Page 44 of Merry Mended Hearts

The idea of her meeting someone else twisted inside of me with more grip than I anticipated. I couldn’t figure out why.

She should go home. She should be with someone else—though I couldn’t help but notice the fact that she didn’t seem all that happy about meeting whoever this other guy was.

I voiced my excuses.

“I have two rides scheduled for today. Hazelnut will be pretty tuckered out by then.”

Hazelnut wasn’t the inn’s horse like some of the others. She belonged to me, and she was my ride home since Junie didn’t like me taking the snowmobile back and forth to work.

I didn’t want to wear too much on the mare, and she was my favorite to take on sleigh rides because she was so reliable. She and I made a good team.

“I have to leave at five a.m. tomorrow if I want to make this flight I just rescheduled,” she said. “I know I’m asking a lot, but please? We won’t have to go far. But I don’t want to go home without taking in as much of the scenery as I can. The scenery is why I came in the first place.”

She added a hopeless smile to that statement as though leaving wasn’t what she wanted at all.

I rubbed my chin. The bit about Hazelnut was a stretch, if I were being honest. The horse would be fine with one more ride.

I could practically hear Junie screaming at me from her position as my boss rather than just my cousin. We needed to maintain a good reputation with our customers at the inn, and many people traveled here just for the scenery and the sleigh rides.

Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. I usually took Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, so even if Grace were staying, after the few rides I had to tack on, I wouldn’t be around to drive her the next day as it was.

Hazelnut would be up for a jaunt before taking me back to my cottage.

“All right,” I said, splitting like a baked potato. “I can make an exception for you. Hazelnut should have one more ride in her.”

Grace’s blue eyes lit up like a fireworks display, and it stole my breath just as if I were standing beneath a glittering explosion in the sky.

“Thank you! What time should I plan on?”

I glanced at the clock on my phone. “I should be getting back with the last party around three. Then, since it’s just the two of us, I’ve got to get her harnessed back up again to the smaller rig this time.”

I gestured past the cherry red sleigh with three rows for passengers to the smaller, white single-seater.

“How does three-thirty sound?”

Her smile stretched, and I mentally shook myself. She had amazing teeth, and her face was even prettier when she smiled. Amy had been pretty, too, but Grace was lovely in her own way.

And…judging by the way she stared at me and lifted her brows, I realized she’d said something.

And I completely missed it.

“Sorry?” I said.

Her smile slipped. “I said that will be great.”

I gave an abrupt nod. ‘Okay, then.”

“And Boone?”

She took a tentative step closer. Just one step.

“Thank you. I know you don’t like me much, but this means a lot to me.”

She pressed her lips into a contrite but grateful expression and whirled away before I could say anything else.

Breathing became a foreign concept. She thought I didn’t like her?

I had given her that impression. And I had an impulsive desire to change her opinion.

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