood there staring into the dairy case, looking at the few options left. Gallons of whole milk, or half-gallons of skim. I didn’t really like milk all that much, honestly. I could just buy some cream for the rice pudding, but then what was the milk even for?

“Looking for the answers to the universe in the milk?” A low, deep voice asked near my ear, and instead of jumping in fright, a delighted shiver shot down my spine.

Kai.

I turned to face him, a smile on my face. “My friend called and told me I need to buy bread and milk.” I glanced back at the case, frowning.

“Afraid I can’t help much. My parents didn’t keep milk in the house, so I never even tried it until I went to college. Even then, I never got a taste for it.”

I gasped in shock. “No rice pudding?”

“Never even had it,” he said, and . . . well, I didn’t exactly have an enormous repertoire of recipes to draw from.

I wasn’t a bad cook, but I had just about two dessert recipes to draw from: rice pudding and butter cookies.

If he didn’t like dairy at all, I wasn’t sure how I’d impress him.

Then he leaned toward me. “But I’d love to give it a try. ”

And oh, but that was?—

“I’m going to make it tomorrow. With—with cinnamon and cream. And gryta—stew, that is. I don’t think they have elk here, but beef should be fine. Do—do you like stew?”

He reached up, his finger brushing against my cheek as he stared into my eyes. “I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

A cleared throat snagged both of our attention just in time for us to pull apart as a sour-faced older woman came tearing down the aisle.

I half expected her to say something about two men flirting in the grocery store when she stopped next to us, but instead she gave Kai a fake smile.

“Kai, honey. Good to see you back in town. Right where you belong. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Andersen,” he said, giving her a nod and entirely ignoring the suggestion that he belonged in Minnesota. Something in his posture was tense, the earlier playfulness having fled the building entirely. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know. Masie has cancer. Bone. They say if you live long enough, you’re bound to get some kind of cancer.

” We both blinked, but I hadn’t even been addressed, and apparently Kai had no idea what to say, so instead, she forged on.

“My back won’t stop hurting anymore, but I suppose that’s just how it is when you get to be my age.

They closed down the elementary school you kids went to and opened a new one all the way across town.

” She paused, and it felt oddly momentous, as though the litany of unhappiness she’d just offered was nothing, and the important thing she truly wanted to say was next.

“Gerda’s been missing you. You should come over for dinner tonight. ”

Kai cocked his head in faux confusion. “I talked to Gerda this morning, and she told me she was working tonight.”

“Oh did you?” Her tone changed, suddenly syrupy sweet.

“Here I worried you’d forgotten all about her.

” She gave me a meaningful look followed by a rather insulting once-over before turning back to Kai.

“She’s missed you so much since you left town.

We were glad to hear you’d come back, but then you haven’t been by even though we’re right next door. ”

“I had lunch with Gerda the day before yesterday and talked to her on the phone this morning,” he told her, and as reassuring as the words might have been, his tone had gone a little frosty and clipped.

“Gerda is my best friend , Mrs. Andersen. I’ve seen plenty of her since I’ve been back, and I never stopped calling her. ”

The way he stressed the word friend made me understand—or at least, I thought I did. Mrs. Andersen wanted Kai and Gerda to have a rather different relationship than they did.

I imagined that finding him flirting with a stranger in the dairy aisle had been the last thing she’d wanted, and it’d been an unwelcome surprise. It didn’t make her behavior any better, but at least I understood why I was getting the cold shoulder.

“Now if you’ll excuse us, Johannes and I need to find some beef for the stew he’s planning to make. Maybe a nice bottle of red wine to go with it.” He turned back to the dairy case. “And cream, you said, for your pudding?”

“Cream,” I agreed, pointing out a carton for him to pick up, which he did, setting it in my cart and then guiding us both out of the aisle.

Whatever Morwenna had said, I could survive without milk. I’d managed fine for three hundred years, after all. One blizzard couldn’t be any worse than that.

For bread, maybe they’d have a nice crusty loaf in the bakery to go with my stew.