Page 64 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
“Mmm.” Gavin stood, pacing across the deck. His brow furrowed, and his hand rose to his chin in an expression she recognized as his “chasing down a line of thinking” look. “I’ve beenthinking…The other day, my father made an offhand comment about how the festival grounds sit empty for most of the year. ‘Washing money down the drain.’ ”
“There’s the farmer’s market during the growing months,” said Rowan. “And the summer concert series.” The summer tourism season wasn’t as dense as the winter, but there was always a steady stream of city people passing through on their way to the great outdoors.
“True,” he said, “but that’s only on the weekends, and there’s still half a year of nothing.”
Rowan got to her feet, popping a finger into her mouth and hooking a fingernail between her front teeth. This line of thinking had promise. What could they propose for the grounds? Not something too dramatic, or they’d have to take down all the permanent structures. The decor would probably have to be interchangeable, but hopefully not the basic layout.
She walked to the edge of the deck, propping her arms onto the rail and leaning against it as she mulled it over. A moment later, Gavin came to settle beside her.
“Don’t fall,” he warned, voice oddly wistful.
She played at leaning farther out, belly to the rail, and he looped his hands around her middle and pulled her back with a spin so that he could look in her eyes. Pressed chest to chest, she soaked in the feeling of his heart beating, the strength of his hands on her body.
The familiar quality of his features caught her off guard—the ridge line of his brow, the slight crook of his nose, the small scar over his lip, whose groove ended exactly where her finger expected. One could almost think she’d spent years studying that face; that it had maddeningly commanded attention across classrooms and assembly halls as she tried to break down the arithmetic of his masculine beauty.
She ran her thumb along the speckled stubble of his jaw andlifted onto her toes to press her lips to his. It was a long, savoring kiss, gentle in its exploration of the curve of lips. Tongue caressed tongue, and she slid her hands into his jacket to run them up and down his chest. His fingers explored the bottom of her sweater, traveling inside to where they caressed the bare flesh of her back.
Heat gathered in the center of her body. Every light of the world had lit up, like she was readying for a spell, but he overwhelmed her sight, and in the places where they touched, his vital lines seemed to join with hers in a seamless exchange of energy.
The longer they kissed, the more that energy mounted. And when she finally pulled away, it released.
Rowan tensed, afraid of what she might have done—what she might have once more unknowingly cast—but then a branch cracked, sending snow tumbling to the ground in a playful eddy.
It settled over a collection of small, brightly colored houses with triangular peaks arranged at the base of the old and thickest of the fir trees. Someone had carefully tended the snow to keep them from being swallowed in the drifts.
“Are those elf houses?” asked Rowan.
Gavin followed her eyes and nodded. “Grandmother Ana’s. Her parents brought them when they emigrated from Iceland.”
“Do you think she would mind if I…?” But Rowan didn’t wait for an answer. She all but leaped down the stairs, Gavin at her heels.
Falling to her knees in the snow, she peeked inside the first of the houses. The interior twinkled with discarded candy wrappers. She pulled a candy cane left from her shift at the festival out of her pocket and tucked it inside.
“I don’t know how it isn’t overflowing by now,” said Gavin with a chuckle. “Everyone wants to leave something.”
Rowan withdrew her hand from the house and turned around, opening her fingers to show him what had been inside. Empty wrappers—a collection of holidays past. There were Cadbury eggfoils and shells of gold leprechaun coins, bat-shaped Reese’s and mooncake bags stamped with lotuses.
They were all empty.
Gavin wasn’t impressed. “Grandpa Peter must eat them when she isn’t looking.”
“Or maybe…” murmured Rowan with a smile.
“Maybe little men climb out of the trees to eat cheap candy?”
Trying to pin down a thought, Rowan murmured, “It’s not the quality of the gift, it’s the giving. It’s the giving they appreciate.” She returned to her thoughts. Something tugged at the edge of her consciousness, wanting to be considered. Her mouth opened wide as the idea came into clarity. “More holidays.”
“What?” asked Gavin.
She was tingling as she said, “There are more holidays.”
“Yes…” said Gavin, slightly amused. “That’s true.”
She swiped a bit of snow off the roof of the nearest elf house and tossed it at him. “So, what if we had more festivals?”
“More holiday festivals,” he murmured, turning it over. “That’s got legs…”
She paced in front of the elf houses. “For the fall, we could go totally spooky. The Carnival of the Dead. Samhain, Día de Los Muertos, Obon…Oh! For spring, we’d kick things off with Holi…”
