Darknight(72)

Connor looked as if he was trying hard not to laugh. “Actually, they do two pinecone drops — one at ten to match up with the ball drop in New York, and then another one at midnight our time. A lot of people with kids come to the ten o’clock one.”

“Then let’s get our asses into a bar,” Sydney remarked. “Because I don’t care about New York, but I do care about getting run over by soccer moms.”

He grinned and led us a couple of streets over to a dark little bar that definitely was twenty-one and over, and not a stroller in sight. Neither were any empty seats in evidence, but we squeezed in at one end of the bar and ordered another bottle of wine. It wasn’t exactly a wine sort of place, but they scrounged up some merlot for us.

“Don’t say it,” Anthony warned Sydney as her eyes started to dance.

“Say what?” she said innocently.

“‘I’m not drinking any fucking merlot!’” he and I announced in unison, and Connor burst out laughing.

“They obviously know you too well.”

She looked like she wanted to pout, but as she was already a little tipsy, she couldn’t quite muster the energy to make it look convincing. Instead, she shook her head and said, “Fine. At this point, it probably doesn’t matter all that much.”

Which it didn’t. We drank and talked and laughed, and eventually it was getting close enough to midnight that we decided we’d better close out our tab and head over to the Weatherford. It seemed as if just about everyone else in downtown Flagstaff had the same idea, so we had to sort of push our way through the crowd to get close enough to see what was going on. Luckily, both Connor and Anthony were tall, so they walked ahead of Sydney and me until they reached a good spot. Then we settled in ahead of them, letting them provide a kind of barrier behind us.

The pinecone was lit up, glittering as it hung from a crossbar beneath the hotel’s roof. Although the night was very clear, it almost looked as if a sort of mist had settled over the intersection with all the breath puffing upward from everyone into the frigid air.

“Five minutes to go,” Connor whispered in my ear.

For some reason, I shivered. Not from the cold — I’d bundled up pretty well — but because I couldn’t ignore the importance of this night, this moment. Being together on New Year’s meant we were looking forward to the coming months, that we were making a commitment to some sort of future together, even if right now we didn’t know exactly what that future might be.

Beside me, Sydney looked flushed and happy, and I wondered if she were having thoughts along the same lines. Sure, she’d spent New Year’s with guys she was dating, since she was not the type to sit home alone on the biggest party night of the year, but being here with Anthony had to mean something different. She’d never dated anyone this long before, and certainly wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to end things.

“One minute!” someone called out using a megaphone.

The crowd stilled somewhat, everyone preparing for the big moment.

“Thirty seconds!”

I felt Connor’s gloved hand take mine, fingers entwining. Warmth went through me at his touch, and suddenly I wasn’t cold at all.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

Now everyone was chanting the numbers, counting down.

“Three, two, one,” I said aloud with everyone else.

“Happy New Year!” we all cried, and Connor was turning me around and kissing me, and I caught a glimpse of Syd and Anthony hugging and kissing each other as well. Then people began singing “Auld Lang Syne,” Connor, too, and I was surprised to hear what a nice baritone he had.

Tears stung my eyes, but they weren’t sad tears. No, I was just happy to be here, happy to be with him, no matter what might happen next. My Aunt Rachel used to shake her head over the fuss about New Year’s, saying it was the solstice and Yule that were truly important, that New Year’s was just an arbitrary date, but I had to disagree with her on that. It did mean something. It was a new beginning of its own, a way to mark a transition from one period in your life to another.

I knew I was shifting from the Angela I had been, the one who did everything that was expected of her, to someone more in control of her destiny. Not to say that control was complete, far from it, but I was still making my own decisions instead of allowing them to be made for me.

Goddess willing, I would make the right ones.





13





The Turn of the Wheel





After midnight, we went up to Syd and Anthony’s room at the Weatherford for champagne. Well, it wasn’t precisely a room, more a suite on the top floor of the hotel, complete with sitting area and a tiny kitchen. No wonder they’d wanted to give the place a workout before coming to meet Connor and me. The bed definitely looked as if it had been made up hastily — no hospital corners there — but I decided not to mention it.