Page 9 of Christmas at Hart's Ridge

I cut the engine, exited the Subaru, and leaned on the hood to peer down at him. “You could ask Robin that question yourself, you know. I know you exchanged numbers. Just text, already.”

“What would be the point? There’s seven hundred forty-nine miles between here and New York. An annual hookup is all we’re ever going to be.”

“Seven hundred forty-nine? Is that an exact number or an estimate?”

“Exact.”

“It’s kind of cute that you know that,” I said. “Romantic.”

“Piss off,” he growled. “I wanted to know how long I would be stuck on the bus.”

Plausible, but I didn’t believe it for a second. Ethan might act like a grumpy old man, but deep down he was a kitten.

“Does Robin ever ask about me?” he asked, proving me right.

I wished I could give him a different answer, but… “No,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean Robin isn’t thinking about you.” I would rather stick my hand in a wasp nest than ask Ethan about Luke. Maybe it was the same for Robin.

“Right.” His shoulders rounded in, hiding himself further. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

I sighed. Clearly it mattered, but when Ethan was done talking about something, he wasdone. I wasn’t going to get another word from him on the Robin subject. “Okay, can we please get back to my problem now? What am I going to do about my mom’s car?”

“Is she going to be mad?” Ethan asked.

“No.” I grimaced. “She’s going to besad, and that’s so much worse.”

My parents never got mad. Not at me, their miracle baby. They had tried unsuccessfully for years to have a child, suffering through three miscarriages, before I had graced them with my birth. They hadn’t spoiled me—good manners, gratitude, and kindness were insisted on—but they had put every spare penny into making my dreams come true, asking for nothing in return.

Not a single thing.

Hell, my parents never even discussed money with me. It wasn’t until I was on my own, pulling in a salary, that I realized the true costs of just beingalive, not to mention ballet, and everything my parents had sacrificed for me.

On top of that, my parents were just so darn reasonable. I had never been punished for spilling milk or breaking a lamp, not if it was an accident. Mom would put on a brave face and help me clean up, and that would be the end of it. But the lamp, although it was my mom’s favorite, wasn’t replaced. They couldn’t afford to.

The Subaru definitely fell into that category. It was an accident, but my parents couldn’t afford to fix it. Mom would smile and saythat’s okay, honey, as though it didn’t bother her in the slightest that the car she kept clean and polished now had an ugly dent in the side.

Dammit.

I didn’t want to be the reason my mom looked sad. Not ever.

“How much do you think it will cost?” I asked anxiously. I wrapped a lock of hair around my finger and tugged at it. The sharp pull on my scalp grounded me, kept my thoughts focused on what I could do rather than imagining my mom’s sad eyes.

Ethan shrugged. “A grand, maybe.”

I groaned. I didn’t have a spare thousand dollars lying around. In Hart’s Ridge, my six-figure salary would make me rich. But in Manhattan, it didn’t stretch very far. Outside of taxes and healthcare, most of my money went to rent. My apartment was five hundred square feet, one bedroom and one bath, but the bathroom had a full tub, an unheard of luxury for its price point—which was more than half of my take-home pay.

“I need a job,” I said.

“You have a job,” Ethan pointed out. “No, wait, now you havetwojobs.”

“The community center isn’t paying me. I’m there as a volunteer. And I’m on unpaid leave from the ballet while I’m here because I already used up my paid time off for the surgery. Meanwhile, I still have to pay rent for my place in New York while I’m here in Hart’s Ridge.” I rubbed my forehead.

“So I’ll pay for it. You can pay me back a little bit at a time, on your schedule.”

I stared at him. “Seriously? You would let me borrow a thousand dollars?”

“Yeah. No problem.”

“How is a thousand dollars not a problem for you?” I asked.

---