You’re a hard worker, you stick to deadlines, and you never slack off. I’ll stand by calling your decision irresponsible.”
She dug the toe of her green Sorel boot into the snow. “It was…a little risky.”
The last thing Alex wanted to do was belabor the point and drive them into another argument. ‘Risky,’ though? Not enough. For him to trust her, she had to acknowledge that it was a poor decision. His reaction had been equally poor, to be sure.
“Amelia. I need you to hear me, to understand. You were right that I shouldn’t have said you had to run it by me. That was stupid. Self-centered.”
“Egotistical. Pretentious.” At least she grinned while she called him out.
“But what you should have done was, sure, hook her interest and broach the subject with Annie. You should’ve promised her nothing more than you’d bring it back to your other three partners and see if her date was feasible. Together, we could’ve adjusted our timelines and made sure not to commit to something we couldn’t provide.”
She sucked in a deep breath, as if winding up for the requisite apology. “So we were both half right?”
God. Amelia’s stubbornness was legendary.
Fine. She didn’t need to apologize. Admitting she’d only been half right was the same as admitting that she’d been half wrong. “Sure. It was great that you took the initiative in talking up the inn. Our first leap forward in marketing. You just went too far.”
“I get that.” Then she put a hand on his arm. “Is it really an impossible-to-hit date? If so, I’ll break it to Annie. I got us into this, I’ll get us out of it.”
Awww. She might be stubborn, but she was also fair. And tried to protect him as much as he did her.
Alex folded her into a bear hug. “I love you so much.”
“Ditto.”
The hug finished what the snowman had begun.
If only getting through the next few months went as well…
Alex stepped back, squeezed her shoulders. “Straight talk? It’ll be tough to finish in time. I’ll lay out in the contract what we can absolutely have ready for Annie. Then I’ll make a separate list of what we’ll try like hell for but can’t guarantee. We can go over it with her. Together. Line by line, to make sure she’s clear before she signs.”
“The ‘together’ part’s the best part.”
“Yeah.” It always was. It was why he didn’t have a moment’s hesitation of going into business with her, with all of them. “Now, do you want to help me finish this snowman?”
“I just have to do two things first. I was prepping a big pot of chicken and dumplings. That way we can just pop it on the stove when we’re finished working later. Let me go in and finish that, then carry it over to the main kitchen.”
It sounded great. But… “What’s the second thing?”
“This.” Amelia pulled back the collar of his coat and stuffed a handful of snow down it. Most went harmlessly between the coat and sweatshirt, but enough trickled down his back to make him swear and squirm. “Now we’re all square.”
Her laughter was as crystalline and pure as the snow.
“Brat,” he yelled as she went back into the cottage. But Alex was smiling as he shrugged out of his coat to scoop the wetness away.
They’d gotten over this hurdle. There’d be more, no doubt. Just like there was no doubt they’d get over those, as well.
Alex felt…good. Really good. Even with the adjusted timeline. One that, despite his voiced concerns, he mentally planned to hit, come hell or high water.
C’mon. There was no way he’d let a bride down. Especially not a pregnant bride. He wasn’t a monster. Or a slacker.
He was a planner. Organizer. Scheduler extraordinaire. And, thanks to Sydney, in a good enough mood to believe that anything was possible.
The creaky screen door to the breakfast room slapped closed behind Teague.
Yeah, it needed to be oiled. Yeah, it’d only take five minutes—and that included the time walking to the solarium, which they’d set up for now as their tool and chemical holding room. No, he couldn’t be bothered to deal with it yet.
“Are you alone?” Teague asked.
They weren’t hiding in a corn maze, for crying out loud. Alex exaggeratedly looked left, at the wide-open expanse of snow-covered garden, then right at the empty area in front of the cottages. “Who else do you think is out here? Mr. Invisible? That’s a superhero, right?”
Teague marched over, his boots sinking under all the powder.