Page 51 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
“Are you calling me short?”
“You are you-height, which is too short to see over crowds. But I’m sure it’s perfect for other things.”
A day ago, she might’ve searched his words for double meaning or bandied back more banter. Instead, she simply gave him a rundown of what the girls’ parents had looked like.
“No,” said the little girl, lip stuck out, shaking her head. She tugged at Rowan’s hand in consternation. “My mommy’s jacket is dark blue, and Daddy was wearing agrayhat.”
“Well, you were certainly told,” said Gavin with a half smile.
Rowan ignored him completely. “You’re really observant,” she said to Iris.
“My teacher says I never miss anything.”
“Guess we’d better be on our best behavior, then,” said Gavin, chuckling and looking Rowan’s way, but she once again left him hanging.
Confusion passed over his face as he finally realized he was being ignored. She wanted to shout that he should know damn well why she wasn’t in the mood, but there was a child present, and revelers reveling, so they moved on in awkward silence as she shook weariness out of her bones and banished tears that pricked the corners of her eyes.
Their search through the rides yielded no parents, and the little girl’s lip quivered. Gavin glanced between her and the giant wheel of spinning snowflakes overhead.
“Hey,” he said, leaning down, “have you been on the Ferris wheel yet?”
Iris looked up and shook her head. “We were gonna go, but…”
“We could get on and see if we can see them from high up.” Gavin glanced Rowan’s way, and she hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “You can see the whole festival from up there.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. “Yes, please!”
Cal was back in his place at the Ferris wheel, and after a quick rundown of the situation, he let them into the next open snowflake car. The Ferris wheel swept into motion with a delicious lurch of adrenaline.
To Rowan’s great relief, Iris had taken the middle, situating herself between Rowan and Gavin like a pint-sized period-novel chaperone. The thought that they might have ended up mashed together, leg to leg, arm to arm, close enough to smell whether he’d shaved that morning, threatened to spin her thoughts back away from the task at hand.
As their car hit the crest of the wheel, the whole festival opened up before them, and then Elk Ridge beyond, and finally the darkening silhouette of the mountains as dusk deepened to claim the world for the night. From that perspective, it was easier to seeit for what it truly was—not a summation of individual parts but an interconnected whole.
It took her breath away, and she knew in that moment she would never submit to defeat, no matter what cheeky cards had to say about it.
There were only eight days left, though. Eight days to figure out how to one-up a corporate entity with enough money and power to open its mouth wide and swallow their community whole.
A tingle along the top of her shoulders alerted her to the fact that she was being watched. She glanced to the side and caught Gavin staring, decoding every messy emotion her cheeks couldn’t hide. But if she feared judgment, she didn’t find it, only compassion in his warm, dark eyes. Her traitorous heart slammed against her rib cage, desperate to find meaning in the moment.
And then, for only a moment, it seemed like she was looking at a much younger Gavin—seated in that exact position in this exact Ferris wheel, eyes clearly trying to understand what they saw when they looked in her direction.
Whatever she’d been trying to hide from him then, she had failed equally to keep it inside. He rode out her resistance until she had no choice but to open wide.
It almost seemed like a memory, but that was impossible—surely they had never ridden a Ferris wheel together. “Hey! There they are!” Iris’s voice came out in a screech, reminding Rowan that they were far from alone. She traced the girl’s finger down to where two figures were frantically searching the crowd. The little girl wiggled in her seat, shouting, “Mom! Dad!”
Gavin leaned over the edge of the ride, hands on either side of his mouth as he shouted, “Up here!”
But though they shouted, their voices were lost in the festive din. By the time the Ferris wheel came to a natural stop, Iris’s parents would have moved on. Gavin shifted tactics, trying to get Cal Arthur’s attention—to convince him to stop the ride prematurely.
They couldn’t trust it to happen in time, and Rowan knew what she needed to do. She inhaled deeply and reached for cords of magic. She fixed her gaze on the couple below, willing them to look up and notice the little girl dancing in the snowflake seat, waving her arms.
Softly so as not to draw attention, she murmured, “All eyes over here, all eyes on me. As I do will it, so mote it be.”
A Spell to Draw Attention.
For a single drawn-out moment, she thought it might not work, but in the next instant,everyonewas looking at her—not simply the girl’s parents but the entire crowd at the base of the Ferris wheel. And Iris.
And Gavin.
