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“That’s a little less surprising,” Blaire responded as she navigated to my podcasts on the car’s display screen.
“I think I saw online that all the episodes this month feature cases that have some sort of holiday tie-in,” I admit just as she presses play and the first ad selling us on a bed and breakfast in the area started playing.
“Not quite the uplifting holiday message I usually go for, but you’re finally speaking my language, Thomas.”
Blaire settled into her seat, her eyes on the road ahead of us as she listened to the hosts set up the background of the crime and I felt my hands slip slightly from their ten-and-two positions as I allowed myself to, just for a brief second, revel in the feeling of rightness between Blaire and me.
Chapter 15
Blaire
I spent the forty-five minutes Cole was in his meeting alternating between getting more and more nervous about my meeting, wondering if Cole was being completely truthful about the nature of his meeting, and ignoring the feeling that opened up in my stomach when I thought about Cole leaving Winterberry Glen. Then there was the idea that Gretchen put in my head that it didn’t matter where Cole was from if he was invading my thoughts so deeply and regularly. Turning over what that could mean for the future of my relationship with Cole had plagued me the entire time I was pretending to look at my spreadsheets—honestly, I had those things memorized a week ago. I had needed to give up the ruse that I was looking at them and make Cole engage with me so that I didn’t try to convince him to pull over and kiss me again. Cole’s revelation about his position with the state audit office connected some dots about why he accepted the assignment to oversee the festival financial process when he was so disdainful of Holly Ridge and the holidays all together. And I took some relief in knowing he had a contract already, which meant that the job wasn’t dependent on the outcome of the festival. I could deal with Cole’s disdain for Holly Ridge, that was something he was born with, but I didn’t know how I would feel if he was actively rooting for me to fail so he could move up in the government finance world. But it also caused me to rearrange—yet again—my changing feelings around Cole Thomas. Cole seemed a bit hurt I wasn’t expressing more emotions about his news, but once we recovered our equilibrium and started teasing each other again, something settled inside me.
All too soon for my liking, someone from the audit office came down the hallway to walk me back to the windowless conference room they had reserved for us for the afternoon and had been meeting with Cole. The energy in the room when I entered was congenial. I looked at Cole to see if I could read on his face how the meeting went, but his expression gave nothing away. I settled into the seat next to him, passed around a packet of handouts, and reached under the table to wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt. I felt a quick, but firm squeeze on my wrist, and hopefully managed to hide my surprise that Cole would risk such a move of familiarity in front of his future bosses. Assuming his intention was to steady and calm me, it worked, and I launched into the presentation I had prepared.
After all the worry, nerves and preparation, our meeting with the state audit office passed by in a blur of numbers, statistics, serious looks, and head nods. Cole continued to be a comforting presence next to me, even though most of the questions from the officials were directed at me. Cole offered his support and endorsement of my budget and confirmed I had been following all the rules the state audit office had set out. His endorsement seemed to finally relax the committee, which grated on me, because why should his assurance be worth more than mine, the one who had built the charts and tables they were examining? That wasn’t Cole’s fault, though. He was simply answering a question as asked, and I appreciated his earnest support.
Next thing I knew, we were shaking hands with the state officials, receiving their seemingly genuine well wishes on the festival’s success, and walking back to the parking garage. We were met with a completely different scene from the one we had left behind when we entered the office building two hours earlier—everything was blanketed with a covering of white.
“Guess we have an answer to that flurry or snowstorm question,” I said to Cole as I carefully made my way down the slick marble steps as he did the same right behind me.
Once we were back on solid, yet snow-covered ground, I looked over at Cole and saw his brow furrowed as he scrolled through the forecast and traffic reports on his phone.
“It’s moving across the state toward home. The interstates seem to still be fairly clear. We may be able to get ahead of the worst of it if we hit the road now.”
Considering we were both northeastern born and raised, driving in snow was something we were taught when we learned to drive and I trusted Cole and his all-wheel drive to keep us safe as we tried to make it home, so I easily agreed to his plan. I had images of a celebratory dinner in the city after our meetings, but that would be too much like the Pepper’s setting last summer, so it was probably best we hit the road and grabbed food when we inevitably needed to stop for fuel or a bathroom break.
We got on the road and resumed listening to Cole’s true crime podcast. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I thought about how he brought up that they were holiday themed, knowing this was a bridge of our listening tastes. I recognized they may be episodes Cole would have skipped if it wasn’t for this time we were sharing in the car today.
The snow continued to fall, the sky continued to darken, and I noticed the crease in Cole’s forehead deepened as his focus increased on the road. I stopped making comments on the podcast when I realized he wasn’t really listening anymore, giving all his attention to the slowing traffic and slushy roads around us.
Suddenly, the vehicles in front of us came to an abrupt stop and Cole slammed on the brakes to avoid ending up in the trunk of the car directly ahead of us.
“Fuck!” he yelled, his arm coming across my chest like an extra restraint, even though I was buckled in. Just as instinctively, my hands wrapped around his forearm, gripping tight. The car fishtailed slightly due to the harsh braking, but Cole was able to regain control of the car with no harm to us or anyone around us.
Both of us were breathing heavily after the sudden adrenaline burst. We made eye contact across the middle console and his eyes moved all around my face, trying to take in my emotions.
“Are you all right?” Cole asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. You?”
“Yes. That was a little too close for comfort. Thank goodness for snow tires.”
Through all this checking in, I was aware that his arm was still across my breasts, his hand curling protectively around my right shoulder, and my hands were still on his arm, though my grip had loosened. There was nothing sexual about the protective intent of the motion, but as our breathing slowed, our eye contact remained steady. I was aware of the strength of his arm, and how the weight of just this one limb felt pressing down on me. I thought I saw his eyes darken, but it could have been a trick of the last of the daylight leaving the sky, leaving us in a sea of red brake lights and illuminated sparkling white flakes.
I took a deep breath, moving his arm with the rise and fall of my chest and released his forearm. Cole released his grip as well, retracting his arm by tracing the back of his hand along my collarbone. My breath hitched at the tender touch, which seemed to break his reverie, and focused on the matter at hand—that we were on an expressway that was starting to crawl forward again after moments at a complete stop, in a snowstorm, in the now dark night.
“Did you happen to notice the last exit we passed?” Cole asked, his voice a bit deeper than normal.
“I didn’t. Let me grab my phone and check.”
I leaned down to fish my phone out of my bag, happy to have something to do with my hands, so I didn’t grab his arm and put it back where it had been moments earlier. That had to be the adrenaline talking, right? Who had this sort of reaction to a near-accident situation?
“It looks like we just passed exit 73.”
“Okay, so we have another 120 miles before we get to the exit for home. The roads are only going to get worse, so I think we might need to find somewhere to stay for the night.”
Cole was right in this logic, but my stomach twisted at the thought of staying in the same place as Cole overnight.
