Lydia tilted her head. “Whatwhatfeels like?”
“This.” I gestured around us at the snow, the lights, and the laughter. “Being in a place that doesn’t need to prove anything. It just…is.”
She smiled softly. “Yeah. It’s special.”
We stood there for a moment, watching a little boy run past us, rolling a half-built snowman head, his mittens covered in glitter from the ornament table.
“Seattle’s beautiful,” I said after a pause. “Don’t get me wrong. But everything there feels… transactional. Fast. Loud. Here, it’s like people actually stop long enough to live.”
“That’s why I stayed,” Lydia said simply. “Well, it might have had to do with Callum too.”
I laughed and looked out toward the river. It glimmered beneath the nearly all white sky, ribbons of sunlight breaking through in streaks that caught the snowflakes midair. The whole town was glowing, alive in a way that made my chest ache a little.
“You thinking of staying?” she asked, her voice teasing but hopeful.
I shot her a look. “Don’t start matchmaking me with a zip code.”
She laughed. “I didn’t sayforever.Just… longer.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Part of me feels like if I stay too long, the spell breaks.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Sure it is,” I said. “You grow up, you get cynical, you start to see the cracks.”
“Or,” she said, nudging me again, “you let yourself stop pretending you don’t need any of this.”
“Any of what?”
“The magic. The connection. Thepeople,Mel.”
“I have a classroom.”
“They need teachers here.”
I didn’t respond right away because there was a part of me, small, stubborn, still raw, that didn’t want to admit she was right.
But the truth was, Reckless River was sneaking under my skin. And not just because of its charm.
Because ofhim.
I hated that the thought crept in so easily. Drew Benedict. Tattooed menace. Pancake flirt. The reason my heart hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in forty-eight hours.
I glanced back toward The Rusty Stag without meaning to. Even from here, I could see him through the frosted windows, laughing with Callum, and flipping pancakes like it was an art form.
Lydia followed my gaze and smiled. “You could just say it, you know.”
“Say what?”
“That you like him.”
“I don’t.”
She arched a brow. “Your eyes say otherwise.”
“My eyes are frozen.”
“Uh-huh.”
