I smirked. “Accurate so far.”
“And you said she was difficult, stubborn, and drives you crazy.”
“Also accurate.”
“So,” he said, folding his arms, “I’d say you two are on the same page.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “The page right before everything blows up.”
He laughed again, but there was a note of sympathy in it. “You’re in deep, huh?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “Or maybe I’m just an idiot.”
He shrugged. “Could be both.”
We finished setting up the tables just as the first hint of daylight started to brighten the snow outside. For a moment, the peace of it settled something in my chest.
Then I remembered who would be walking through that door in less than an hour, with cheeks flushed from the cold, hair probably tangled from the wind, and still mad enough to bite.
And all that peace went right out the window.
“You think she’ll show up?” I asked, stacking the last few chairs.
“Oh, she’ll show up,” Callum said. “Lydia’ll drag her here if she has to.”
“Great,” I muttered. “Can’t wait.”
He smirked. “Hey, if it helps, she’s not telling people you’re the devil or anything.”
“Just a menace?”
“Pretty much.”
I sighed, grabbing a rag to wipe the counters. “I’ll take it.”
The smell of coffee thickened as the urn finished brewing. I poured myself a mug and leaned on the bar, staring at the snow outside. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear a snowplow rumbling down Main Street, slow and steady.
“I swear,” I said quietly, half to myself, “if she walks in here looking at me like that again, I’m gonna forget this truce ever existed.”
Callum chuckled as he started flipping pancakes on the griddle.
“Oh, you will,” he said easily. “You just won’t realize it until it’s too late.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Because if there was one thing I’d learned about Melanie, it was that she could turn even the simplest morning, snow, coffee, and pancakes into something dangerously sexy.
And I couldn’t stop waiting for the next time she’d prove it.
By the time the first snowplow finally groaned its way down Main Street, The Rusty Stag was already warm and humming.
The pancake griddle sizzled, and the smell of butter and cinnamon was thick in the air. Holiday music played from thejukebox, Lydia’s doing, obviously, and a handful of early risers were trickling in, shaking snow off their coats and stomping their boots like they owned the place.
Callum was flipping pancakes at the far end of the bar, humming something that was probably meant to beJingle Bellsbut sounded like a dying moose. I was pretending to be useful, pouring coffee and wondering how many hours of sleep I could catch up on once this was over.
Then the door opened, and all that quiet, steady rhythm fell apart.
Melanie stepped in, bundled in her coat, snowflakes clinging to her hair, a steaming paper cup in her hand. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and she looked… well, she looked like the kind of trouble that keeps a man awake two nights in a row. I could already feel the next sleepless night coming.
