Page 62 of Worth the Trouble

“Well, you’ve got one client already.”

She started to speak, and then didn’t.

“Local outfit,” Jason said. “Horses. Owner doesn’t talk much and the truth is he can’t pay you what you’re worth. But he’s got a growing business and needs to focus on the day-to-day work. He’d rather have you do the talking for him.”

It took her a second. But then it clicked.

“You want to hire me.”

“I want to be first. There’s a difference.”

She laughed. It filled up both rooms and made its way out the window down to the square, and he’d have paid real money to hear it again. The envelope full of money her father had offered him wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover what he’d be willing to spend.

“Oh, there’s a back room,” she said, as she explored a little further. “With a door.”

“There’s a bath.”

“I could live here.”

“I guess you could.”

“In a rented office space with an extra room over a flower shop. My father would need a week to recover.”

“He’d need two.”

“Come here,” she said.

He stepped over to her.

She’d taken her hand off the glass and there was a print left on it, five fingers and a palm, going soft in the cold. She stood with her back to the square and her face to him. The radiator ticked in the background.

“I love you,” he said.

That was all of it. He didn’t have a longer version and he’d never needed one. He’d known it since a paddock fence, or a couch and a movie neither of them could have named, or a rail at the rodeo with her hand in his and everyone watching. He’d known it long enough that saying it wasn’t news. It was signing his name.

She didn’t answer right away. She looked at him with her eyes going bright and let it stand in the room a while, and he could stand there in them as long as she needed.

“You want to know what I like most about this place?” she said.

He knew this question. She’d asked it on a trail with her cheek on his arm and answered it with the mountains, and he’d known even then it wasn’t the whole answer.

“Most people would say the landscape,” she said. “Or the people.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“They’d be wrong.”

She reached up and put her hand on his face, the same as in the lobby, and this time he was the one who didn’t move.

“You,” she said.

He kissed her in front of the window, with the whole square below them where anyone could watch. She didn’t care who was watching.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Cecelia had a number in her purse.

The woman who owned the Bloom Shop building had given it to her over the phone, along with the terms, the deposit, and an opinion about radiators. Cecelia had written it on a lodge napkin and folded the napkin twice. It was more than she’d hoped and less than she’d feared. She hadn’t said yes. She’d said she’d call back by noon, and the woman had said that was the right answer, and hung up.