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I noticed applause coming from all corners of the room, but I couldn’t stop myself from making a beeline for Cole at the back of it. I came to stop in front of him, drinking in his perfectly fitted suit, the way the jacket hugged his broad shoulders and the tailoring accentuated his tapered waist. I almost wanted to duck behind him to see how those pants hugged his ass, but got caught in his gaze, a shy smile on his face as he greeted me.
“Hi.”
I smiled.
“Hey,” I responded back.
“You looked great up there—and you look beautiful. I love your dress.”
“Told you!” Austin exclaimed as he and Charlotte bustled behind us, making their way to the bar to grab their toast drinks, Charlotte laughing at his antics, making it clear their path through the room was not the most direct, so they could eavesdrop on us.
Cole laughed.
“I see you’ve met Austin.”
“I have. He told me he told you you’d be an idiot not to come tonight.”
“He did. And he was right. There was just something I had to wait on first. Do you want to go take a walk?”
I nodded.
“Let me just grab our coats,” he said, putting his hand on my lower back, just close enough to my ass that it felt possessive, and I felt something in my chest slot into place.
Cole
I hated watching her cover up that dress with her long black pea coat, but I was hoping this wouldn’t be a short conversation, so I wanted her to be warm, and it started to flurry outside while I made the drive over to Holly Ridge from my house. I hate that she doubted I would be here, but I had to wait for a courier delivery before I could leave for the party.
We walked in strained silence for a few steps, both of us unconsciously heading for the town square as soon as we exited the community center. I decided I should be the one to start since I suggested the walk in the first place.
“So, I see a whole lot of Winterberry Glen folks at that party.”
Blaire nodded.
“I realized that telling everyone out right that Holly Ridge was going to lose their charter would be a huge mood killer but thought that we could start the year off on the right note by suggesting the town embrace the merger instead of dreading it. Obviously, I can’t force Winterberry Glen to spend their money a certain way, but I thought if they were invited in and introduced to the festival, they might want to carry on some of the traditions next year, just so the area doesn’t lose out on such a great opportunity. I’m just mad I didn’t think of this earlier. The towns could have been celebrating together all festival long.”
She took in a breath.
“I also know this doesn’t make up for what happened to you as a kid, but I hope it would stop it from happening to anyone else. I know you probably think it’s silly for me to think Christmas spirit has that much power over human behavior, but I don’t know, I think it at least opens people up to listening more than any other time of the year.”
This woman. I knew I needed to stop running from my past and face my own issues with where I was from and the damage I had let the feud cause me, but even after I had hit her weak spot and walked away from her, she was still willing to put in the work to do what she could to help heal me.
We reached the steps of the gazebo and both stopped, staring up at the snow. The flakes reflected from the tree lights and the gazebo, shimmering and glistening, as they fell to the ground.
“That does mean a lot to me, Blaire. I think you’ll be able to make a lot of progress during next year’s festival in having Winterberry Glen embrace the Holly Ridge festival traditions.”
It was hard to keep a straight face as Blaire whipped her head to look at me, once what I had said sunk in.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘embrace the Holly Ridge festival traditions’? There won’t be a Holly Ridge this time next year?”
“Well, that’s why I’m late. I was waiting for this to be delivered.”
I pulled the January first edition of the capital’s newspaper out of my jacket’s inside pocket and handed it to her. Blaire unfolded it slowly, and I watched her take in the headline.
“I don’t understand. You told Tanya that the money wasn’t there, even from the first week. Numbers stayed steady and increased a little bit after Tanya’s follow-up piece on the parade, but—”
I decided to put her out of her misery.
“I was talking to my mom on Christmas Eve when the wording of the call I got from Barney hit me. The numbers they were looking at were from the City Council, which means the council wasn’t just forwarding your reports to the state. I looked closely at the reports that had come from you and realized that if the state was looking at those numbers, there was no way they would have been able to make a call that early in the festival. I got the City Council’s reports from Barney and compared the spreadsheets. There was money missing in the City Council’s reports. The state had provided me with budget numbers for the past few years so I could prepare for overseeing the festival’s financials, so I dug into those reports, too. The City Council has been stealing from Holly Ridge basically since they took office. The numbers they were sending from the festival were false. They had some really good finance guys on their payroll to bury the signs, but well, I’m better, and I found their trail.”
