Page 16 of The Marrying Kind
“I’m all about it.” I beamed at Rachel’s friendly face. She was definitely a bombshell. Together, she and Noah looked like they could be in a Hallmark commercial for an upcoming Christmas movie.
“How did the baking go? Did our family wear you out yet? ’Cause the Harts have a tendency to put people to work.” Noah smirked as he planted a kiss on his grandmother’s cheek.
I shook my head, then shared a look with Natalie. “I had a good time, actually.”
“And I bribed her with wine,” Natalie told them. “Red or white, dear?”
She was already walking away to the kitchen as I called out for a red. When it was dark out, I drank red because it seemed cozy. White was a daytime wine. That’s about as cultured as my tastes went.
But I’d fix that soon enough. Number eleven on my list was to do a wine tasting at a vineyard so I could actually know a thing or two about it. Preferably, that vineyard would be in France. This year was going to be incredible.
Rachel curled a leg under her as she sank next to me on the large couch. “How are you liking Kodiak Canyon?”
The snow was falling heavily at that moment and yet off in the distance, I could still see yellow and pink illuminating the sky over the mountains as the sun set. It was snowing hard, but clear skies were on the horizon.
“It’s magical,” I murmured.
As Natalie handed glasses of red wine to Rachel and me, Dottie scoffed. “Old ladies should get wine first.”
“You’re already half wine, half woman. Yours is coming.” Natalie laughed as she headed back to the kitchen and returned with yet two more glasses, and the neck of a beer bottle tucked into the crook of her elbow.
“We like to drink a little in this family,” Noah said with a laugh as he took the bottle of beer from her.
“I’d hope so, if you’re running a brewery,” I said before I sipped the smooth liquid.
“Speaking of which, where is Austen? We all want to eat.” Natalie looked pointedly at Noah.
“He said he had an errand to run. Can’t we just save him a plate?”
Natalie made a sound in protest. “If he’ll be here soon, then we can wait.”
Noah made a grumpy sound but didn’t argue it further. Luckily, I’d eaten my fill of baked goods today, since Natalie liked to taste-test everything twice over and had insisted I join her.
“What do you do for work?” Rachel asked me in the lull.
It wasn’t my favorite topic at the moment for a lot of reasons, but I didn’t want to be rude. “I’m a hairstylist, but I’m taking time off to travel.”
As it happened when most people hear this information, everyone in the room touched their own hair.
Rachel shook her head. “That’s a shame. The one hairstylist in town broke her arm a few weeks ago, and everyone around here is starting to look pretty shaggy. She was already always backed up anyway. I wouldn’t recommend telling too many people about what you do, unless you want a lot of unwelcome requests for a cut,” she told me with a smile.
As much as I’d love to help these people out, the idea of picking up a pair of scissors made my throat tight. My mom and I had worked side by side in the salon for years, and after her accident, I never went back. At first, they knew I was just grieving, but eventually, they got tired of waiting for me and rented my chair to another girl.
Even if I wanted to go, I’d probably lost all my clientele. I wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of answering people’s questions about how I was doing or have to endure their sympathetic looks over my family’s tragedy. No, I was never going back there.
Dottie cut in then and raised her glass to me. “Work less, play more.”
Grateful, I raised mine in reply. “You said it, sister.”
Everyone clinked glasses and took a drink. Well, everyone except Logan, the high schooler, who sat staring at his phone indifferently.
By the time Austen walked through the door, everyone was chatting loudly, playing a spirited game ofMario Kartat Logan’s insistence. Dottie was kicking our butts.
I didn’t even notice Austen until he was squeezing himself into the narrow space on the couch between Rachel and me. He spoke so close to my neck, I shivered, causing me to drive Princess Peach right into the river.
“I wondered where you’d gotten off to.”
Setting the controller down mid-game, which was no real hardship because I’d been dead last for three games straight, I looked at his way-too-handsome face as that little dimple greeted me.
