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NOELLE

"Your sign says you need a gift wrapper."

I say it from the doorway of the toy shop on Prospect Street, with the bell over the door still jangling behind me. The man at the counter stops moving.

He's halfway through lifting a crate of wooden trains, and he just holds it there. He's tall enough that the garland strung over the register brushes the top of his head, with flannel sleeves shoved to the elbows and forearms that look used to crates. Dark hair. A dark beard trimmed close along his jaw.

He looks at me long enough that I check over my shoulder.

Nobody's there. Prospect Street, the main drag through Copper Peak, sits under a fresh inch of snow, with the ski runs white on the mountain above the rooftops. Across the way, the shops are flicking their lights on one by one.

"Your sign," I say again. "In the window. Bottom corner."

He sets the crate down on the counter. He walks to the front window, reaches past a tower of wrapped boxes in the corner of the display, and slides the sign out from beside the little train track. HELP WANTED: GIFT WRAPPER, hand-lettered in black marker. He folds it in half and tucks it in his back pocket.

"You're hired," he says.

"You haven't asked me anything."

"Can you tie a bow?"

"Yes."

"Then you're hired."

My stomach does a slow turn I don't have time for. I keep my hands in my coat pockets. It's easier to talk to a stranger with my hands hidden, and my mittens are balled up in there, still damp from the walk up the hill.

"When can you start?" he asks.

"Now. But I'm not staying." I say it quickly, the same line I give every new boss and every new roommate, before anyone can get attached to me. "I have a bus to Denver Tuesday morning."

Three days of wrapping won't add up to much. It might add up to the deposit on a room in Denver, and the room goes to somebody else if I show up without it.

"Then I've got you through Monday."

"You'd hire somebody for three days?"

"I'd hire you for three days." He comes back around the counter and stops a few feet from me, close enough that I have to tip my chin up. A thin silver chain catches the light at his open collar. "Monday night's the window walk. Every shop on Prospect stays open late, and the whole town walks the windows. I'll need someone on the wrap counter until close."

"And after close?"

"After close, you'll want to see the windows."

"I've seen windows."

Something tugs at the corner of his mouth. It doesn't make it all the way to a smile. "Not this one." He holds out a hand. "Arch."

I pull my hand out of my pocket and give it to him. His palm is warm and rough, and the warmth goes straight up my wrist and settles somewhere under my ribs that has no business noticing a handshake.

"Noelle," I say.

He doesn't let go right away, and his lips twitch. He's definitely fighting a smile.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."