The December Market (Shelter Springs #2)

9

She had a million things to do. Two million, really, but instead of focusing on any of them, Amanda found herself following along behind Rafe Arredondo while he carefully went through the list of fire department safety checks.

She found it fascinating to watch him work. He was thorough, she would give him that. They went through every possible precaution the festival organizers followed, checking and double-checking everything.

She tried not to think about all the work still ahead of her to set up her own market stall. She just had to trust that Cat and Scarlet had helped out at the market enough times that they knew how to set up the display without her.

Her phone beeped with an incoming text, as it had been doing throughout the hour she had spent with Rafe. She glanced down to find a question from one of her committee members about parking.

She answered it quickly, then looked up to find Rafe watching her with an intensity in his dark eyes that unnerved her.

“We’re almost done. I’m sorry to take you away from the countless other demands on your time.”

She shook her head. “Safety is our number one priority. I appreciate your attention to detail.”

“How many people are you expecting throughout the course of the market? Do you have a way to monitor visitors inside the venue to ensure the crowd doesn’t exceed the capacity?”

“Last year we averaged about two thousand people a day. We have added four more days this year and don’t yet know if that’s going to attract more people or if our historical crowd average will be diluted by the extra days.”

“Is that why you’re staying open longer? To spread out the crowds a little?”

“One of the reasons. The market has really exploded in popularity around the region over the past few years. With that growth, we had so many more requests from vendors who wanted to have market stalls that we really had no choice but to expand outside, since we were already at capacity in the convention hall.”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s good in many ways, making it feel more like a traditional European Christmas market. We expect that our expanded footprint will allow us to better handle overflow crowds and stagger admission inside when the crowds are too heavy. I will have committee members with clickers standing at the entrances to make sure we don’t exceed the fire code capacity.”

She was grateful again for her large committee of dedicated volunteers, who worked tirelessly to make sure the holiday market went off without a hitch.

Once more, though, she had to ask why she did this to herself. Every year she promised herself she would back off from being so involved. Wouldn’t it be lovely if she could simply be another of the vendors, concerned only with setting up her own storefront instead of working behind the scenes to iron out all the details for everyone else?

Somehow, despite her best intentions, she inevitably found herself sucked back in.

For a good cause , she reminded herself as she followed Rafe around. She loved knowing a good percentage of the profits from the market went toward helping others, working together to make their community better.

She tried to focus on that as Rafe continued checking things off his list. After finishing his inspection inside, they donned coats and walked out into the starry December evening, crisp and clear and lovely.

Her breath came out in little puffs as she followed Rafe to one of several outdoor heaters.

“These are provided by a company out of Boise,” she said. “They have all already undergone extensive safety testing and we have certificates for all of them.”

“Sounds good. I would still like to see one of them in operation. Any idea how they work?” he asked. He fiddled around with the switch, a task made harder with a cast on one arm.

“Here. Let me help.”

“It’s fine. Everything just takes me a little bit longer than it would if I didn’t have this dumb thing on my arm.”

She stepped back and watched as he worked the switch and finally had the propane heater going.

In the moonlight, he looked big and tough and masculine, and Amanda was aware of a soft flutter of awareness rippling through her.

No. She didn’t want to be attracted to him. What was the point? She was the last person in town who would ever interest Rafe Arredondo, which was exactly how she liked it.

That’s what she told herself, anyway.

“How is your arm feeling?”

“Fine. It’s achy once in a while but it hasn’t been too bad. I’m just frustrated that I can’t do everything I want.”

“I can imagine that would be tough on you.”

Rafe wasn’t someone who liked to be on the sidelines. He was always in the middle of the action.

The previous summer, she had been attending an outdoor concert at the park when a young tourist sitting near her suffered an anaphylactic reaction to a hornet sting and didn’t have her EpiPen on hand. Her face had swollen and she had started wheezing.

Amanda could still vividly remember her deep relief when the paramedics pulled up, Rafe leading the charge, and rushed to help the girl. She had followed up with the family and had heard the girl suffered no ill effects from the incident and was now careful not to go anywhere without her epinephrine kit close by.

“I’m sorry about your frustration, but I’m grateful to have an experienced paramedic on hand in case of an emergency here at the market. I don’t expect you to be very busy, but there are the occasional mishaps.”

“Like what?”

“Well, three years ago, one of the kids performing with a musical group fell off the stage and got a bloody nose.”

“Something to look forward to, then,” he said, his voice so dry she had to smile.

He gazed at her for a long moment, as if he had never seen her smile before, which she knew couldn’t be true.

Something in his intense expression made her shiver.

What was that ?

She was definitely working too hard if her imagination could even contemplate the possibility that Rafe might be as attracted to her as she was to him.

“Where’s Isaac this evening?” she asked.

“He’s with my brother and his kids, since Crista and my mom are here getting her booth ready. He loves hanging out with his cousins.”

“How nice that you have a strong support network to help you with him.”

“Yeah. I would have been lost without my family, especially after Caitlin left.”

“You’re lucky.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Because my wife left me and then died four months later of a drug overdose? Lucky is not necessarily the word I would have used.”

Amanda winced at her own thoughtless words. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I should have said you’re lucky because of your family. I envy how close you all are. I have Griffin and my grandmother but that’s about it.”

As soon as she said the words, she regretted bringing up her family, the reminder of her father and all the lives he had destroyed.

“Did you say your mom was in Florida these days?” Rafe asked as they continued walking around the outdoor kiosks.

“Yes. St. Pete’s. She’s remarried and seems to be happy enough. We’re not really close, though.”

Though her parents already had been divorced at the time, her mother had left town only months after Dennis Taylor’s death and the fiery accident that had taken four innocent lives.

I can’t bear everyone staring at me, whispering about me. I lived with it for all those years while we were married and he was still alive. I can’t do it another moment. You understand, don’t you, darling?

Amanda knew the memory shouldn’t still burn, so many years later. She understood her mother’s motives in leaving Shelter Springs as soon as she could. How could she not, when she and Griffin had endured the same kind of whispers and stares. Her mother hadn’t been here for Amanda during the two darkest times of her life, after her father’s alcohol-fueled accident or after Jake’s tragic death in the avalanche that seemed to have buried her heart along with him.

“Lena can’t understand why I’ve chosen to build a life here in Shelter Springs, if you want the truth. She thinks I should have taken my business degree and worked on Wall Street or for a big bank somewhere. Barring that, she would love me to move to Florida to be closer to her.”

“Your mom grew up here, though, didn’t she? Isn’t she Birdie’s daughter?”

The women were so very different, it was sometimes hard for Amanda to remember that. “Yes. But she had never wanted to stay here in Idaho. My parents used to fight about it all the time, with her urging Dad to open a clinic somewhere more lucrative than a small family medicine practice in the middle of Nowhere, Idaho.”

“Why didn’t he?”

Amanda shrugged. “Tradition, I guess. His father had been a town doctor here. And before that, his grandmother had been a midwife to some of the early European settlers. I guess it was easier to maintain the status quo than to reach outside his comfort zone.”

She paused. “So instead, he reached for a bottle.”

His expression sharpened to one of compassion and understanding, an acknowledgment of all the pain they shared and the commonalities. They had both lived with and loved addicts. They belonged to the same unfortunate club.

“Sorry,” she said, wishing she had never taken the conversation in this direction. “I don’t know where that came from. We have enough to do without taking a pointless wander down memory lane.”

Before he could answer, a new vendor to the market, a woman from southern Idaho who was selling intricately crafted Father Christmas figures with carved faces and richly sewn robes, approached Amanda to ask a question about the vendor discount on concessions.

She shifted her attention away from Rafe to answer the question.

“Thank you,” the woman said. “I’m so excited about this event as I’ve been coming myself to shop here for years. I am thrilled you expanded and I could find a spot.”

“I hope you won’t be too cold out here.”

“The stalls are heated and I also packed plenty of warm clothes. I’ll be fine.”

“I hope you have a wonderful time. Make sure you fill out our vendor survey. We’re always trying to improve.”

After bidding the woman farewell, she and Rafe continued with the inspection. Amanda managed to refrain from spilling any more embarrassing personal insights while Rafe finished going through his safety checklist.

Finally, after he seemed to have examined every single exit, outlet, power cable and heating source inside and out, they returned to the convention hall, where he signed the safety certificate and handed it to her.

“There you are. You should be good to go.”

“Whew. That’s a relief. I would hate to have to tell all these people the market is canceled and we have to shut it down on your say-so.”

He smiled down at her and Amanda again felt that little shiver of awareness.

“We can’t have that. Where would all the people in Shelter Springs go to hear ‘Jingle Bells’ a hundred times a day?”

“Maybe not a hundred times a day. I would guess forty or fifty, at the max.”

He was still laughing when Natalie Shepherd walked around a row of stalls. She seemed to stop short when she spotted them.

“Oh. Hi, Amanda. Rafe.”

“Hey, Nat,” he said with a friendly nod.

“I was just looking for Amanda. We have a little problem at the Shelter Inn kiosk. When you two are finished, would you mind stopping by?”

“We are done here,” Rafe said. “Thanks for being patient with the safety inspection.”

“Not a problem,” she lied.

She couldn’t tell him it was a big problem—and not only because of all the demands on her time right now. Because of him. Because she was becoming entirely too drawn to him.

She was a grown woman who had no business indulging this ridiculous crush.

For one thing, she couldn’t spare the time. For another, what was the point, when any relationship between them beyond this tentative friendship was completely impossible?

She would simply have to do her best to ignore her reaction. Eventually it would probably go away, right?

“So. Rafe Arredondo?” Natalie said after he walked away, angling an eyebrow.

“What about him?” Amanda asked in a voice she hoped sounded casual.

Nat studied her for a long time. “I don’t know. You just look good together, somehow. Rafe is a great guy. I’ve always thought so. I might have had a little crush on him when we were in school.”

“Did you? Is there something I need to talk to my brother about?”

Nat laughed. “Not at all. Griffin has absolutely nothing to worry about and he knows it. He’s my person. End of story. I was thinking Rafe would be great for you.”

“Don’t let your imagination get away from you. We were only having a safety inspection. That’s all. He will be helping out at the first aid station here during the market and we were going through a checklist from the fire chief to make sure we’re following all the correct protocols. Nothing exciting at all.”

“Too bad,” Natalie said with a grin.

“Now, what is the problem at the Shelter Inn kiosk?”

“Nothing major. There are a couple of lightbulbs missing and they’re wondering where they go to find more.”

“That should be easy enough to fix. I’ll come take a look.”

She followed her friend, wishing every problem she had to face as the holiday market coordinator—or in life—was as simple to address.