Page 44 of Frosted and Sliced

“Without you here, I needed something else to kiss,” he said, standing to let her in the booth.

She groaned, but leaned down to kiss him, and it was adorable. Georgie glanced at Burke with an expression of,Canyou believe these two,but he was watching Cotton and Elyse with an expression of someone who had no idea what was going on. Georgie thought of what Cotton had suggested.Maybe he doesn’t know how.Why had that never occurred to her before? Why had she taken his inexperience as a sign of his disinterest? Furthermore, did she want his interest?

“So, Burke, Brody said you came to him with some interesting questions the other day,” Cotton said. He was a good foil for Brody because where Brody was cautious and careful, Cotton went in with a full head of steam and blurted the first thing on his mind. In his younger days, he’d been a hothead. Now he was merely forthright, and Georgie liked that about him. The beauty of being surrounded by people you’d known your whole life was that you got to see the person they turned into, once all their rough edges and immature indiscretions fell away.

Burke nodded once in agreement. For him that was the equivalent of an entire paragraph.

“I can give you my thoughts, but they all come from gut feelings, something Brody would never volunteer. I heard you visited the Pelletier’s maple farm. Let me tell you my two cents: Jenna Archer’s father would have sold his daughter’s kidney, if he thought he could make a profit and get away with it. The old man never met a nickel he didn’t admire. And from everything I know about Jenna, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

“You think she’s into something illegal?” Georgie asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Cotton said. “I haven’t heard so much as a whisper about anything illegal going on out there. But would it shock me, if she was?” He shook his head.

“What about the husband?” Burke asked.

“Dumb as dirt, but a nice guy,” Cotton said.

“You’d have to be pretty dumb to hitch your wagon to Jenna,” Elyse muttered, staring disconsolately into her cup. She’d been a favorite target of Jenna’s in high school.

“Does high school ever end?” Georgie mused. She felt like she still carried the scars from those years, still dealt with the ostracism.

“It does if you never went in the first place,” Burke noted. For some reason that made everyone at the table laugh, and the heavy moment was forgotten.

CHAPTER 19

Their food arrived soon after and conversation turned to the winter festival.

“It was my favorite thing, when I was a kid,” Cotton admitted. “I was secretly sad when they stopped doing it.”

“They stopped?” Elyse asked. She’d moved away from Maine soon after high school and hadn’t returned until recently. “Why?”

“Money,” Georgie said. “It got to be too much expense for the town. This year I proposed a scaled back version, funded by some local businesses.” Herself, for instance. Providing the desserts for the festival was going to kick her budget straight in the teeth, but it felt important, maybe even vital for some reason she didn’t understand. She didn’t want to believe she was attempting to buy love and acceptance from the town, as Burke had hinted, but maybe that was what it was. Or maybe it was simply nostalgia. Like Cotton, the winter festival had been her favorite thing, too. After all the tourists went home for the season, it had felt like their own special thing, something that belonged only to their town. It reminded her of her parents, who had also loved it. All in all, there were a lot of reasons to bring it back.

“Georgie, I’ve seen how much work you’ve put into this thing already. How is this in any way a scaled back version?” Burke asked.

“Because it wasn’t just the inns that were involved, it was the entire town. They basically closed the downtown, strung lights, set up an ice skating rink, had ice sculpting, ice fishing, a dance. It was epic,” Georgie gushed, while Elyse and Cotton nodded their agreement.

“Like something from a movie,” Elyse said. “I remember my first one, when I moved here. I couldn’t believe this place was for real.”

“I remember your first one here,” Cotton said, eyeing Elyse. “I watched Standish pluck up the courage to ask you to dance, and I don’t think I’ve ever been that jealous.”

Georgie watched Elyse’s eyes go soft as Cotton leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose and she fought her own wave of gooey softness. The fact that Cotton had carried a secret torch for her all these years had taken everyone by surprise, but no one more than Elyse herself, who had often been the victim of his perceived cruelty.

“I guess I don’t get it,” Burke said.

“Which part?” Elyse asked. Her head tipped, tapping Cotton’s shoulder with her temple, and he smiled. Georgie took it all in, wondering how she’d never noticed all the little signals and touches that passed between them, signifying them as a couple. While she was happy for them, it made her feel lonely on such a visceral level that it felt almost like a stomach ache.

“The town thing. Why would you want to be with so many strangers? Why would you care about them, about what they think or do?” Burke asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“It’s how it is, how it’s always been,” Cotton said.

“But why? It doesn’t make sense. You don’t know them. Who cares?” Burke said.

“I understand what you’re saying, and I get it,” Elyse said. “But I can tell you from experience that this cynicism is because you’re outside the circle looking in. When you’re part of the circle, you begin to understand, because you found something you didn’t know you needed.”

“What?” he demanded, still sounding baffled.

“Acceptance, I guess. Belonging, community. It feels like when you’re on a mission with your team and everything goes perfectly according to plan, like you’re all in sync. It’s like that.”

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