Don’t make it not all right for her.
He shook his head. “No, nothing’s wrong. My mind just wandered.”
I’ll just have to turn that switch off, he thought as they headed to the deep-fried s’mores stand.
After today.
Chapter Twelve
Ceci
Ceci smiled as they walked down Main Street. The sun had come out and the snow everywhere was sparkling like crystals. On the ground, the tops of the buildings, adorning the A-frames that lined the street and covering those majestic mountains in the near distance.
She side-eyed Clarke.
He devoured that burger. He devoured the second one too. And then he ate the s’mores. I never would have imagined he’s a man with that kind of appetite. Whenever I see him at events, he’s always so measured when it comes to putting anything in his mouth, whether food or drink.
I wonder if he’s like that with other things, she thought, staring at his lips.
“What’s that?” Clarke said, nudging her from her reverie.
“Huh?”
“That.” He pointed up ahead. “You see all those people standing around with dogs?”
Ceci’s eyes widened. “It’s thePaw-some Sledding Shenanigans!”
She and Pixel had watched it last year. It was a hoot. She’d wanted to enter Boudica, but you needed two dogs for the race.
She looked down at Boudica and Holly.
“We’ve got to enter.”
She grabbed his arm and dragged him behind her, not stopping until they’d reached the town’s edge.
“Look,” she said, pointing her finger to the right, a little further beyond the last building.
“Is that what I think it is?” Clarke asked.
Nodding, she smiled. “It’s a track. You build your own kart—or sled—it’s really kind of both. You make it out of cardboard. Then the dogs race them. But you have to have two dogs. One sits in the sled while the other pulls it.”
He stared back at her but said nothing.
“Don’t you see?” she cried. “We have two dogs—Boudica and Holly. We can do this! And not only that, I bet we can win. You see that man over there?” She pointed to a burly man with a Labrador and Jack Russell. “Such a prick! He won last year. I only remember because when he overheard me saying I wished I had another dog so I could enter, he laughed and made all sorts of mean and snide comments about Boudica.”
The bulldog looked up with trusting, watery eyes and a drooping mouth.
Ceci leaned in, cupping her hand over her mouth. “We shouldn’t really talk about this around him.”
“Was Boudica traumatized?” he asked with a smile.
Ceci scoffed. “No, he wanted to bite them—all three of them. And he knows exactly where to do so, because I taught him. So it’s better we don’t get him too riled up. I mean riled up for the race, yes, but not the other thing.”
“Assaulting others and causing bodily harm?”
“Yeah. That.”
He had yet to wipe that smile off his face.
