Page 35 of Lighting Up Christmas

“My story?”

It sounded like she’d asked him to do a stripper dance.

“The vineyard’s story,” she hastened to clarify wrangling her mind back from the gutter. “That will be the fun part. And what you will build with social media presence.”

He looked so skeptical that she smiled. “Not a fan of childhood bedtime stories,” she murmured.

“I never had any.”

Riley tripped. He steadied her, and she resisted—barely—the desire to cling to him for just a moment, to feel his strength and warmth.

Ugh. So rom-com girly.

Sophia would be the only one pleased.

“Never?” The question escaped.

“My grandfather used to tell me stories,” Zhang said quietly. “But they were ones he made up, and he’d tell them to me while we worked in his garden.”

Riley waited for more, imaging Zhang as a child, his face curious, open, warmed by the sun, listening in rapt attention to a tale. But Zhang said nothing else.

Disappointed that the moment was over, Riley said pragmatically, “You can hire someone to do your social media and build your winery’s story if you don’t want to spin a tale.” Although she’d be happy to spin plenty of tales. It was a Flanagan trait.

“If I build a winery.”

“You already did. That horse is out of the gate and down the track.”

“That’s right—you ride.”

“Rode,” Riley said regretfully. “I don’t ride anymore. Well, I could.” She brightened. “I just haven’t made time for it since taking over the day-to-day management of Flanagan & Sons Electric, but you make time for things you love—like your vineyard.”

He was quiet. He must love his vineyard. Wine was not a casual, take it or leave it endeavor, or at least Riley had never met anyone who felt that way. Winey people were all kinds, but they were passionate.

“And your artistic lighting designs.”

“My what?” Riley asked, the image of her and Zhang riding horses over his property abruptly going dark, like he’d pulled the plug.

“The chandeliers and lights you make. Like the three I purchased. The four you sold tonight.”

“Oh. That. Those are just for fun. Stress relief. I collect things and love to tinker. I gave one to Sophia when she opened her shop, and she’s a bully.” She grinned at Zhang, encouraging him to join in her teasing. “She made me put some in the pop-up to sell.”

Her mouth felt dry.

“So it’s a lighting design business,” he said and stopped walking to face her. “You should make a website. Tell your story.”

Riley’s mouth dropped open. His expression didn’t change, but there was a light that she’d never seen before in his beautiful obsidian eyes.

“Touché,” she said softly.

She had just been teased by Zhang Shi. Her heart soared, and it was all she could do to keep clutching her coffee cup so she wouldn’t fist-bump the sky.

They started walking again.

“I used to fish here with my brothers and climb trees, get the walnuts when they were ripe. We’d play hide-and-seek in the mill with friends after school on the way home…the long way home.” She smiled, remembering.

It was easy to talk to him, to share in the night with the nearly silent, sluggish slip of the water over rocks in the creek and the occasional hoot of a barn owl.

“This trail is new,” she said. “It took a lot of community effort and funds to get it built,” she said, changing the direction of the conversation. “Do you see that mill over there?” She stopped and pointed to the old mill—a dark hulk at the end of the trailnear where the river widened in a slow, lazy turn. “I’ve always thought that it would be so cool if someone developed the mill—not tear it down and start over but take the history and rebuild the mill, keeping parts of the story and parts of the building or equipment—you know, like incorporate some of the equipment into a bakery or…” She took a quick sip of her coffee, trying to organize her thoughts.

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