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I would imagine stories between them based on what they carried in their hands or whether they paid attention to others around them.
I’d always been one for details.
Once our sandwiches arrived, Mom took a bite of hers. From the lack of conversation, I could tell something was up.
I ate as well, mulling over the spicy mustard on my sandwich, but it was no use. No matter how often I glanced away—up to the dangling lights overhead, to the used road signs screwed to the walls, adding an eclectic feel to the place, or to the massive TVs blasting some sports game or another—every time I peered back, Mom was watching me.
I lowered my sandwich. “Okay, for real. What’s up?”
Using a napkin, Mom wiped her mouth. “It’s nothing really. We just haven’t talked since you got back.”
“We talked at the party,” I said.
“Yes, but not reallytalking. I mean about important stuff.”
My guard went up. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Gracie.”
“What?”
“You’re different,” Mom said, setting down her sandwich on its red basket and resting her wrist beside it. “What happened while you were in Montana? Did you meet someone?”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “Is everything about men with you?”
“Of course not. I’m just trying to figure out what’s bothering you since you won’t tell me.”
I softened at this. I’d always been fairly open with my mom, but I had closed off. It was natural for her to suspect something was up.
I’d confessed everything but the radio part of things to Steph. I hadn’t felt the need to fill Mom in.
How could I begin to tell her about the magic surrounding Harper’s Inn? About the radio’s bizarre origin story or the way it had played without a power source? Or the things that took place, thrusting Boone and me together?
Just like that. I said it just like that.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I finished. “But I swear, music was in the air during our sleigh ride, Mom. And then the snow picked up out of nowhere. And then one thing led to another, and we kissed and just opened our hearts to each other.”
Like nothing I’d ever experienced. Like nothing I’d ever experience again.
Mom’s eyes glistened, and she gave me her gentle smile. “That sounds incredibly romantic. Like, movie-worthy.”
“It was.” Just talking about it made me realize how much of my heart had been left behind. With him.
“So what’s the problem? He doesn’t want a relationship?”
“No.” The word crackled out of my throat, not unlike the sound from the radio when it had first played.
I cleared it the best that I could.
“Because of something in his past?”
I swallowed, working down the lump. “That was his excuse at first, but then he came back to the inn. He told me he thought the radio was proving he could love again. And then I told him I believed the radio was helping us to be together—and he just backed away. Like it was nothing.”
Mom frowned as she chewed, staring at the cup of Dr. Pepper in front of her. I could practically see the cogs spinning in her mind.
“Sounds like he got scared,” she said.
“Scared? Of what?”
