“Seems like the sale went fine without us,” Finn said, letting his gaze sweep the room where there were still clusters of people gathering around the displays. Christmas music played merrily in the background. “Did you find someone to man the tables?”
“I put your cookies together on one table and Brady ran it,” Sherri said, brightening. “It sold out within the hour!”
Of course it did. My baked goods were famous, and Finn’s little blue and white penguin cookies were cute as fuck. Still, I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. “That’s so great! For the animal shelter,” I added quickly.
I noticed Finn had gone quiet, and he was holding himself very still. “Do we need to go?” I asked him.
He nodded carefully.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t still be at the hospital?” Sherri asked, hands fluttering against the sleeve of Finn’s jacket.
“The doctor said he can go home as long as he rests and someone keeps an eye on him, so I’m watching him tonight,” I said.
Sherri’s eyes widened. She looked like there were a thousand things she wanted to say and I could guess at least half of them, but to her credit all she said was, “That’s very decent of you, Cameron.”
“We’d better go,” I said. “We just wanted to let people know Finn was okay.”
We escaped into the freezing night air, and Finn seemed to brighten once we were outside, but I kept a careful eye on him as I drove. The color slowly returned to his cheeks, though, and I guessed he must have been feeling better when he asked, “So what kind of cat is Asshole?”
“She’s just a regular cat,” I said.
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “I was expecting something majestic, like a Maine Coon or a Bengal.”
“Oh, if you ask her, she’s the queen of all cats. It’s just that she’s disguised as a black and white domestic shorthair.”
The snow was falling steadily now, and the tree branches gleamed as my headlights bounced off them. It was a gorgeous sight, and it reminded me why I loved living here. I had the radio turned down low, the familiar strains of Christmas music and the rhythmic thud of my windshield wipers providing gentle background noise. A comfortable silence settled between us as I concentrated on navigating my way through the falling snow, and when I glanced over to make sure Finn was awake, I found him staring out the window, a soft smile on his face.
“It’s so pretty,” he said. “So clean, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I love Vermont at this time of year.” I paused. “Apart from the cold.”
Finn laughed. “You don’t get the pretty without the cold, Cameron.”
I rounded the curve that led up the long driveway to my cabin, and as the headlights swept over the front of the house, Finn gasped. I pulled up in front of the cabin and turned to him, instantly concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Oh my god! You livehere?”
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked, my cheeks warming and heat crawling up the back of my neck. Sure, my cabin was small and maybe it wasn’t the fanciest house out there, but it wasn’t like it was an abandoned shack from a slasher flick or anything. It was just a standard cabin, with a wraparound porch, wide front windows, and a weathered wooden porch swing.
Finn stared at me, wide-eyed. “Why would you think there’s anything wrong with it? It’s gorgeous! Tell me you’ve made a gingerbread model of it? Please?”
My cheeks flushed again, with pleasure this time. “I haven’t lived here long enough,” I said. “But yeah, I think it’s pretty okay.” I tried not to think too hard about why Finn Kelly liking my house made me blush like a teenager with his first crush.
We escaped with only a light dusting of snow as we dashed up onto the covered porch. Before I opened the door, I said, “Asshole’s not really good with people she doesn’t know, so don’t take it personally if she hisses at you like a demon fromSupernatural. Also, it might be kind of a mess. I slept in this morning. Don’t judge.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Finn said, raising an amused eyebrow.
I opened the door and we went inside, and I breathed a secret sigh of relief when I flicked on a couple of lamps and found the place wasn’t as messy as I’d imagined it. Sure, there was an empty popcorn bowl on the floor that I was pretty sure had been on the coffee table when I left this morning and a basket of unfolded laundry in the corner, but the soft lighting hid a multitude of sins, and the house smelled faintly of ginger and syrup and not of Asshole’s litter box, so it wasn’t giving off sad single cat guy vibes or anything.
Finn pulled his jacket close and hugged himself, a shiver running through him, and I hurried to turn up the heating. Warm tendrils of air started to flow through the room almost immediately, and I took my jacket off and hung it on a hook near the front door. Once the room was a more comfortable temperature, Finn shed his outer layers as well, his gaze sweeping over the combined living and dining room. “It’s nice. Cozy.”
“Thanks.” I liked to think I’d made the compact space my own, with my grandmother’s rag rug adding a splash of color to the wood floor, a knitted throw draped over the back of the couch, and an overflowing bookshelf along one wall. Therewas even a small Christmas tree in the corner, although it was missing all the decorations from the lower half.
Finn nodded toward it, grinning. “Let me guess. Asshole?”
I laughed. “Yeah. I didn’t realize when I set it up that she’d think it was a giant cat toy. And now I don’t have the heart to take it away.”
“Aww,” Finn said, “you’re secretly a marshmallow under that grumpy exterior, aren’t you?”
