Page 19 of The Thief Who Saved Christmas

All of the spreadsheets for the B&B, too.

My spreadsheet of Christmas presents is on there, for goodness’ sake. It feels like a violation. My heart screams that itisone.

Weston glances up with a slight smile on his lips. “Shutting down your laptop,” he says. “We’re going to be gone for a while. You don’t have anyone checking in today, do you?” His gaze shifts up the stairs, his mouth firming. “That guy must have taken the last room.”

“I don’t,” I admit, “but you should have asked.” Everything inside of me is screaming red alert. Weston knows I don’t like people using my laptop, scrolling through my documents. It’s hard not to wonder if he did it on purpose. Maybe as revenge for borrowing Ryan’s sweater.

“Sorry, Belle,” he says as he gets up and puts an arm around my shoulders. My gut reaction is to shrug him off, but that’s not what a normal girlfriend would do. “But you need a real break. You’ve been working too hard. I’ve barely seen you for weeks.”

A sliver of guilt slips into my heart. He’s right. I haven’t made time for him. I’ve been completely focused on taking over the inn and meeting the Christmas rush for It’s Christmas Again. Everything else has slipped away.Again. I wish I had the ability to focus on more than one thing at a time, to pause and reflect and then resume, but my brain has always been monomaniacal.

And there’s another reason I’ve pulled away…

My grandmother didn’t like Weston.

She thought he belittled me and treated me like a child because of my differences, and now that she’s gone, it’s all I can see whenever I’m with him.

You know you’re not good at this.

This is too hard, Belle. Let me do what I do best, while you do what you do best.

Maybe he’s right, and I can’t successfully run the B&B. Certainly, I’m not naturally suited for customer service work. Talking to strangers exhausts me. But I love this place more than any other place on earth, and the thought of handing it off to someone else makes me want to weep.

It would be like reliving the horror of losing Grandma Edith.

“Let’s go,” Weston says, shuttling me toward the door. I feel like I’m a Band-Aid he’s pulling off someone’s knee. But I go with him, because he’s familiar, he’s stood by me, and because I don’t know what else to do. I can feel emotions stirring deep inside of me, but I can’t identify them yet.

Just before we walk out the door, Weston turns to me with a huge grin on his face. “Are you ready for an adventure?”

No, absolutely not.What I’d like to do, if I’m being honest with myself, is go inside and slip on the cozy borrowed sweater and work on my Franken-Santa.

But I force a smile and say, “Yes, of course.”

He opens the door with a flourish and practically pushes me outside.

A horse-drawn carriage has pulled up outside of my bed and breakfast. The attendant is standing beside it, wearing a red overcoat, breeches, and a black tri-cornered hat.

“We’re going on a carriage ride,” Weston announces with an expectant grin.

I can’t think straight. The carriages pass the B&B several times of day, but they only ever stop here to pick up guests, never me. Ilovethe horses—they’re adorable and majestic—which I guess I must have mentioned to Weston at some point. But it’s always seemed cruel to me that their lot in life is to walk back and forth down the same cobbled road with blinders on. It feels like torment.

I’d like to sayno, thank you,or maybeI’d rather not, but those don’t seem like options anymore now that he’s gone and done it. The carriage rides are expensive.

The next thing I know I’m being helped into the painted wooden carriage by the attendant. As soon as we’re seated on the bench, Weston grabs a gray blanket from beneath the seat and spreads it over my lap. It’s scratchy, but I’m too stunned to push it off. Especially when he unearths a thermos.

“Hot chocolate,” he says, and even though reading people isn’t my specialty, I can tell he feels wounded. Maybe he’s even hoping for an apology, but I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for drinking a cup of hot chocolate with Ryan—or to pretend I do and apologize for it.

“No, thanks,” I say, feeling annoyed. Angry. “As you pointed out, I already had some.”

He tucks the thermos away, watching me as if he’s expecting something he’s not getting, and if he stares at me for long enough, I might give it to him.

The poor horses begin walking, clopping down the same route they can literally retrace with their eyes shut—since they can’t see a thing—and the cart moves in a discordant rhythm over the cobbles. There are plenty of people out on the street—tourists dressed in heavy coats and hats, plus people who work here, some in colonial costume, some not, and college students. The air smells crisp with an earthy undertone that suggests our horses, or their equine friends, have deposited manure along the way.

“Isn’t this romantic?” Weston asks, his blue-eyed gaze digging into me. Again, there’s an edge of aggression to what he’s saying, as if he’s daring me to disagree with him.

He must resent the distance I’ve put between us. I can count on one hand the number of dates we’ve been on this past month. And I’ve barely even kissed him since the funeral.

“I’m sorry I’ve been preoccupied,” I say, trying to meet his eyes.

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