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“Who’s seen it?”
“Nobody.” He held my gaze. “Yet.”
I stood up. I straightened a shelf of glass icicles that did not need straightening, and then I made myself put my hands down at my sides, because I have a rule against tidying when I’m frightened. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The reason I can’t wait a year and let it ride.” He worried the edge of the tape with his thumb. “I was four hundred thousand short in September. My money was tied up in the Portland jobs, and the sale of my apartment fell through the Friday before the block purchase closed. Meridian loaned me the difference and put a claim on all six parcels. If I don’t begin the approved structural work by January fifteenth, Meridian can buy the block at my cost. If I accept a legitimate offer from someone else first, Meridian gets the right to match it. Either way, I still owe the loan. That’s paragraph nine.”
The icicles clicked against each other where I’d nudged them.
“You’re telling me a man in San Francisco can buy Main Street in January.”
“I’m telling you a man in San Francisco is waiting to buy it. He’s patient, and he’s not wrong about the arithmetic.” Griffin looked out the window as the snow thickened. “I’d like to tell you the festival matters because I care about this town. That’s about sixty percent true.”
“And the other forty?”
“Is standing in your store telling you it might have to go dark.”
My timer went off in my pocket at eleven. The world had arrived on schedule.
“I have to relieve Jenna,” I said.
He stood. At the door, he stopped with the white bandage pressed to the frame and didn’t turn around. “I’m not going to file the assessment this week,” he said. “I want you to know that’s a choice and not an oversight.”
“That’s the single least comforting thing anyone has ever said to me in this building.”
“I know.” He went out into the snow.
Less than two minutes after Griffin left, Pearl came through my front door carrying a stack of pastry boxes. Her timing made it obvious she had watched him cross to the empty storefront from the bakery window.
“He’s canceling the demolitions,” I said, before she could start. “Three buildings. Renovation instead.”
The teasing dropped off her face. “He’s doing what?”
“Changing the whole phase two timeline.”
“And you believe him?”
I thought about the ladder, Frank’s coffee traveling eleven feet up cold aluminum, and Griffin telling me I didn’t have to thank him. Gratitude made him more uncomfortable than anger did.
“I’m starting to.”
Pearl set the boxes down and pulled me into a hug, which was surprising, because Pearl is not a hugger before coffee. “Well,” she said into my shoulder. “Damn.”
“That’s it? That’s the whole speech?”
“You want a speech, go see Colette.” She let go and picked up her boxes. “Your hands are shaking, honey. Go take your register back.”
I didn’t tell her the rest. Anything said aloud on this street became common knowledge by lunch, and I wanted one more hour before everyone knew Winters Wonderland might have to close for five weeks.
Jenna handed me the register key and left. I stood in the open doorway with the key digging into my palm.
The shop would be dark for five weeks, from January into February, with paper over the glass. The Christmas rush would be over, but the supplier bills I’d incurred stocking for it would not be.
I turned the music box back on because the shop was open and I needed something to sound cheerful. The same bright notes began again. Outside, snow fell over Main Street. As of eleven that morning, I had two problems I could not argue my way out of. One was under my floor. The other was six feet two, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a bandage I had kissed like an idiot.
CHAPTER 6
GRIFFIN
