I’d hoped touching the electric trains would recall some long-forgotten muscle memory, and I would set them up without hesitation. The reality is, I’m fumbling track pieces around and have no idea if the train sets can all be run together, or if they’re even compatible types.
Hope picked out two red engines that look the most Christmas-like to her and laid out her selection of cars off to one side. I don’t have the heart to break it to her I’m not sure I can maneuver multiple trains on the same tracks without crashing them in a tiny ball of electric fire.
Her eyes stay on me as I try to lay out a fancy loop. No matter how I put the track together, I can’t make it work. The pieces just don’t seem to fit snug enough to keep the trains from derailing, and I don’t want to risk a trial run that seems doomed to failure.
She leans against the windowsill, staring hard at me. After a few minutes, her amused scrutiny gets the best of me.
“What?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
I try to look offended. “Excuse me?”
“This.” She gestures with a piece of track at my poor progress. She has grand dreams of interlacing tracks with tunnels disappearing into snowy, toy-covered mountains, and I don’t even have half a figure-eight laid out yet. “You don’t know how to set the trains up.”
“What makes you say that?” Answering a question with a question—the last resort of a cornered man.
“Your face,” she says with a laugh. “Your mouth is all twisted, and your eyes are scrunched up like you’re trying to do calculus problems in your head.”
“They are not.” I relax the muscles in my face, but it’s too late now.
“Oh, your concentration face is cute.”
Cute. Not my first choice of description, but I’ll take it. “Is it so different from my usual face?”
She squares off against me, looking me full in the face. Her gaze roams over my forehead, sticking an extra second on the bruise, then down my nose, until at last she lingers on my mouth. Under the harsh fluorescent light, I can’t miss the sweep of pink on her cheeks. My pulse ticks up a notch.
This is not the place for a kiss, with the musty odor and the slight risk of Hantavirus.
Doesn’t stop me from wanting one.
“I think it’s pretty much the same face.” The twist of a smile on her teasing mouth has me ready to lean in and go for broke, when her eyes snap back to mine. “Should I call Mr. Deckard to give us some pointers?”
“No, we can do this.” I’m not about to have her call Mr. Deckard for help. Asking an old man in a recliner for help from across town is anything but cute. And I want an upgrade tosexy.
“I like thatwe, teammate.” The flirtatious spark in her grin again makes my heart go wild, urging me to do something about it.
“Oh, there’s a hierarchy here,” I say, leaning a touch closer. “Never doubt you’re in charge.”
Her cheeks go so red, I’m tempted to checkherforehead for fever. But touching her will lead to kissing her, and I just promised her we can sort this out. Getting sidetracked won’t get us any closer to her goal of a magical Christmas display.
Even if, at this point, kissing her again is the only goal I have in mind.
NINETEEN
HOPE
Okay,so maybe my big plan of multiple trains passing each other on interlocking paths in a perfect Christmas scene was a little too ambitious for our skill set. Some of the train boxes have instructions in them, but they don’t cover the elaborate project I had in mind. We have three instruction booklets opened up in the window and no idea between us how to make the simplest combination track.
Griffin agreed to meet me awfully quickly for someone who doesn’t know the first thing about electric trains. It could just be his Type A, Mr. Manager personality shining through. Boss Griffin, come out to take charge of the project. But I’m hoping he agreed for the same reason I’d asked him in the first place.
“This doesn’t look right.”
He frowns at the tracks in his hands, trying to get the ends to snap together. He shakes his head at the results as though this train is serious business. Maybe he hadn’t liked me using the word cute, but seeing him so disconcerted is adorable. In the warehouse, he’s always so tough and in control. I like seeing this glimpse of uncertainty.
“Let’s see if we can get a little assist from the good old internet.”
He pulls out his phone and calls up YouTube. After a quick search, he finds some videos for beginner vintage train enthusiasts. I huddle next to him, trying to keep up as Engine&Tonic77 talks trains.
