Page 20 of The Thief Who Saved Christmas

He stares back at me for a long moment and then says, “You’re forgiven.”

Silence falls between us as the carriage clops along. What am I supposed to do? Glance out the window? Hold Weston’s hand and look into his eyes? The thought makes me squeamish, and I find myself remembering the way he looked at me earlier, when I was wearing Ryan’s sweater—as if I were a mess he had to clean up. It’s a look I’ve gotten from him before.

And then the sight of him at my computer…

I feel jumbled up inside, and with so many sensations overlapping—the chill air, the scratchy blanket against my leg, Weston’s heat beside me but not around me, and the horses huffing air in steamy breaths—it’s hard for me to stop and untangle myself. Most of the time I can manage it, but it’s a practice that requires either quiet or crafting. Because my brain is most at peace when it’s doing something it loves.

Weston is still looking at me, and it occurs to me that I should probably say something. Am I supposed to be making small talk? Asking about his work?

We’ve fallen out of rhythm with each other. I used to be able to read his silences better, and he used to act like he cared about my preferences.

I squirm against the bench, my gaze flitting out the front window to see the poor horses as they continue on their thankless journey.

“You should have used the bathroom before we left the inn,” Weston says, his tone that of a parent speaking to a child.

“I don’t have to.”

My response sounds more hostile than I’d intended, and he angles his head sharply and gives me a disapproving look. Heprobably has something he’d like to say, but the carriage comes to a stop.

Apparently it was intentional, not because of a carriage traffic jam, because the driver comes around to the back with an eager smile on his face and helps Weston down first and then me.

We’re in front of the governor’s mansion.

Weston thanks the man and hands him some cash before hustling me toward the square. Then, to my shock, he lets me go and hurries forward, taking the bell from a waiting town crier.

An uncomfortable feeling of impending doom takes hold of me as he rings the bell with a hideous clang. Tourists passing by pause in their tracks, and several people start to cluster around Weston. A trumpeter with a red-tasseled trumpet steps forward and starts playing the wedding march, the sound making my ears ring and my whole body shudder in horror even as I’m frozen in place, incapable of movement.

Weston looks handsome, standing there with that bell, his blond hair tousled by the wind and his cheeks pink from the cold. His ice-blue eyes are on me as he calls out, “Hear ye, hear ye!” at the top of his lungs.

More people gather around, drawn by the fuss, and I feel myself shrinking within my coat. Maybe if I shrink fast enough I can miss the scene he’s creating.

Still speaking loudly, Weston says, “Anabelle, come here.”

I’m swallowed by the urge to turn and run back to the inn.

Literally. Just turn and run. There is nothing, nothing, I hate more than being the center of attention for a bunch of strangers. I can handle strangers one or two at a time, but put me in front of a crowd of them, and I stop functioning.

Weston knows this.He knows.

I feel frozen and immovable. Stuck.

I’m Lot’s wife, turned to salt.

I’m a woman made of stone.

He smiles at me. “There she is,” he says, pointing directly at me. “That’s my beautiful girl.”

He walks toward me, drawing all of those staring eyes with him. Something cracks inside of me as Weston pulls a little velvet box from his pocket and pops the lid open, to a series of gasps and cheers from the crowd. In my peripheral vision, I can see people lifting their phones to take photos of us, videos maybe. A few of them are carrying backpacks, probably students from my alma mater William & Mary, the college that’s a stone’s throw away, but most are tourists. One person has an honest-to-goodness camera. The thought of this moment living on in the memories of strangers is horrifying.

I barely even see the diamond ring through the pressure pressing in on me from all sides.

Glancing around with a grin on his face, Weston says, “Anabelle, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

I meet his eyes for a second, horror spiking through me. I want to ask him why. Why now, why like this?

He’d have to know this would be excruciatingly painful for me and not at all the way I’d like to discuss something so important…

He’d have to know I’d be horrified by every single detail of this experience.

---