“It means maybe.”
“It means probably no with hope sprinkled on top.”
I look down at her, and despite everything, I smile. “Who taught you to be so suspicious?”
“You.”
Fair.
A cluster of older women stops near the booth, their voices low but not low enough.
Poor thing.
I keep my hands moving. Box the cookies. Tie the twine. Smile. Smile. Smile.
He really did move on quickly.
My fingers tighten around the ribbon.
And then, the words that make my blood go cold.
“Poor thing,” one of them murmurs. “He traded up.”
Jillie goes still beside me. Every bit of warmth leaves my body.
She looks up, cookie forgotten in her mitten. Her little face shifts in that awful way children’s faces do when theyunderstand enough to be hurt but not enough to know what to do with it.
“Mommy,” she whispers, “what does “traded up” mean?”
I want to climb over the booth and tell those women exactly what I think of their pity wrapped in perfume and church-lady scarves. Instead, I crouch in front of my daughter and gently wipe the icing from her mouth with my thumb.
“It means some people talk when they should be buying cookies,” I say.
Her eyes search mine. “Is it bad?”
“No, baby.” My voice is too soft. “It’s not about you.”
“But it’s about you?”
My throat closes.
Before I can answer, a loud burst of laughter rises from the skating rink. Jillie turns toward it, blinking too fast. She sets the half-eaten cookie down and slips away from the booth before I can stop her.
“Jillie,” I call, but a customer steps in front of me holding out a twenty. I handle the sale as quickly as I can, barely hearing the woman ask for a dozen cranberry-orange shortbread. By the time I glance back, Jillie is already near the rink, standing alone beneath a lamppost, her little shoulders hunched.
I step around the booth to get her, but someone else gets there first.
A man in a dark wool coat and a Frostholm Blizzards beanie crouches in front of her.
Not just any man.
Colby Reid.
For one impossible second, I forget how to move.
Everyone in Briar Cove knows Colby, even people who pretend they don’t care about hockey. Star left wing for the Frostholm Blizzards, local boy turned national obsession. Magazine-cover smile. Highlight-reel goals. Recently dragged through everysports headline after a brutal season and an even uglier breakup with some influencer whose name I only know because Jillie accidentally clicked on a video about it while looking for puppy cartoons.
He is supposed to be arrogant. That’s what the headlines say.
