Waiting for the One by L.A. Fiore Page A

face.”
    He tenses, and I feel his muscles quicken against mine before he lowers his head and silences me with a soul-searing kiss.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Nervousness fills me as my float moves down Main Street. To my surprise there are lots of people along the parade route cheering me on, but I can’t help wonder if they’re cheering so boisterously because they won’t be catapulted into the cold and turbulent sea. The weather isn’t looking particularly pleasant.
    My dress is a lovely confection of satin and lace. Gwen is the one responsible for my curling tresses laced with flowers and my perfectly applied makeup, but in under ten minutes I’m going to look like a drowned rat.
    As I wave and paste a smile on my face, I think back to Logan. After I asked him to shave, he said not one word, but proceeded to swallow me up with the most intense loving I have ever experienced. He blew my mind with passion and then he left. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since and that was two days ago. Our first time making love, he takes off for a week, and now this. Who would have thought the request for him to shave would have elicited that response? Maybe he’s just hiding, but from what or who I don’t know.
    My breath freezes in my lungs at the sight of the sky as we reach the harbor. It’s ominous but I’m not the only one to notice. Sheriff Dwight walks over to me as I climb from the float to stand near the bulkhead, his focus on the whitecaps.
    “We’re going to cancel. It’s too rough out there.”
    My exhale turns into a sigh. “Thank you. I was really getting nervous.”
    “I can understand why. I’ll let everyone know.”
    He walks away, but I stay where I am, watching as the blackest clouds come rolling in. The temperature has dropped too, and the spray from the sea is bitterly cold.
    “Can I interview you for the paper?”
    Glancing over, I see Elise. “Paper?”
    “The Harrington Times .”
    What is there to interview about? The festival is canceled? I want to say this, but I decide it will be faster to just answer her questions.
    “So, I imagine you are relieved?” A slight smile edges her face as she asks this.
    “Yes.”
    “Can you tell me how this festival came to be?”
    I imagine she already knows this, as does anyone who will read the paper, but I answer her anyway. She follows that question with another and another. Half an hour later she’s wrapping up the interview. As she puts her notebook away, I wonder if maybe I misjudged her. She’s abrasive, but she is not unkind, and she seems very sincere.
    “Are you enjoying Harrington, Elise?”
    She looks up at me and something is clearly on her mind but her expression puzzles me—expectant, or maybe eager is a better word—“I need to tell you something. I should have from the beginning, but I didn’t want to blow my cover. You seem like a really nice person, though, and it’s not fair to keep you in the dark.”
    My confusion must be etched in my forehead as Elise forges on.
    “I’m not really moving to Harrington. I’m a reporter for the New York Times and I came here for a story. Do you know David Cambre?”
    I remember the women in Tucker’s a few weeks back who were also looking for David. Remember the black-and-white photo of the gorgeous man they showed me.
    “I know of him.”
    “He’s here in Harrington.”
    Another artist in Harrington? Not likely. Apprehension fills me. “And why is that a story?”
    “He’s famous, so that automatically makes him a story, but when the same man debuts a collection that leaves the art world in a frenzy to grab up his pieces and then disappears from sight, that’s definitely a story.” She studies me for a moment before she adds, “And when that same man gets engaged to a debutante, that too is a story.”
    Elise reaches into her briefcase and retrieves a sheet of paper. It’s a photo, similar to the one the woman showed me in Tucker’s. And though it’s in color, I don’t need it to be to