Page 7 of A Spell for Midwinter’s Heart
Despite the lack of snow, taking the forest trail into town did Rowan’s heart and nervous system good.
With every breath of tangy pine air, every treble of bird and crack of twig, her pulse lowered and her breathing evened.
She relied on recordings of nature sounds to get her through her workdays, but they were nothing like the real thing.
Back in Southern California, she had to take multiple buses to get to any kind of hiking, and the trails were dense with people power walking simply to reach the top. Though the desert landscapes were striking, the rugged beauty of the Cascades soothed her in a way nothing else had managed.
She strolled past evergreens wearing shaggy coats of moss, which hung from their branches like hanks of hair.
Trails of tiny bright green ferns tripped their way up mossy trunks, and nurse logs offered homes to hopeful saplings.
The tip of her favorite Western hemlock drooped, as if caught in a perpetual bad day.
A copse of dense, skinny trees, stripped clean of their branches and almost completely encased in moss, marked the end of the trail.
The tree line broke to reveal the familiar shape of downtown Elk Ridge, a collection of wood and brick buildings arrayed alongside a churning river and separated from the highway by a rusting New Deal–era bridge.
The festival grounds were at the end of downtown, near to where Rowan’s trail deposited her onto the road.
Her heart fell as she made it to the main street.
The townsfolk had done their best with what they had.
Plump wreaths dangled from lampposts, and garlands had been hung on every available surface.
They’d even sprayed their windows with diffused white paint to give them the appearance of frosting over, but the parched sidewalks, the gutters uncrowned with dramatic lines of icicles, the naked roofs—it was all so shabby without the most important ingredient of a winter wonderland.
Rowan lingered at the boarded-up front of what had once been the Book Chalet, running her fingers over the chipping paint of the sign.
The sight of it stirred up memories of hours spent rummaging through overflowing shelves.
The shop cat, Dimmesdale, staring down in judgment from the peaks of the stacks if Rowan spent too long sampling the wares.
Would this be the last time those memories were called up from her mental archives? Without familiar anchors, the past had a way of becoming unmoored, drifting out beyond the horizon of recollection.
You don’t always need spells to forget.
The thought caused a tremor in her hand.
Next to the empty bookstore was Coffee Time, her first stop. A pale wood menorah with two standing candles and six stubs was in the window alongside a kinara with fresh candles waiting to be lit. Heading for the door, she nearly ran straight into none other than Gavin McCreery.
The cup of coffee he was balancing atop a box of pastries wobbled and nearly tumbled off the side, but Rowan reached up lightning quick to steady it. Her fingertips brushed against the side of his hand, and a sweeping tingle ran down her side.
Gavin arched an eyebrow. “Nice reflexes.”
“Thanks. Comes with being a klutz—you get a lot of practice.”
Rowan realized she still had her hand on his coffee cup and snatched it away before giving him a once-over. He wore navy slacks, a pale blue button-up, and a blazer, tailored to the exact lines of his V-shaped torso. Not the uniform of a man planning to vacation—even a McCreery.
“Are you going to work? ” she said.
Something flashed across his face—guilt?—before it returned to his studied neutral.
“No, I mean, yes. I’m helping my father with something while I’m in town.”
It occurred to her what that “thing” probably was, and anger once again roiled up to chase away melancholy like the sun burning fog off the mountains.
She crossed one arm over the other and stared him straight in the eye. “Helping him negotiate the best price for the festival?”
The flash of guilt—yes, it was definitely guilt—returned. “So, you heard about that…”
“Yeah, my mom didn’t pretend it wasn’t happening.”
If the frost in the air between them could have spread, it would’ve brought on the white holiday the town so desperately needed.
“It isn’t an easy subject to bring up, and our conversation came to a bit of a halt,” he said.
“It didn’t occur to you that maybe playing buddy-buddy with someone whose family you’re plotting against is a bit gauche?”
His tone was stiff. “I was being polite.”
Being polite. Of course. He was infallibly mannered, and it was the only reason he’d suffered her presence. The realization was sharp.
She tipped up her chin to look him straight in the eye. “That winter festival is the heart of Elk Ridge. This place would’ve died out decades ago without it.”
“Which is exactly why it needs something to give it a new life.” He gestured at the shuttered Book Chalet. “Everyone trying to keep the festival alive is bleeding money—including your parents.”
That gave Rowan pause—bleeding money? Her mother hadn’t brought that up. The festival had not been designed to profit, but it still had operating costs. If it wasn’t even making that much, then the situation was even worse than Liliana had let on.
Gavin continued, “Your mother won’t consider raising prices on anything—concessions, booth costs—”
She balled a fist. “Because that would price out the local vendors who’ve been with us for years!”
His forehead creased in frustration. “No one is suggesting that we double them, but good intentions can’t undo thirty-plus years of inflation.”
Rowan ran a hand back through her hair, fingers tangling. “A lot of the vendors do more business in barter than cash.”
“Unfortunately, the bank still deals in hard currency.” He studied her. “Look, I do not want to sell, but it needs to be on the table.”
“Who’s the potential buyer?” she asked.
His expression grew unreadable. He was quiet for a moment before admitting, “The Goshen Group.”
“The megacorporation that owns all those Bible-themed resorts and amusement parks? The one that got busted for outsourcing all their merchandise to sweatshops a few years ago?” Rowan hissed.
“There’s no way they’ll keep the Pagan elements!
Or anything but Christmas, probably. And you know they’d pay minimum wage—or less if they can get away with it! ”
The coffee she had helped him steady suddenly pitched itself right off the side of the pastry box, tumbling to the ground in a splatter. They both gaped down, and Rowan scrambled to retrieve the empty cup, uneasy at the distinct tingle of magic in her hands.
Like with the hot chocolate, she hadn’t meant to cast anything, but it seemed she’d done it all the same.
She looked at the cup and then up at him, doing her best to disguise her uneasiness and her guilt. “Too late to save any of it.”
He gave a small shrug. “I should cut back anyway.”
“Cut back? On coffee?” She shook her head. “Doesn’t compute.”
He chuckled before regarding her with a soft but firm expression. “We’re looking for other options.”
“But are you finding any?” she said with a small sound of exasperation.
“And do you really expect me to believe your dad isn’t inclined to sell to people like them?
” Gavin frowned and shook his head. She reached out, setting her fingers on his forearm, trying to get him to look her in the eye.
“Your mom wouldn’t have wanted this. You need to convince him not to do it—for her. ”
He took a step closer, close enough to absorb the heat radiating from his skin, to smell the mint of his clean shave, and he looked down at her with eyes that were a dark slit.
Of pain, she realized, snatching away her fingers from his arm.
“I know, ” he said in a low, sharp voice. Then he gave her a nod and pushed past at a brusque clip, hunched against the dry cold.
She watched him go, recovering from the shock of the moment too late for him to hear the “I’m sorry” she said in his direction. Her heart thudded in her chest, synchronized to the rhythm of his flight, and she chastised herself for leaping to the attack—again.
And for losing control. For letting her emotions run wild.
Because when emotions took the lead, magic had a way of following.