Page 48 of A Conflict of Interest

“And there’s what?”

I looked away. “Nothing… forget about it.”

“No. Tell me or I’ll… make you.”

“That’s ominous.” I took a shaky breath. “Uh, well, I just thought… I could take a picture now—not necessarily of you, or anything, of course, because you’ve already told me clearly what your boundaries are and I could just take one of the board or something to commemorate this—”

“You should take a picture of us,” she said, and I lost my train of thought, driving off a cliff to a brilliant explosion somewhere far down below.

“I should… what?”

“Take a picture of us.” She wiped tears from her eyes, her mascara smudging, and she smiled through it. “You’re right. Just because things happened before doesn’t mean we can’t start again now.”

That felt… loaded. Was I just reading into things too much? Probably. I could forgive myself. “All right… do you suppose we should clean up our faces a little first?”

“Mm. Maybe. From all the rosemary in your eyes. No, actually, just take one like this. Better to capture the moment honestly, isn’t it?”

Well, this was going to be a flattering shot. But somehow I kinda like it better this way. Just… being a mess together with Kelcey Huntington.

God, I liked her a lot, though.

I held my phone out, the selfie camera on, and Kelcey leaned into my side to get in the shot, and my heart stuttered a little at the sight of us in the camera—me and Kelcey Huntington, side-by-side in her apartment. And it wasme.Myface looking back at me.I,Veronica Preston, despite everything, had gotten Kelcey Huntington doing this.

Damn. If I was discovering that even I was redeemable, I was going to need a minute with that one.

I snapped a picture, and Kelcey smiled sweetly through tear-dampened eyes, and she said, “There. Now they’re not all deleted.”

“They’re not. Yeah.” I looked at the picture. “I kinda pulled a weird face.”

“You look pretty.”

Oh, god, she said I was pretty. Or at least that Ilookedpretty. Maybe I looked that way because of a trick of the light. Who knows? I’d still take it. “Thanks,” I laughed, putting the phone away. “And thanks for… you know. Letting me do that.”

“Of course,” she said, puppy-dog eyes the whole way. “I didn’t mean for you to get rid of everything…”

“I’ll see if there’s a way to restore them. I’m sure there must be. People probably accidentally hit delete on photos all the time. Well…” I stood up, and I summoned all the courage everyone in the world had ever had, collectively, and I said, “Do you want to get in that Christmas shopping? A little bookstore trip could be nice.”

She smiled sweetly, and she didn’t even hesitate, rising with me and nodding. “Absolutely. And I need to buy something for myself, too. Or, like, ten things for myself.”

I couldn’t judge her. That sounded like a good idea.

We cleaned up our faces—from all the rosemary, of course—and we headed out the door to where I insisted on driving even though Kelcey absolutely had the nicer car, and it wasn’t too long before we were pushing out of drifting snowflakes and into the bookstore. It was true that I’d never been the biggest reader—that had been Anna between me and her—but seeing theway Kelcey’s face lit up walking into the cozy stacks of the shop, suddenly books were my favorite things in the world.

Of course, the Christmas decorations stacked everywhere were also part of the reason she lit up. And that was exactly why Christmas decorations were my favorites now too.

We went around the shop to get the perfect book picked out for her dad, and then one for her aunt too, and a cute one for her baby cousin, and then we got into the real stuff—shopping for her. It was as much about the shopping experience as it was about the new book for her, I knew, so I held onto the ones she’d picked out and followed along nodding and weighing in on everything just like she did, even though I wasn’t here for a book myself.

And of course, I only got a few knots in my chest when I came around a corner from where I’d stopped to look at the blurb on one book and found her looking at the back of a romance novel, one that listed proudly,second chance,and I tried not to think about what it meant if she was occupied thinking about second-chance romances…

“That one looks cute,” I said, and she jolted, looking back at where I was reading over her shoulder.

“Ah, creeping ghost monster. I banish you,” she said, whacking me lightly on the shoulder with the book.

“Not a silvered book. Doesn’t work.”

“Damn,” she laughed, clutching the book closer to her chest. “I might grab this one.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Especially since I didn’t know if she knew I’d read the blurb and…

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