She found Evan afterward, sitting on the boardwalk railing with a bottle of water, watching the cleanup crew sweep artificial snow off the lawn. “You missed the snow machine incident.”
“I heard it.” The almost-smile. “From the dock.”
“It was spectacular. In the worst possible way.” She leaned against the railing next to him. Their arms were close. Not touching. The inch of space that had become their default, the distance that was too small to be accidental and too large to be a declaration. “Lou’s demo was a hit, though. A little girl told me I was the Christmas lady.”
“Are you?”
“Apparently. I’m also the lady whose expo got robbed, but the Christmas angle is better for branding.”
He almost laughed. Not quite. But the corners of his eyes creased, and she filed the expression away in the growing catalog of things she’d learned about Evan’s face. The crease was new. She was earning expressions from him that hadn’t existed a week ago.
She looked out at the water. “I think I had Lila wrong.”
He turned his head. “How so?”
“She opened her hard case for me today. The one she carries everywhere. Divorce paperwork, right on top. She’s hiding new designs from her ex so he can’t claim them in the settlement. That’s what she’s been guarding all this time. Not stolen ornaments. A marriage coming apart, and the only work her husband can’t take from her.”
He was quiet for a moment. The water lapped against the pilings below them. “Everybody’s carrying something.”
“Yeah.” Margot thought about Lila’s hard case, his compass, and her own pen, all the containers people built around the things they couldn’t set down. “I kept reading her like she was hiding something about the theft. She was just hiding her whole life.” She watched the light go flat on the water. “Which leaves Caleb. And Elaine.”
“Elaine?”
“She’s pushed me off the theft twice now. Let security handle it. Focus on the programming.” Margot turned the thought over the way she’d turn a line item that didn’t add up. “And Caleb’s her brother. Nobody’s supposed to say it, but he is. I don’t think she took anything, Evan. But she’s steering. I just can’t tell whether she’s protecting the resort or protecting him.”
The name sat there between them, unfinished business with the sun going down on it.
The sky was turning orange at the edges. The Christmas lights on the terrace blinked on, timed to sunset, cheerful and absurd. “Today was a good day.” She was surprised to mean it.
“It was.” Evan looked at her. Not at the water, not at the resort. “You do this well, you know. The people part. Making them feel like everything’s okay even when it isn’t.”
“It’s my job.”
“It’s more than that.”
The words sat between them on the railing, warm as the last of the sunlight. His arm rested an inch from hers.
She was accustomed to carrying three conversations, six contingency plans, and tomorrow’s disaster before it happened. Around him, the noise in her head lowered a few notches.
She’d spent years arranging details so other people could relax.
He had somehow done the same thing to her.
“You know,” she said, “nobody’s told me I do anything well in about two years. My clients send satisfaction surveys. My vendors send invoices. Nobody just says it.”
“Then they’re not paying attention.”
She looked at him. He held her gaze, unguarded and warm and completely without agenda, and it made her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the expo or the ornaments or anything she’d written on any list.
A vendor called her name from the terrace, and the moment broke like a wave.
“Duty calls.” She pushed off the railing.
“Always does.”
She walked toward the terrace, aware of him watching her go. Not the way you watch someone leave. The way you watch someone you’re not ready to stop looking at.
She didn’t look back. But she wanted to.
