That made her feel so unsatisfied.
So...sad.
She didn’t like it. She avoided this. Avoided thinking about herself and what she wanted and what she didn’t have.
She wanted to talk to Logan about it, and she couldn’t.
Because that kiss had not only taken her peace of mind, it had taken her confidant from her, too. It had taken a lot of things from her. She couldn’t talk to Sammy. She couldn’t talk to Iris.
She couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t curious about all the things she had never explored.
Couldn’t pretend that she was just waiting around until she found a man she was attracted to.
There was one. But he frightened her. Or at least, what might happen frightened her.
Talking to Pansy hadn’t gotten her any closer to a decision.
She pushed herself out of the chair and walked back out of the station. She meandered outside and walked down the sidewalk, making her way toward Main Street.
The redbrick buildings were festooned with Christmas decorations. Dark green bows wrapped around support beams and balcony railings. White Christmas lights draped over everything. Red ribbons tied around wreaths that hung on doors, and the big tree already set up in its place, awaiting the parade, and the Christmas tree lighting that would happen afterward.
There was a familiarity to it that usually gave her a sense of comfort. But not today. Today it made her ache. Because it was another thing that was the same while the inside of her, the things that made up who she was, felt entirely different.
It was like the town was trying to goad her. A resolute monument to the fact that while she might feel different, she wouldn’t be brave enough to do different.
She would come to the parade on Saturday, she would do her demonstration with Logan. They would pretend that nothing had ever happened.
It would be the same. The same, the same.
And maybe someday she would coordinate the parade. She would be Barbara Niedermayer. Bitter and angry and demanding that things stay the same because the sameness of the town might make her feel not so ashamed of the sameness in herself.
And a young impetuous person might call her out for being so inflexible. And that person would get told off because Rose was an object of pity, and everyone should know and respect that.
That cut Rose down to her heart. That she’d been the one to hurt Barbara, maybe. That her words might have caused her pain.
When she wasn’t...
Better. She’d gone around recklessly causing harm and wherever it came from... Why did she think she was better than Barbara?
She thought she might be on the same path anyway.
That future was bleak. And right now, it felt like a very real possibility. But the alternative was to potentially upend the life that she knew. The life that she loved.
Rose already knew life didn’t come with guarantees. She already knew there was no safety. No guarantee it would all work out in the end. Because she’d lost her parents. The source of all the security she’d felt as a child.
She already knew that sometimes in life a change, an event, was heavy enough to ruin everything. That sometimes things couldn’t be fixed or repaired. That some things were permanent.
And that was just the way it was.
Even seeing the future as grim as it might be, Rose felt like she might be too afraid to do anything about it.
Because at least that future was one she could see.
A future that stretched past kissing Logan again...
She couldn’t see that. She didn’t know what might happen. She didn’t know who she would be on the other side. That frightened her.
She stopped on the street corner, and a troop of carolers wearing Victorian dress exited the kitchen store, singing gaily about silver bells, right as a frigid wind picked up and wrapped itself around Rose.
She stood there while the music filtered through her, while the wind chilled her to the bone.
And she had to look at herself the way those carolers might see her. Pale and large-eyed and frozen there in her tracks.
Not a tough cowgirl. Not a bold, bright force who tried to bring cheer and goodness to the people around her.
But a frightened animal ready to race back into her burrow at the first sign of trouble. A woman who got overly involved in the lives of the people around her so that she didn’t have to deal with her own.
A girl who felt tender and bruised because she feared she might have a crush on a man who had the power to devastate her.
But the carolers weren’t looking at her. They were just singing.
The town rolled on, as it always had.
It was only Rose who felt changed.
And there was no one who could help her with the decision she needed to make about what she was going to do next.
Because nobody else would ever understand what she was feeling now.
It was a choice she had to make for herself.
To run away, to be afraid, or to be new.
She was afraid she didn’t have the courage to be new.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS A fairly miserable day for a parade. Gray clouds had collected in the sky, rolling one over the other creating a patchwork of color that ranged from mist to the color of a donkey’s muzzle. The sky promised to break open later, and Logan only hoped that it would wait until after the event.
Or not.
It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if the whole thing got rained out and that meant he could go to the bar and drink. Instead of firing up the forge and trying to work alongside Rose.
The last few days had been what Logan imagined torture might be like. Like sensory deprivation. Or being kept thirsty, with a big glass of water right in front of you, just out
