Page 7 of Mack

Then he looked at her and went still.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The Christmas music played softly on.

“Hi,” Mallory managed. “Welcome to Festive Finds.” She sounded exactly like what she was, a woman trying to sound normal.

He stepped inside, the door swinging shut behind him. “Thank you.” His voice was low and unhurried. He glanced around once more. “It’s August.”

“It is,” she agreed.

“Christmas decorations.”

“All year round.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Huh.” He picked up a small snow globe from the nearest display and turned it over in his large hands, watching the snow settle. “Yours?”

“The shop? Yes.” She set the ribbon down, not trusting herself to do two things at once right now. “Have you been in before?”

“No.” He set the snow globe down carefully and looked at her. “I’ve seen the sign.”

She nodded, her pulse doing something she wished it wouldn’t. Up close he was even more unsettling, the gray eyes steadier, the jaw exactly as she’d imagined. The light scruff only adding to his handsome features. She folded her hands on the counter.

“Deputy,” she said, nodding at the badge pinned above his left shirt pocket.

“Mack Reinhardt.” He didn’t offer his hand, just watched her the way she was trying not to watch him.

“Mallory Nichols.” She held his gaze, then looked down at her ribbon. “Let me know if you need help finding anything.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I will,” he said, and moved deeper into the shop.

She kept her eyes on her work and her ears on his footsteps, slow and unhurried among the displays, and told herself to breathe.

He spent longer in the shop than a man who’d wandered in out of curiosity had any reason to. She tracked him from the corner of her eye, watching him move through the displays with his hands clasped behind his back, studying things with the same quiet attention she imagined he gave everything. He stopped at a shelf of hand-carved nativity figures, then at a display of vintage-style tin ornaments, then at a small tabletop tree strung with pearl lights in the corner.

The couple in the back made their selections and brought them to the counter. Mallory smiled, rang them up, chatted about the weather, and wrapped their ornaments in tissue. When they left, the bell chiming behind them, she and Mack were alone in the shop.

He slowly walked to the glass display of homemade candy and fudge, then looked at her.

“Do you make this?” He nodded to the case.

“My mother.”

He nodded, then walked back through the shop. He appeared at the counter a moment later, setting down a snow globe she hadn’t seen him pick back up. It was one of her favorites, a little mountain cabin inside, snow swirling thick around it when you turned it over.

“I’ll take this,” he said.

She looked at it, then at him. “For anyone in particular?”

“My sister.” Something softened almost imperceptibly in his face when he said it. “She collects them.”

Mallory reached under the counter for a gift box and began wrapping the globe carefully in tissue. “Does she live nearby?”

“Whitefish.” He leaned one elbow on the counter, watching her hands. “You’re good at that.”

“Years of practice.” She folded the tissue corners with neat precision and nestled the globe into the box. “I can add a ribbon if you’d like. Do you want a gift card inside?”

“Sure.”

She reached under the counter, gave him several cards to choose from, then pulled the tartan ribbon she’d been working with earlier, and his eyes followed the movement. She tied it efficiently, trimmed the ends, and slid the box across the counter.