Up on the Rooftop Read Online Free PDF Page B

knew about the United States. After all, we’re kinda hard to miss.”
    “Yes,” she said, “I mean, no. I mean, you are hard to miss.”
    She couldn’t keep going in this direction. She was really screwing up. She understood the difference between the United States and New England, she thought, but apparently not well enough.
    “I just came to talk to you after lunch—those people were so strange. They said you did something wrong, but they didn’t know what.”
    “They just need someone to blame,” he said. Then he rubbed a gloved hand over his face. “That came out wrong. It came out like I’m accusing them. I’m not. It’s just—”
    “You retired,” she said, still not entirely understanding what that meant.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “And you’ve been spending the last few—months? Years? Being nice to them.”
    “No,” he said sadly. “I’ve just been trying to fit in, and that won’t work.”
    Then he shrugged, and said, “But you didn’t come here to talk about that, did you?”
    “I…” her voice trailed off. She didn’t have a plausible lie. She had never been good at lying, even when she was supposed to for Santa or the kids.
    So she pulled off her mitten and stuck out her hand. “I’m Julka.”
    “Marshall.” He took her hand, but didn’t shake it.
    “Hi,” she said, and blushed.
    “Hi,” he said, and shifted just a little. He hadn’t let go of her hand yet.
    She liked the way his hand felt, bigger and warmer than hers, enveloping hers altogether. Her eyes met his, and something shivered through her. Something better than nice.
    He seemed to feel it too, because his eyes brightened. “I’d ask you to dinner,” he said, “but after that lunch—”
    “I know,” she said. “I made a pig of myself.”
    “No, really,” he said. “It’s not that. How about coffee? It’s really cold and we could have some coffee. Although I think most places aren’t open. Half the town has lost power.”
    “Do you have power?” she asked. Besides power over her. Because he still held her hand and she didn’t mind. She always minded when a man held her hand too long. And some of the elves were just plain gropey, which she didn’t like at all.
    “Um.” Marshall glanced over his shoulder at the house. It looked way high up from here, with its odd mixture of Tudor and Colonial—and its seemingly perfect roof. “I do have power. I can make us coffee.”
    Her eyebrows went up. “This is your house?”
    He nodded. “I thought you knew that.”
    She shook her head. No kids, Delbert had said. Not this year, and probably not next.
    “So you’re not married?” she blurted.
    “No,” Marshall said. That grip on her hand remained loose. The question didn’t seem to bother him. “No girlfriends either. Not for the last year or so.”
    She wanted to say How lonely , but then she hadn’t had a special fella for years now and she wasn’t lonely. (Was she?) She had grown up with most of the guys at the North Pole, and they held no mystery for her.
    She wanted mystery. She wanted difference. That was why she wanted to travel.
    “I should say I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, “but I’m not.”
    Then she smiled. She usually wasn’t that forward. In fact, she couldn’t ever remember being that forward, especially with a guy she knew nothing about.
    “I can make you coffee inside,” he said, “Or bring it out if you think that’s too bold.”
    “It’s not too bold,” she said.
    “It’ll take maybe ten minutes to finish the driveway. If you don’t mind.”
    “I don’t mind,” she said.
    He smiled at her, then slowly let go of her hand. She felt the loss, not just of his warmth, but of him. She stepped back out of the way. She wished she had the skills some of the elves did. Snow removal with the snap of a finger. But her own magic was odd: seeing solutions when other people didn’t even know there were problems. And the added magic she had gotten for the rooftops job