The December Market (Shelter Springs #2)

10

Amanda tried to hide a yawn as she walked into the convention center the next morning, juggling her coffee and her messenger bag.

It was already midmorning and she had been working at her downtown shop location since before dawn. She suspected she was in for a very long day, working to iron out all the first-day logistical problems of opening the market.

She had scheduled extra staff to work at her market stall all day, mainly because she knew she would be too busy putting out fires as chairperson of the committee to spend much time at her own storefront.

With all she would likely have to deal with, she wished she felt at the top of her game. She hadn’t slept much the night before, her mind buzzing and her eventual dreams tangled. She had finally awakened an hour before her alarm clock and had decided to head into The Lucky Goat for a few hours.

While she wanted to tell herself opening-day jitters were to blame for her insomnia, she suspected her sleeplessness might have more to do with a certain assistant fire chief with a crooked smile and a cast on his arm.

When she walked inside the large hall hosting the market, she found the hectic chaos of the evening before had eased. A few vendors were still setting out products to display but many stalls were shuttered, locked up until closer to their official opening time, in two hours.

Amanda turned to head to her stall when she spotted a huge ladder coming toward her, carried by none other than Rafe Arredondo, as if he had stepped right out of her dreams.

She stopped in her tracks. “Excuse me. What does the first aid station need with a giant ladder?”

He looked up from his task and for an instant, she thought his features lit up, then he shrugged. “I came in early to make sure everything was ready and to add a few more first aid supplies I thought we might need. That took less time than I expected so I was looking for something to do and remembered an issue I noticed yesterday when we were doing the inspection.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“The big hot cocoa mug on the sign above the food vendors looked a little loose. I would hate for it to fall on somebody. Wouldn’t that be a lousy start to the market?”

She could only agree. That would be a nightmare. So would watching Rafe fall again , she thought as she watched him set up the ladder underneath the wooden sign. “No offense, but are you supposed to be up on a ladder?”

He glanced at her with surprise. “Sure. Why not?”

“I mean, your track record on ladders isn’t all that great right now.”

“A guy falls off one lousy ladder and has to hear about it for the rest of his life.”

“Hardly the rest of your life. It only happened a week ago,” she pointed out. “Also, you still have the cast on your arm from the last time.”

“I’m fine. This will only take a minute.”

She could tell by the stubborn jut of his jaw that she wouldn’t be able to dissuade him, and she couldn’t think of any way to keep him off the ladder. With a resigned sigh, she set down her messenger bag and her coffee on one of the small round café tables set up near the hot cocoa stand.

“I can at least stabilize the ladder for you.”

“It’s not necessary. I’m sure you have a million other things to do right now.”

“I do,” she answered tartly. “My to-do list absolutely does not include having to scrape our first aid paramedic off the ground when the ladder topples and he falls over.”

His mouth worked as if he wanted to smile but he finally shrugged and began scaling the ladder. She tried not to pay attention to the ripple of muscle in his shoulder and along his back as he moved up the rungs, using only one arm. She noticed a screwdriver and hammer in one of the side pockets of his navy blue cargo pants.

The sign was hanging a little off-center, she noticed. She was surprised she had not seen it the day before or that he had not pointed it out to her during the inspection.

When he reached nearly the top of the ladder, he pulled out the screwdriver and, bracing his weight against the cap of the ladder, he extended both arms up to the sign, holding it in place with his cast while he worked the screwdriver with the other hand.

She held her breath, remembering again that horrible moment when she had seen him topple off the roof across the street.

“How does that look from down there?” he called.

She had a hard time focusing on anything else except him, but she did her best. “Better, I think. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m heading down.”

He put the screwdriver back in his pocket and began lowering himself down the ladder, again using only one arm. She didn’t think she took a true breath until his boots hit the ground again.

“Mission accomplished,” he said looking up at the sign, now perfectly aligned.

“Good job,” she said as he folded the ladder again. “I can put that away for you.”

“I’ve got it.”

She shook her head. “You are a stubborn man, Rafe.”

He gave her a smile that made her feel a little lightheaded, much to her chagrin. “So I’ve heard. My abuela used to say I’m more stubborn than a mule en un puente. On a bridge. Don’t ask me why mules are more stubborn on bridges than in, say, the middle of the road. I have no idea. Over the years, I’ve learned to own it.”

She smiled in response, charmed to hear about his relationship with his grandmother. He must miss Rosita terribly. How would she cope when it was finally time to say goodbye to Birdie? She didn’t like even thinking about it.

“Guess what? I’m stubborn, too. If you won’t let me put the ladder away for you, I can at least help you do it.”

He gave her a long look, then apparently recognized she wasn’t about to budge. “Okay. We can do it together.”

Leaving her coffee and her bag for now, she grabbed one end of the ladder. He moved forward to the other end, and together they made their way through the aisles between booths toward the utility room outside the main convention hall, where Amanda knew from previous years that miscellaneous tools were stored.

The room smelled of lemon and pine from the various cleaning products stored on shelves. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, reminding her of visiting her father’s medical clinic.

“Thank you again for fixing the sign,” she said after they had stored the ladder in its designated spot. “I appreciate you being so conscientious, especially when I’m sure you are not particularly thrilled about having to spend the next two weeks working at our first aid station.”

“At least I’m not stuck at home, being bored senseless.”

She smiled. “Don’t take this wrong but I really hope you’re bored senseless here. With any luck, things will be quiet the entire two weeks of the market, with nothing more exciting than a paper cut.”

“I’m fine with that possibility. I brought a book for the slow moments.”

She wanted to ask what he was reading but she reminded herself she didn’t really have time for small talk, any more than she had time to be holding a ladder for him.

She didn’t need to know his reading tastes. Unfortunately, she was far too curious about the man.

“What about you?” he asked, before she could pursue the topic. “Will you be spending the next two weeks here or do you alternate between the market and your shop in town?”

“The second one. I already spent a few hours there this morning. I basically have to stick around here during all the hours we’re open, at least for the first few days. Until we manage to work out all the kinks. After that, I’ll leave things to my committee and divide my time between my Lucky Goat kiosk here and my store downtown.”

“It must be busy at both locations. I imagine not everyone wants to come to the market to do their shopping. You can’t close down your other store.”

She shook her head. “But I have good employees, who are perfectly capable of taking over when I’m not there. While the market is on, I typically go into the store first thing in the morning to take care of a lot of my administrative tasks. Payroll, scheduling, that sort of thing. I come here in the afternoons and usually stay until close.”

“That makes for a long day.”

She had never really minded the long hours, mostly because she didn’t have all that much to go home to except her cats.

Why that thought should depress her so much right now, she put down to being tired. She was happy with her life. She loved living at Rose Cottage, spending time with her friends and her grandmother, helping the community she loved.

“I don’t mind. It’s only for a limited time. I couldn’t keep up that frenetic pace indefinitely, but when I know it will only last for two weeks, I can handle it. Last year, I ended up with Covid and was stuck at home for nearly a week, unable to help here or at the store. My poor employees had to pick up the slack for me.”

“When you work at a breakneck pace, that kind of thing is inevitable, especially if you don’t take care of yourself. It will always catch up with you. Eventually your body will step in to force you into taking a break.”

If he would stop interfering with her sleep patterns, she might be able to get enough rest, she thought wryly. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that.

“Interesting advice coming from a man with a broken arm who refuses to take a day off even when he has a perfectly legitimate excuse.”

He laughed, a low ripple of sound that made her suddenly aware they still stood in the small utility closet.

He had a delicious laugh. It eased the austere planes of his face and made him appear younger and more relaxed.

He smelled of laundry soap, sharp and clean, and some kind of masculine soap that reminded her of summer evenings in the mountains.

She couldn’t seem to stop staring at his mouth, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, as she suddenly realized she must have during those restless dreams during the night.

She caught her own thoughts. Good grief. What was wrong with her? She was acting as if she were back in junior high, with a silly crush on a star athlete.

Annoyed with herself, she wrenched her gaze from his mouth to meet his own gaze, which suddenly seemed to flash with a heat she didn’t think had been there before.

“I should...” She gestured a little vaguely toward the door and the market and all the demands on her time.

“Right. Same here. We wouldn’t want to miss the opening jingle bell.”

“We don’t open the market with a jingle bell, though that’s not a bad idea. I’ll make a note for next year.”

They parted ways as they walked into the convention hall. Only after she retrieved her now-cold coffee and her messenger bag and headed toward The Lucky Goat kiosk did Amanda suddenly realize that her storefront was located just across the way and down a few stalls from the small room along the exterior of the hall used as the first aid station.

Why hadn’t she noticed that before now? If she hadn’t been so busy troubleshooting everyone else’s problems the day before, she would have been able to foresee the dilemma she had just presented to herself.

When Rafe was at the first aid station and she was at her storefront, they had a clear line of sight to each other. She would not be able to avoid him. If she had thought about it, she could have rearranged the layout as soon as she learned he would be working at the market. She easily could have traded spots with another store before everyone started to set up, coming up with some good excuse for moving her kiosk somewhere else.

Like at the far end of the market, where she wouldn’t have to bump into her inconvenient crush constantly.

She could handle it, she told herself. She would simply have to remind herself a few dozen times a day of all the reasons they could never be together.

No problem at all.