Page 58 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
In fact, all her memories of a woman named Hayleigh, who worked for the Goshen Group and kissed Gavin outside the Crescent Inn, were gone. With them went any sense of caution that someone out there could unravel her delicate new happiness with nothing more than a word.
The price had been paid. The rule of three satisfied.
22
December 24
The Fourth Day of Yule
An inundation of social media links greeted Rowan on waking. Accounts for the festival now existed on all major platforms, already filled with posts and cross-posted with Naomie’s personal account. Zaide and Naomie couldn’t have slept much from the amount of content they’d already put up.
While most of the images were Naomie’s signature style, there were a few particularly well-edited videos featuring corvids that must have come from Kel. A clip of a crow snatching a full pretzel from the public house before speeding off to a snowy tree with a cackle of delight was already doing numbers.
They’d amassed a respectable number of followers for being up for less than twelve hours. While it was far from “a plan,” it was the start of something. There would be time to mull all that later. For now, she had to get ready.
For my date,she thought with a surge that was equal parts excitement and nervous terror.
In the living room, her mother and father were reading quietly by the fireplace, mugs of steaming tea sitting on the coffee table. Itwas rare to catch them in a moment of stillness. Liliana was sitting so that her feet rested in Joe’s lap, and he rubbed them idly with the hand not holding the book.
It was good to see them together. They both kept themselves busy enough that she worried they’d inevitably drift apart, but they always found their way straight back to one another. As a child, Rowan had loved hearing the story of their courtship, featuring a search through the city of Heidelberg, Germany, when Joe nearly lost his chance to ask the bewitching young woman who’d been staying at his hostel to have a drink before she left town. Instinct had guided him to her exact location, and it had been that way forever since.
Liliana made to stand as Rowan descended. “Don’t get up on my account. I’m eating out.”
“Oh,” said her mother, glancing Joe’s way, “with Zaide?” Her tone was far too innocent. Her mother had minions all over the festival grounds. Someone had probably seen Rowan leaving with Gavin. There was no sense in keeping anything from Liliana Midwinter in the town of Elk Ridge.
“No, with Gavin.” She took a deep breath, knowing her mother would not be happy about what she said next. “It’s a date. I’m going on a date with Gavin.”
“Well, that’s overdue,” said Joe with a chuckle, looking up from his book.
Rowan frowned. Had everyone thought the two of them were a couple in the making? Why had it been so obvious to everyone but the parties involved?
Well, everyone but Liliana Midwinter. She shot her husband an irritated look and then fixed her gaze back on Rowan. “He’s Dennis’s son.”
“But also Sarah’s,” countered Joe. Liliana’s look of irritation intensified.
“His mom was your best friend,” said Rowan.
“She was…” conceded Liliana. She hesitated, but then her expression firmed. “But things changed when she married Dennis.”
“Did she change?” asked Rowan.
Liliana considered the question. “No, she was always Sarah. But things got…complicated.”
“If anyone changed, it was Dennis,” said her father.
“Really?” asked Rowan.
“He acted like he had,” said her mother with a snort. “Sarah was a good influence on him. After she died, though…” Her face darkened. “Well, he went right back to being a McCreery.”
“Gavin’s more his mother than his father,” said Rowan, driven to defend him.
“You’ve spent…how long with him? Recently.”
Rowan flushed. “Not that long, I guess. But Iknow.”
Her mother’s gaze was fixed, demanding concession. “AndI knowthe McCreerys. They have always tried to run things around here, thinking they know what’s best…”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” murmured Joe, not looking up from his book.
