“Well, not to do the typical out-of-town visitor thing, but have you been to the Mall of America yet?” Sean asked.
I nodded. “Sure, a few times, but I can always go again. That sounds fun.” I’d have to make sure I didn’t mention it to Gretchen, or she’d insist on coming along. She couldn’t resist the pull of the mall.
“We could walk around, maybe go to a movie. I have hockey practice all morning and a game at night. How about three o’clock or something like that?”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’ll just clear it with Gretchen and then—”
“Clear it?” he asked. “What, is she like in charge of you?”
“No! No, of course not,” I said. “It’s just that I’m sort of in charge of taking care of Brett. Since she can’t move around as quickly as Brett does.”
“No one can,” Sean joked. “He can be out the door and across the street before you even blink.”
“Exactly!” I said. “He’s very fast. So I’ll just make sure she knows she has to be here—set him up with a video or whatever.”
“Sounds good,” he said, settling into a stool at the kitchen counter. “So what kind of sandwiches are you making?”
I grinned. “Grilled. Hot. Something like that. You like cheese? Turkey and cheese?”
“Make three for me, okay?” Sean turned on the TV in the kitchen and quickly found a college basketball game to watch. I handed him a bag of potato chips that I’d stashed in an out-of-the-way cabinet so that they didn’t tempt Gretchen.
After I put four sandwiches together and put them onto the panini grill, I quickly threw a small salad together for Gretchen. I carried the bottle of low-everything dressing in for her, with a PB&J sandwich for Brett.
“Did you ask him to look after me when I was here, or something?” I asked her in a low voice as I set the food on the coffee table in front of her.
“No. What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” I said. I just wanted to make sure that whatever was happening…was happening because it could. Not because it should. “Enjoy your lunch!”
When I went back into the kitchen, Sean was polishing off the bag of chips. I grabbed a couple of sodas from the fridge and handed him one. Somehow I had a feeling that my lunch would be a lot more fun than Gretchen’s.
Chapter 7
More snow, I thought as I was standing by the front door, looking out at Sean at the end of the driveway. Already this winter it had snowed more than last year, and it was still early January. Should I write a thank-you letter to Mother Nature? Or to the KARE-11 meteorologist who had forecast it the night before, giving me fair warning to get up early and be dressed this time?
Gretchen came up behind me as I was standing there, and nearly scared me to death. “Why don’t you see if he wants a hot chocolate?” she asked.
I nearly jumped. I had been so absorbed in thinking about Sean and what to do that I hadn’t even noticed her or heard her footsteps—or crutch steps. “What?”
“Well, it’s cold out there. I had to farm out the shoveling. But now that you’re here, I guess I can cancel it—I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“No!” I nearly cried. “Don’t fire him. I mean, uh, my arms—they’re not that strong. And what if we get one of those blizzards where it takes the entire morning to clear the drive—”
“You’ve really turned into a worrywart since I left home,” Gretchen interrupted my raving.
“What? Me? No,” I said.
“Well, then, if I didn’t know better, I could swear you have a crush.”
“No, I don’t,” I protested. “Still, out of the kindness of my heart, I will go make him a hot chocolate, I think.”
I put the teakettle on the stove to boil, and then I went upstairs and brushed my hair again, and pulled my favorite hat over it, positioning it just so. I stopped in the bathroom to brush a little blush onto my cheeks. Then, back downstairs in the kitchen, I stirred the hot chocolate in a plastic, commuter mug, tossed in some mini marshmallows, and snapped on the lid.
I took a deep breath, summoned my inner flirt, and went outside. I decided to sneak up on Sean. I’d decided the night before that it was time for me to make my move—if this was the New Year, New Kirsten thing, what was I waiting for? Besides, I needed to hook up with him soon if I was going to invite him to the cabin.
I quietly walked up behind him, and as he paused to rest the shovel for a second, I reached around and put my hands over his eyes. It wasn’t easy to do while I held a mug, believe me, but I managed.
“Guess who,” I whispered, leaning closer to him.
“What the—” He wriggled to turn around, but I had him kind of stuck.
“And guess what,” I said. “I made you hot chocolate!”
Suddenly he ducked, scooting out from under my arms. When he whirled around, his face expressing complete and total shock, I nearly fell over backward. “Who are you?” he asked.
“What are you here for?” I said. “You’re—not Sean.” It was the bakery guy. The Zublansky’s supermarket guy. The everywhere-I-go guy.
“Nope. I’m Sean’s brother.” He cleared his throat. “We have this mowing and shoveling business together. Not that it’s much of a business, I mean, it’s really part-time and it’s not like I plan to do it much longer—”
“You’re Sean’s brother,” I finally murmured.
“Yup.” He chipped at some ice on one square of the sidewalk, where melting ice always collected and re-froze because it wasn’t quite flat. “So, is that how you usually greet Sean when he comes over to shovel the sidewalk? A little hug, a little—”
“No!” I said emphatically. “No. Not at all. Never in fact.”
He gave me a suspicious look. “So what made today different?”
“I…well, see….” This was too impossible to explain and too stupid to lie about. I’m turning over a new, um, leaf? With your brother’s name on it? Ew.
“So if you don’t greet Sean that way, you must have known it was me, then,” he said.
“What? Shut up, I did not.” I shoved him, not realizing that he was on a slippery spot and he slid backward into one of the juniper bushes, nearly landing in it.
“You’re kind of a dangerous person, aren’t you?” he said as I backed away, apologizing.
As Conor was getting up, I started thinking how so many things made sense now that I knew they were brothers. Why I saw them both at the skating rink that day. Why I’d bumped into Sean outside the bakery—he was probably going to see Conor. So far I’d never really seen them both in the same place at the same time, except that first day at the lake.
They were this whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing. One was sweet and nice, the other gruff and insulting. And now that I knew it, I could see that of course they were brothers. They both had the same hazel eyes.
“You’re not like…twins or something. Are you?” I asked.
“Twins? Do we look like twins?” he asked.
“Well. You could be fraternal twins,” I said.
“No. We’re hardly even related.”
“Oh. You mean, you have different parents, or something?” I asked.
“No, we’re just not related. In my mind, anyway.” He smiled a little.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“My brother’s okay. I wouldn’t put him at the top of the family tree or anything.”
“Well, no, that would be awkward, that would mean he’s your great-grandfather.”