Page 40 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

She shakes a little, and I think she might be crying, but then she pulls away in a fit of giggles. “Are you thinking about punching somebody?”

“No.”

She lifts my arm, where my hand is in a tight fist. “So, what’s this then?”

I shake my fingers loose. “Nothing.”

She laughs again. “I love you, Zachery Carter.”

My brain stutters on her words, wanting to interpret them another way, a real way. But I know better. This is Kelsey being demonstrative, full of hyperbole.

I make a typical remark for me. “You and half the women in America. Get in line.”

This gets another giggle.

She scoots back on the bed to sit cross-legged. “So, why are you here?”

Right, that.

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“Zach!”

I rehearsed several answers to this in the car. It might take every ounce of my acting training to convince Kelsey, though.

“Jester and I discussed your trip this morning and got concerned about you. I volunteered as tribute.”

Her gaze takes in every point of my face as if assessing it for authenticity. “You and Jester, huh?”

“He was trying to repair your Charlie Brown mug.”

“Right.” She sighs. “This week did not have an auspicious beginning.”

“But you pulled the Two of Cups.”

This gets a genuine smile out of her. “You remember!”

This is exactly the distraction we need. “Let’s pull another one. A message from the universe about what’s next after those blowhards.”

“That’s a great idea!” She rolls over to reach into a pink duffel bag, flashing a long, bare leg. I force myself to look away. It’s when Kelsey is at her most vulnerable that I find it most difficult to resist her.

She extracts a different box from before. It’s a metal tin and has drawings of colorful bears on it.

“What’s this?”

“My Gummy Bear Tarot. It’s more lighthearted than the other one.” She pulls the deck out of the tin. “I think you should pull the card.”

“Will it be accurate then? I might be a nonbeliever.” My eyes follow the quick movements of her hands as she rearranges the deck.

“The magic works. Even if you do an online pull.” She stops shuffling and spreads the deck across the bed in a fan. “Because the magic is in you. It’s like dreams. They mean whatever you think they mean. It’s your subconscious you’re tapping. It doesn’t have to be mystical. It’s more about our feelings.”

“Okay.” I consider the cards. One is sticking out slightly above the others, so I take it.

“Flip it over,” she says.

Two gummy bears look like they might be in the Garden of Eden. Above them is a godlike bear on a cloud. The words “The Lovers” are printed at the bottom.

“That’s on the nose,” I say.

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