“Today is make-up Valentine’s.”
“But we did Valentine’s. I was really cute and thoughtful. I got you food from all the important places we’ve eaten, and those weird flowers you like, and three heart-shaped boxes of chocolate.”
“You got me one heart-shaped box of chocolate; you ate the other two boxes yourself.”
“As a favor!”
Hazard bent down, kissed him, and then tugged him to his feet. “That was a wonderful Valentine’s. But now it’s my turn.”
“Ree, you don’t have to—”
“I know.” He turned Somers toward the stairs and nudged.
“We can just—”
“I know.” He swatted Somers on the ass. “Up. Change.”
“I love going to dinner with you, but we’re crunched for cash. Why don’t you take care of next year? We can alternate.”
“That’s a great idea,” Hazard said, prodding his boyfriend down the hallway to the bedroom. “Where were you Monday when I spent seven and a half hours planning this.”
Somers dug in his heels when he saw the clothes on the bed: a chunky sweater, his barn coat, blue jeans, boots.
“Are we going to a rodeo?”
Hazard stripped out of his sweats and began pulling on the outfit he’d planned for himself: khakis, a button up, a cardigan, and Warby Parker glasses that didn’t have a prescription.
“Ok,” Somers said, eyeing Hazard as they each dressed. “Why are you dressing like a sexy tax accountant?”
Hazard tossed the first envelope on the bed. Two words showed in his chicken scratch against the white paper: Meet Cute. As he headed for the door, he called back, “See you there.”
II
FEBRUARY 23
SATURDAY
4:58 PM
THE WINTER DAY WAS WARM; Magnus Shelton was glad for the break in the cold. Ever since moving to this small town in the middle of nowhere, he had felt like the world was trapped in ice. Today, snow on the branches dripped and melted, and the last of the day’s sunlight glittered in a thousand drops. He drove his Honda Odyssey down the gravel drive; there were no other homes out here, so it was impossible to get lost, but he checked the tree-lined fields on either side as though he might have accidentally passed his destination.
When he took the gravel road around a stand of pines, the red-and-white barn came into view. This was it. Magnus’s heart beat a little faster. All of a sudden, the whole thing seemed stupid. He was making a big mistake, coming out here, doing this. He was going to make a fool of himself. He slowed the van at the gravel circle in front of the barn. His foot hovered over the gas; he could still drive home and call the whole thing off.
But Magnus wasn’t a coward. Magnus wasn’t a quitter. He’d moved to this flyspeck town to take over his dead aunt’s used bookstore, and he hadn’t given up when he’d seen the disorganized accounts and the chaos of the stockroom. He wasn’t going to give up now; he certainly wasn’t going to let a bully like Nickolas Knight run him out of his new home.
Dropping out of the van, Magnus made his way toward the barn. He pushed open the judas door and was met by a mixture of smells: the dry dustiness of hay, an animal musk he associated with horses, the damp cement. Flicking on the lights, he paced the length of the barn, passing empty stalls. Everything was swept and clean; the smells were old, engrained in the wood. The only sign of the barn’s original purpose remained in the assortment of tack and tools that hung on the walls, and even this was more decorative than utilitarian.
Gravel crunched under tires, and Magnus turned and made his way back to the judas door. When a car door shut, he called, “Knight? Is that you? I’ve been looking for you.”
No answer except the crisp grinding of gravel against gravel, the sound of footsteps moving rapidly towards the barn.
“Knight,” Magnus called again, slowing his pace, trying to gauge the other man’s speed. “I’m warning you. You think you can buy up everything in this town and run it like your own amusement park, but I’m not going to stand by and let it happen.”
The steps were almost outside the barn. Magnus picked up his pace, hoping he had the timing right.
When a shadow fell across the judas door, Magnus launched forward. The movement brought him crashing into another body, and they fell hard, entangled. Slush soaked Magnus, seeping through his cardigan and shirt, chilling him. But he lay on the gravel, dazed. He’d lost his glasses, and he blinked up at the sky while he ran a hand across the ground, searching for them.
“Here.” The voice was smooth and confident, and a moment later, the familiar shape of the glasses was pressed into Magnus’s hands. “Sorry about that.”
As Magnus sat up, wiping the lenses, he let out a bitter string of words. “What the hell were you thinking, getting right in my way like that?” He tried to focus on the man kneeling over him, but all he got was a vague impression of blond hair and a brown coat. “Did Knight send you out here to deal with me? Well, you can tell him what I said. You can tell him I won’t be bullied and pushed around and forced out of my home by a greedy industrialist who wants to play at being a cowboy. This is a good town with good people; we don’t need his type coming in here and ruining everything with his money.” Magnus shoved the glasses into place, got a look at the man he’d bowled over, and tried to keep his tongue from falling out of his mouth. The guy was gorgeous. Drop-dead, model gorgeous. Blond, with golden skin even in the winter, he had Caribbean blue eyes deep enough to swim in. Magnus tried to cover his disorientation with more words: “You tell your employer I want to talk to him face to face. He can’t hide behind
