Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Epigraph

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dear Reader

Copyright

“Your voice is beautiful.” That
wasn’t what he’d meant to say.
Where had that come from?

Joella looked down shyly. “Thank you. My voice is just one of the gifts I’ve been given.”

Like her smile, Jordan thought, and her eyes. “And what are my gifts?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe the chance to come home and make things easier for a whole town full of people.”

Jordan realized then that he’d made a mistake. He’d let things stray to a far too personal footing with this woman who represented the entire town which he had no choice but to betray and destroy. He felt awash in emotions—no, not emotions, he reminded himself, just a little minor attraction for a beautiful woman.

He had to tell her his real reason for coming back to town. That would surely erase any inclinations toward romance their moonlit walk might have given birth to.

PEGGY GILCHRIST

Peggy Gilchrist makes her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. But her first love is the small towns of Alabama, where she grew up, and Georgia, where her family also lived for a while. Her ancestors farmed and taught in one-room schoolhouses, founded rural churches and delivered mail on horseback. The family homestead was built in 1812 and was a historic landmark in Alabama. Some of Peggy’s favorite memories are of family gatherings at the house and at nearby Liberty Hill Church, where all-day gospel singings were held monthly.

Peggy has written more than twenty novels, but this is her first inspirational romance.

Christmas Town
Peggy Gilchrist

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

—Matthew 6:19-21

Dedicated with love and gratitude to Lynne and Dianne, who taught me faith by example.

Chapter One

All 122 pairs of eyes in the basement fellowship hall of the church watched in riveted silence as the black Lincoln glided down Main Street The only pair of eyes that held even a tiny spark of hope was the honey-flecked brown pair belonging to Joella Ratchford.

When the imposing automobile was out of sight, all eyes returned to the institutional green room whose walls were decorated with construction-paper cutouts of turkeys and Pilgrims.

“Looks like the executioner has arrived,” someone muttered.

“We can’t give up,” Joella said as forcefully as she could manage, although forcefulness wasn’t her strong suit.

Joella looked for reassurance to white-haired Reverend Hatfield Martin, who had been there for Joella during all of the toughest times of her life. He smiled his reassuring smile—the one that always seemed to say she wasn’t alone in whatever difficulty life was dishing up. Then she looked around her at the roomful of mill workers, most of whom she had known all her life. Some had wandered back to the circle of metal folding chairs, some remained beside the windows. All were dear to her.

Most of them weren’t smiling, reassuringly or otherwise. Joella could see in their faces that they had already resigned themselves to an unwelcome future.

“Come on, everybody,” she said, her tone close to pleading. “Don’t any of you believe it when Reverend Martin says the Lord will provide?”

Only a few people would return her gaze. Joella wanted to cry. She had grown up in Bethlehem, South Carolina. Her father had worked for Scoville Mill as long as she could remember, until his death three years ago. Every person in this room was like a member of Joella’s extended family. Surrogate aunts and uncles, cousins by marriage, best friends she’d played summer softball with. People she loved, all of them. Even the ones who got on her last good nerve sometimes, for that was the way with family.

Bethlehem was home, and Joella felt the loneliness of being the only one in town still willing to fight for it.

“Shoot-fire, Joella,” Eben Ford finally said. “What’re we supposed to do? The Scovilles are outta money. That means the mill’s outta money. The whole town’s outta money.”

“We’re all as good as homeless,” came Rutta Story’s thin, creaky voice. Mumbling, grumbling voices joined Rutta’s statement of doom.

“There’s the retirement fund,” Joella protested over the rumble, but no one listened. Weakly, knowing nobody heard, she finished, “At least we’ve got that to fall back on.”

“Joella’s right,” Reverend Martin said, standing to capture the attention of the room. “The Scovilles may fail us. But the Lord never will. Faith will see us through this.”

Some of the people looked sheepishly into their laps, but most of them kept right on complaining.

Joella swallowed hard and dropped into a chair, giving in to a wave of despair. Time was when her number-one goal had been to get away from Bethlehem as fast as she could. College in Asheville, North Carolina, then marriage to Andrew Ratchford, the high school valedictorian whose aspirations matched hers, had seemed the perfect plan. Then, two years later, Nathan was born and college put on hold for the more important job of motherhood. But Andy stuck with it, graduated with Joella’s help and took a promising job with a major bank. Not long after, Andy told Joella his lawyer would be in touch. She didn’t fit his plan any longer.

In the middle of all the hurt, old-fashioned and soothingly familiar Bethlehem had seemed a safe haven.

But as much as Joella hated to admit it, Rutta and Eben and the rest were right. Their safe haven was on the verge of turning into a bankrupt ghost town. Joella looked around the church basement at the cracked plaster, the rusty legs on the chairs. Even the construction-paper turkeys made by the children’s Sunday school classes had been cut out of faded, yellowing paper.

She looked for the one with Nathan’s name on it and wondered if anyone would have enough holiday spirit left to replace them soon with herald angels and Nativity scenes.

“Don’t know why we all act surprised.” Fred Roseforte’s strident voice carried over the rest of the rumbling voices. “This here’s the only family-owned mill village left in the state. We’re a dinosaur. The rest of ‘em’s already gone belly-up or sold out, long time back. We might’s well quit our grousing and start looking to the future, too.”

Fred stood then, and took a step toward the door. “I’m looking for work somewhere else, starting tomorrow.”

Joella watched other heads nod, saw others rise. “Wait!”

“Wait for what?” Fred demanded, his voice revealing his impatience just as surely as his red face did. “Wait till they tell us they ain’t got money to pay us for the last month’s work we did? Wait till they cut off the power to our houses—excuse me, their houses—and ask us to clear out?”

“Wait for…” Joella thought fast. There had to be something someone could do. “Wait till we hear what young Mr. Scoville has to say.”

Fred guffawed at that. “You might be too young to remember young Scoville, Joella. But I ain’t. I’ll wager most of us ain’t. You saw that big, fancy automobile he just rolled into town in. He’s not going to dirty his hands for long with a hundred or so grubby little mill families.”

A sense of loss settled into the pit of Joella’s stomach, like too many sour green apples when she was a kid.

“Then wait till Christmas, at least,” she pleaded. “It’s only a month away. But if you start walking out, they might have to shut down now. Then none of us will draw a paycheck this month. What kind of Christmas will that be for our kids and grand-kids?”

She took heart when she saw a few heads nodding at that reminder.

“Let us all remember that this is a holiday for miracles,” added the Reverend Martin.

“By golly, a miracle’s just what it’s gonna take,” Eben Ford said.

“Won’t be much Christmas, anyway,” Rutta said. “What I hear is there’s no money for the celebration.”

Joella didn’t want to hear that, either. For more than a century the Christmas celebration in Bethlehem had been Scoville Mill’s gift to its employees. And a spectacular gift it had become over the decades. Hundreds of thousands of lights twinkled all over the village. Life-size Nativity scenes and painted plywood angels decorated churchyards and rooftops. Caught up in the spirit, residents each year dressed in Dickens garb and walked the village at dusk, carolling. The light-studded village drew visitors first from all over the state, then all over the South, then all over the country. Christmas Town, U.S.A., it was called. Year before last, a national magazine wrote up the story.

Losing the Christmas celebration would cut the heart right out of the town, that was for sure.

“Let’s talk to them,” she pleaded, hoping to keep everyone else from feeling the despair she felt at the prospect of Bethlehem without its celebration. “Sit down and at least make sure our voices are heard when they make their plans.”

“Joella, you’ve got stars in your eyes, girl,” Fred said. “They ain’t worried about our future. All they’re worried about is coverin’ their own backs and cuttin’ their losses.”

“Still—” Eben spoke up “—she’s right. Somebody ought to be there. Looking out for us. Sort of a union representative, you might say.”

Fred’s snort made his opinion of that obvious. “If we’d had a union before, we might not be in this fix now.”

“Now, Fred, you know Mitchell and Truman always treated us right,” Joella said. “The Scovilles are good men and—”

“Fine! You want to know what a good man their nephew is? You go sit down at the negotiating table with young Scoville. You ask him what kind of retirement we can look forward to. You ask him what we’re gonna have for a lifetime making the Scovilles rich when he closes the doors the first of the year.”

Again a brief silence descended. Followed by a loud rumble of agreement.

And that was how Joella got herself elected to represent the mill hands in the Scoville Mill bankruptcy proceedings.

Jordan Scoville surveyed his father’s office and decided not to sit.

His father and his uncle Truman sat in the matching silk-striped chairs that faced the desk. He remembered his mother telling him, back when his legs were still too short to reach the floor, that those chairs were reserved for people who were reduced to asking a favor or listening to a lecture. Now Mitchell and Truman Scoville, once two of the most influential men in South Carolina, sat side by side in those chairs, feet crossed at the ankles, agespotted hands clasped expectantly in their laps, hope shining in their eyes.

Clearly they’d left Mitchell’s big leather chair behind the desk vacant for Jordan. But Jordan had no intention of taking on that burden for them. He was here to clean up their mess because that’s what sons did when their fathers couldn’t do it for themselves. But he would be granting no favors and delivering no lectures.

“Well, Jordie, your father and I—”

“Jordan.” He interrupted his uncle. There would be no misunderstandings. Not about his role here. Certainly not about the fact that he was no longer a kid. “I’m not eleven any longer, Uncle Truman. Please call me Jordan.”

Truman smiled uncertainly and looked at Mitch-ll, who didn’t look back. The two men, one seventy-seven and the other seventy-nine, might have been twins. Both had flyaway white hair that floated atop their pink scalps in wispy tufts. Both wore round, wire-rimmed glasses and favored white buck shoes and seersucker suits, even in the winter, now that Jordan’s mother was no longer around to exlain why white buck and seersucker could not be worn after Labor Day. The seersucker hung loosely on their rounded shoulders. Both had plump pink cheeks, and their razors tended to miss a gray whisker or two directly under their noses. Both were dreamers and people pleasers and entirely too soft-hearted to have been given the responsibility of running a business that had been in the family four generations.

The only significant difference between the two was that Truman had never married and Mitchell favored bow ties, although Jordan noted he had switched to the clip-on variety now that he didn’t have Eugenia Jordan Scoville’s nimble fingers to help with the tying.

Jordan had heard it said that Southern women were often the real backbone of the family. Considering the mess that had developed following his mother’s death, he had no choice but to believe it. Steel magnolia, indeed.

Although as a child he’d always wanted a softer, warmer mother, Jordan was now grateful for all that Eugenia had been. For he was, thankfully, more like her than he was the Scoville side of the family, both in appearance and temperament.

Eugenia had been statuesque where her husband was stocky, golden skinned and dark haired where her husband was pale, assertive where her husband was tentative. She had been an aristocrat and her husband a man with the common touch. Growing up, Jordan had admired neither option. He’d hated being regarded as the little prince in the village where his parents were benevolent monarchs. But he’d been too much like his mother to play the role of the common man at his father’s side.

In the end, he’d followed his natural inclinations. He supposed, after all, he’d become his mother’s son.

Uncle Truman cleared his throat. “Well, then, Jordan. I see. That is, we’re so glad you’re home. For the holidays and all.”

Jordan frowned. Another sore spot struck. All his adult life, Jordan hadn’t been able to think of the holidays without thinking of Christmas Town, U.S.A. And as much as everyone else in Bethlehem had loved the elaborate celebration, it had done nothing for young Jordie Scoville but remind him that he didn’t fit in. He’d hated the extravagance and the knowledge that it was bought and paid for by his parents, that it wasn’t the product of anybody’s real Christmas spirit.

Since leaving, he managed to find ways, each December, to concentrate on anything but the holidays. Big deals closed on December 24. Trips to scout property took place on December 25.

Jordan frowned and walked to the window overlooking Main Street. “I’m not here for the holidays, Uncle. I’m here to shut down the mill.”

He heard the little hum of dismay that was his father’s response and wondered if other sons could handle all this with more grace, more sympathy. And, if so, why couldn’t he? Why did all this family stuff bother him so?

And why couldn’t he manage to be tough enough that it really didn’t matter?

“Well, of course, Jord…an. Of course. But it is almost December and we will all be together.”

“Not all of us,” Mitchell reminded his brother gently. “Not Eugenia.”

“Well, I didn’t mean that, of course. I’m not senile, Mitchell. I know the dear woman is departed. All I meant was—”

“Do you have all the records I asked for?” Jordan interrupted, impatient with their prattle. Impatient with himself for his impatience. He couldn’t stand seeing them like this, so helpless and so clearly in need of someone’s help.

But there was no one but him, and that was out of the question.

Little wonder Scoville Mill was bankrupt. What had Eugenia been thinking, dying and leaving the family business in their care these past ten years? “Is everything in order?”

“Oh, yes,” his father said. “To be sure. Venita has everything you’ll need, doesn’t she, Truman?”

Jordan shut out the sound of their cheery debate over who would summon the woman who had served as their secretary for as long as Jordan could remember. This was taking its toll on him already, dredging up memories he preferred to keep buried.

He studied the block-long Main Street of the town where he’d grown up, the town he’d left without looking back as soon as military school, followed by Duke University, offered an escape. He remembered Main Street as busy, like a midway at a rural carnival. People milling around, talking, in and out of the post office and the general mercantile and the diner. All the storefronts were still the same, except for being about fifteen years drearier. Few cars or pickups were parked along the street. No third-shifters moseyed along carrying out the day’s errands. The yellow caution light at the end of the hill didn’t even blink now, simply stared out dark and unseeing over the narrow, deserted street.

Just as Jordan had decided that Bethlehem was already a hopeless cause, with blessedly little left for him to dismantle, the door opened from the basement of the Little Bethlehem Baptist Church at the top of the hill. People poured out, talking, gesturing. In their denim and flannel they were more than animated, they were agitated. And all their agitation seemed directed toward one person at the very center of the frenzy.

The eye of this human hurricane was a petite woman, also wearing the requisite denim and flannel—snug jeans and a red-and-yellow-plaid shirt open over a red turtleneck. She kept shaking her head. They kept shaking their fingers at her. Finally she slapped a baseball cap on her short, dark hair and stalked away, dismissively waving them off. Without his realizing it, Jordan’s lips curled into a small smile.

They can’t push you around without your permission, he thought, remembering the words his mother had said to him more times than he could count. The woman in the baseball cap looked ill inclined to be pushed around, despite being heavily outnumbered.

The heavy oak door to his father’s office closed with such determination Jordan knew at once that Venita Tanner had made her entrance. He turned to her, his smile automatic. Surely, if there was anything left in this town to feel good about, it would be Venita.

She didn’t disappoint him. She stood in the doorway like a tall, dark warrior, broad of shoulder and sure of stance. The turquoise of her suit lent a glow to her ebony skin. She still defied her black hair, now shot through with silver, to return to its natural waves by yanking it back in a knot so severe it had always made Jordan stand straighter, even as a boy.

After all this time, he noted, squaring his travel-weary shoulders, Venita Tanner was still a formidable woman. Although Venita was called secretary, Jordan knew she had run much of the show herself for years. He also knew the African-American woman would never have been hired for such a responsible position if not for his mother. Thirty years ago Eugenia had been adamant that this college graduate was a better choice than a local high school girl of eighteen, who could barely find the shift key on the old Underwood typewriter. Jordan believed that if Venita hadn’t come of age at a time when black women didn’t easily go far, Venita could have owned the world, or at least a substantial portion of it.

She didn’t smile back, but he knew there was welcome in her big heart, even for the Prodigal Son.

“You always said you’d marry me when I was as tall as you,” he said, hanging on to the small smile prompted by the petite woman at the center of the storm on Main Street. “I’m back to see if you’ll keep your word.”

She grunted. “As long as they’re still selling four-inch heels, Jordie, you don’t stand a chance.”

“Oh, um, Venita, you see,” Truman began, nervously, “he wants us to call him Jordan now. Of course.”

She grunted again, hands on her generous hips. Jordan had the strangest notion she was waiting to see if he had enough human being left in him to hug the woman he’d spent more time with, growing up, than he had with his own mother. He didn’t want to disappoint her. He tried to remember the last person he’d hugged. Really hugged, not one of those phony social embraces at cocktail parties when some client’s anorexic wife remembers you from the last cocktail party.

By the time he’d made up his mind to give it a try, Venita had clearly grown tired of his indecision.

“Okay,” she said briskly, thrusting a folder in his direction. “Here’s what I’ve got. You better sit down.”

Feeling more completely alone than he had only moments before, Jordan caught her eye as he took the thick file folder from her, one that looked identical to the one she retained for herself. She looked apologetic and resigned. If he’d seen an ounce of fight in Venita’s eyes, he would have harbored some hope. Instead, he gave up any notion of salvaging anything from the wreckage that was the once-mighty Scoville Mill.

He’d hated this town and this company for so long, he couldn’t even say he was sorry, except for what this would do to his father, his uncle, and Venita.

He gave in to the inevitable and dropped into his father’s chair. From the corner, Venita pulled up a smaller, straight-back chair and opened her file folder. Jordan followed her lead.

“The first thing you should know is that—”

Mitchell’s crumpled-paper voice interrupted. “Maybe Truman and I should leave. Let you two go through this first.”

Jordan and Venita exchanged a look. Jordan’s inclination was to have them suffer through the autopsy, but he relented at the recommendation for mercy in Venita’s eyes. The two elderly men stood and shuffled toward the door, leaving behind another round of cheerful welcomes and their bright-eyed optimism for the wonders Jordan could accomplish, now that he was here.

Watching them leave, so defenseless and so rumpled looking, would have broken Jordan’s heart if he hadn’t become so good at steeling himself against such compassion.

At the door, just before it closed behind them, Truman stuck his head back in. “Um, Venita, my dear?”

“Yes?”

“Um, you don’t…That is, will it be necessary…um…?”

“Yes, Truman,” she said softly, her smile apologetic. “I think it will be quite necessary.”

His brow deepened its furrows, but he merely nodded as he backed out the door and closed it at last.

Hurt squeezed Jordan’s heart. He thought perhaps it was merely the bad chicken dinner he’d had at the country-cooking truck stop on the way in from Atlanta. “What will be quite necessary?”

Venita pursed her glossy mahogany lips and sighed deeply. “For you to know about the retirement account.”

Jordan felt uneasy as he heard the words and sensed how deep her distress went. “What about the retirement account?”

She smiled, a sad smile that for the first time made her look all of her fifty-plus years. “I’m afraid we don’t have one anymore.”

Chapter Two

Nathan Ratchford scrolled through the E-mail file, hoping against hope that today he would find some sign from his dad.

Zip. Zilch.

Sulking, he pulled his feet up into Venita’s desk chair and made a circle with his legs. He picked at a raveling thread in the seam of his jeans and wondered what a seven-year-old could do to get his big-shot dad to acknowledge his son’s existence.

Nathan thought about sending another E-mail message. Maybe something had happened to the other message. Like maybe his secretary had accidentally, stupidly, moronically killed it out before his dad could see it. Or the humongous mainframe computer that ran the whole, entire bank where his dad was a big shot had crashed, paralyzing the entire banking industry of the Southeast. And if Nathan the Wonder Kid came in and got the computer up and running again, then even his dad would see that…

The tantalizing fantasy momentarily wiped the sullen expression off Nathan’s face. Until he realized that if anyone was being stupid or moronic it was one Nathan Ratchford.

“Yeah, I’ll send you another letter,” he muttered, signing off E-mail to page through the directory of other goodies available on Venita’s computer. “Dear Deadbeat Dad: In case it has slipped your busy, important mind, you have a son, aged seven years and eight-point-two months, who is growing up without the bare essentials—a computer, a pair of purple-and-teal high-top sneakers, or even one measly ticket to a Charlotte Hornets home game. Yours truly, Nathan the Half Orphan.”

The brilliance of his memo cheered him again briefly, and Nathan selected the Encyclopedia option on Venita’s computer directory. He had almost finished the A‘s. The way he had it figured, if he worked hard and kept to the schedule he’d worked out, he could finish the Z’s by the end of the sixth grade and sail right from elementary school to the freshman class at Duke University. Do not pass Go, do not stop at junior-stupid-high, do not collect two hundred dollars.

Azimuth was snore-city, but Nathan figured the Aztecs must be up next, so he plowed ahead. Keeping his mind on due northeasts was hard and he grew impatient with Venita for being late. He kept thinking she’d come out of her stupid meeting soon, but she didn’t. The old geezers had come out a long time ago and Venita was still locked up behind that big old door. Before he knew it, his mom would come after him and Venita wouldn’t even get to help him with his new plan, the way she’d helped him find out about his dad’s E-mail address. Venita knew stuff like that, especially stuff about Charlotte.

Venita knew more about Charlotte, North Carolina, than anybody in both the Carolinas, he supposed. Maybe in the world. Because she went to college there about a million years ago, back in the Paleolithic Era, circa 1965 B.N.

Before Nathan.

He’d taken his glasses off and placed them carefully in the middle of Venita’s big desk calendar and was about to doze off over Azoic Era in the computer encyclopedia when the big old door opened. Nathan’s eyes snapped open, but everything stayed blurry until he remembered his glasses.

He reached for his glasses, but not before a man followed Venita out the big old door. In that fuzzy, glasses-free instant, Nathan’s heart flew to his throat and he thought he might fall right out of Venita’s office chair.

Dad!

He realized it wasn’t so the minute he got his glasses on, of course. Still, the man made him think of his dad, who was also tall and broad shouldered and wore suits the color of number two pencil lead and really, really white shirts and striped neckties, but whose most distinctive characteristic was the grim expression on his face. Intimidating. Nathan had learned that word in a movie and he had always remembered it, because he knew that was exactly what his dad was. Intimidating.

And so was this man Venita seemed to like. She was paying such close attention to him she hadn’t even noticed Nathan. So he cleared his throat and rattled the middle drawer of her desk a little bit.

“Well, Nathan, hello.” She looked, as always, pleased to see him, but she didn’t look at him or talk to him in that cutesy way grown-ups usually did. She always acted as if she thought Nathan was as grown-up as anybody. Which, of course, he was.

“Hey, Venita. You’re late.”

“I know. And I am sorry. But Mr. Scoville and I had a lot of business to talk about today.” She glanced at the man again. They both looked tired. “Nathan, this is Jordan Scoville. Mr. Mitchell’s son. Jordan, this is Nathan Ratchford. He’s the best office assistant I’ve had in…oh, I’d say about twenty-five years.”

Nathan sat up straighter in the chair and offered up his hand for a shake. “Pleased to meet’cha, Mr. Scoville.”

“Same here, Mr. Ratchford.” And the man with the intimidating face took Nathan’s hand, shook it grown-up to grown-up. “I’m always glad to meet anybody who’s managed to impress Venita.”

Nathan wasn’t sure how to take that, and he didn’t have time to think about it because he suddenly remembered who Jordan Scoville was and it kind of shook him up. Jordan Scoville was the man everybody said was coming to town to fire them all and put them out of their homes. Wo! Nathan was excited. A real, live, bad-to-the-bone business tycoon!

“Jordan only says that because I was impressed by him when he was your age,” Venita said with the smile Nathan always thought she reserved just for him. For a minute that made Nathan a little jealous.

Then, he started to wonder if this was Venita’s way of letting him know that what she always said was true. Just because you’re growing up on the mill hill doesn’t mean you can’t make something of yourself, Nathan. If you apply yourself. Maybe Nathan, too, could grow up and be grim-faced and intimidating and wear pencil-lead suits and really, really white shirts.

He hoped so. Mom always said those weren’t important things in life, but Nathan thought she might be wrong about that one matter.

“Get any word on the E-mail today?” Venita asked and the sound of her voice seemed to say it was truly insignificant whether he had or not. Nathan was glad of that, because then he could pretend it didn’t matter, too.

“Nah.” He shook his head and unfolded his bony legs. “I think I’m going to have to plan another strategy.”

She nodded and dropped her files onto her desk. But before she could reply, the front door from the street opened and Nathan’s mom walked in. Forgetting for a minute all about what kind of impression he would be making on Mr. Bad-to-the-Bone Jordan Scoville, Nathan dashed into her arms.

“Mom!”

And she gave him that big, old hug that made it not even matter whether his dad hated his guts for the rest of his life.

Jordan felt that hitch in his heart again when Nathan Ratchford and his mom lost themselves in a hug. Once more he blamed his truck-stop lunch, because that was easier than admitting what he was witnessing struck at something vulnerable inside him.

He’d had a lot of hugs from Venita when he was that age, but not too many from his mother.

He wondered, as he watched mother and son, what it would be like to have a mother who was tender and welcoming instead of regal and imposing. Apparently Nathan Ratchford thought it was pretty cool, the way he pressed his oversize ear against his mother’s red flannel shirt. Jordan tapped the file Venita had given him and busied himself stuffing it into his briefcase.

Thank goodness he wasn’t a lonely little outsider any longer.

He glanced up in time to see the boy’s mother peer in his direction. It was then he really looked at her, and saw the short, dark curls peeking out from beneath a red baseball cap. The woman at the center of the brouhaha on Main Street.

Her arms loosened their hold on her son, while the rest of her stiffened visibly. “Oh. Come on, Nathan. Venita’s got important work to do.”

Jordan watched the soft expression on her face change as she took him in. No doubt she knew exactly who he was—little escaped the gossip mill in Bethlehem, unless things had changed drastically since he was a kid. Although the expression on her heart-shaped face grew a little timid, he also saw a certain pride. He studied her as Venita made the introductions. Joella Ratchford’s sharp, dark eyes issued a challenge. Her chin came to a determined-looking point. Color rose in her smooth ivory cheeks.

“I’m glad for the opportunity to meet you, Mrs. Ratchford.” He hated the way he sounded when he said it, like the king of the hill talking down to one of his subjects. His mother’s voice. The one that kept everyone in town at arm’s length.

“You mean before we all get put out on the street, Mr. Scoville?”

Jordan saw Venita’s eyebrows rise as she turned to study the effects of Joella Ratchford’s comment. He saw Nathan punch his glasses higher on his nose and stare at his mother in surprise. Jordan hoped he revealed nothing, because what he had to reveal was an enormous well of guilt and anxiety. It was hard to remember that he didn’t have a thing to be guilty about. This mess wasn’t his fault.

In fact, he was as inconvenienced by this as anyone else. Here he was, every penny he had tied up buying property that would—that might—be the location for a football stadium, if the National Football League ever got off dead center and made up its mind. And with all that going on, he had to drag himself away from the action to baby-sit the family business. He’d fought against being dragged into the family business all his life and now, with his future hanging in the balance, here he was. Back in Bethlehem. And finding out that everything was way more complicated than he’d imagined.

Mrs. Ratchford and her friends weren’t the only ones unhappy with the way things were going.

“I understand your dismay over the closing of Scoville Mill, Mrs. Ratchford,” he said, knowing how cool and heartless he must sound to a woman who was afraid of finding her family on the street. He wondered if anyone in town had any way of knowing just how realistic such a fear might be. If he’d been a praying man, he would have been praying for all he was worth right this minute that Joella Ratchford and her neighbors had no idea what was going on behind closed doors at Scoville Mill.

“I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Scoville.” If Jordan could have closed his eyes, he could almost imagine this mill hand dressed in a power suit and shaking a leather briefcase at him. She had a firmer voice than that initial hint of timidity had indicated. “I might as well let you know now that the townfolk have asked me to represent them in these bankruptcy proceedings. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to sit down with you and see what we can expect to happen this next month.”

A lesser man might have choked on apprehension, but not Jordan. “I can assure you, that won’t be necessary. The interests of all our employees will be first and foremost in our minds. I promise you that.”

He could see right away that she was no more ready to have him push her around than she’d been to have those townspeople push her around earlier in the afternoon.

Her eyes narrowed as she said, “I appreciate that, Mr. Scoville. But the townfolk have asked and I figure I owe it to them to do what I can to set their minds at ease. Don’t you believe that’s so, Mr. Scoville?”

Jordan’s grip tightened on his briefcase. He knew only one thing. There was no way anybody from the mill was going to sit in on meetings about closing the mill. Not until Jordan had figured out a way to cover up the things that needed covering up.

Otherwise, Mitchell and Truman Scoville would spend their last years in prison. And that was not going to happen while Jordan had any say about it.

“I’ll certainly do all I can to keep everyone apprised of our progress in this matter,” he said. “I’m certain no one expects you to spend your valuable time listening to a roomful of lawyers and businessmen throwing around legal and financial jargon, Mrs. Ratchford.”

“I appreciate the fact you’re thinking about my valuable time, Mr. Scoville. I really do.” Based on her tone of voice, Jordan doubted she appreciated a word he’d said. “But these folks—I’ve known most of them all my life, you know—have trusted me with something and I guess I’ll do the best I can. Even if it means having to listen to a bunch of fasttalking lawyers.”

Then she took her son by the hand. “Come on, Nathan. We’ve got to get supper on the table. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Scoville. So long, Venita.”

And they walked out the front door.

Venita let out a low whistle. “You’ve got problems, Jordan Scoville.”

“I can handle it,” he said.

Venita just grunted.

Joella had to call Nathan twice after she set the butter beans and cornbread on the table, he was so engrossed in lettering his signs for the grocery-delivery business he wanted to launch. Joella had tried to dissuade him, gently explaining that money would be tight in Bethlehem over the coming weeks. People might not have money for extras.

But he was that much like his father. Blind to anything but his own confidence in whatever he set out to achieve. Andrew Ratchford had gone far that way; no reason to suppose Nathan couldn’t do the same. Although it did bother her sometimes to think of sweet, serious Nathan turning into a hard-edged, unfeeling businessman. People like that—like Jordan Scoville, for example—scared her.

She smiled as she peered into the tiny living room and saw Nathan’s dark head bent over his poster board, a bold purple crayon clutched in his fingers. “Even budding entrepreneurs have to eat, Nathan.”

“Just let me—”

“Now.”

His shoulders slumped and he released his grip on the purple crayon. He dragged himself to his feet and headed for the table, making sure his disappointment was eminently readable in his body language.

“You’ll have plenty of time to finish your signs after supper,” she said after Nathan finished saying the blessing.

“I’ll bet Jordan Scoville doesn’t have to stop for supper.”

Joella frowned. She hated the notion that even a seven-year-old could see the difference between the Ratchfords and a man like Jordan Scoville. Breeding and power were written all over his face, were apparent in every inch of him, from the way he carried himself and the way he spoke, to the way he looked right at home in that suit. Why that suit was probably worth more than every single item Joella possessed, including her grandmother’s antique sleigh bed, the only thing she owned with any monetary value at all.

“You’re right about that,” she conceded.

“I knew it. If you want to be successful, you can’t let things like supper stop you,” Nathan proclaimed. “You’ve got to—”

“Rich folks don’t eat supper,” Joella interrupted. “Rich folks eat dinner.”

Nathan paused to consider that. “They do?”

“Yep. About six courses. First they get soup.”

“What kind of soup?”

“Not chicken noodle. Something like turtle or oxtail, maybe.”

“Oh, yuck! Mom, that is so gross.”

“Well, you want to be hoity-toity like Mr. Scoville, you better start cultivating a taste for turtles and oxtails.”

He screwed up his thin, freckled face and stared into his plate for a moment. “What else? For dinner, I mean.”

“Then you have to eat salad.”

“Okay. I’ll take potato salad. No onion.”

“That’s not upper-crusty enough, either. You’ll probably have to have avocado stuffed with artichoke hearts. How’s that sound?”

He responded by pointing his finger down his throat and making a gagging sound. “I’ll bet real rich people just eat peanut butter and jelly whenever they want it.”

Joella had a hard time imagining the Scoville heir eating peanut butter and jelly. “You think so?”

Nathan thought about it and apparently had the same problem with his imagination that she was having. “Naw. Maybe not.” Then he giggled. “All that grape jelly’d probably just squoosh out all down your tie and your really, really white shirt and boy would you be in trouble then.”

Joella laughed with him, despite the pang in her heart as she was once again struck by fear. What was she going to do? With the mill closing, how was she going to take care of Nathan?

The Reverend Martin would tell her—had told her many times—that all she needed was faith that God would meet her needs. But she’d tried that these past four years and look where it had gotten her. Living in a tiny little mill village house with butter beans and cornbread for dinner, and facing the day when even that little bit might be out of reach.

Having faith would be easier, she thought, if she had only herself to worry about.

If push came to shove, she’d have to humble herself and let all those social services people take Andrew to court for child support, the way Venita had been telling her to for years. Then Andy would think he’d been right all along when he said she didn’t have the brains to take care of herself.

All these years she’d been dead-set determined to prove him wrong. It hurt like crazy to think she might have to swallow her pride and let him know she couldn’t make it on her own, after all.

“I thought he was Dad, at first,” Nathan was saying.

“What? Who?”

“That Mr. Scoville.”

“Why in the world would you think that?” she asked, but she didn’t have to hear his answer. In all the superficial ways a child would notice, Jordan Scoville was exactly like Andrew Ratchford. Tall, imposing, well dressed, with that precise way of speaking that you didn’t hear much in a small town like Bethlehem.

“You know, Mom. ‘Cause he was intimidating.”

That he was. Her reaction to him had felt like fullscale panic—heart racing, knees shaking. Joella had no idea how she was going to make him take her seriously over the next few weeks. Maybe she ought to call Fred Roseforte right now and admit she was no match for Jordan Scoville.

Then she tried to picture prickly-pear Fred up in Jordan Scoville’s face and knew precisely how much that was likely to gain the hardworking folks of Bethlehem. No, as long as she was the only one who believed the Scovilles would treat them right, had every intention of taking care of them, she needed to keep Jordan Scoville away from people like Fred Roseforte.

“’Cept he didn’t intimidate you, did he, Mom? You stood right up to him.”

“Well, I have to admit, I was a little…scared.”

Nathan grinned. “I knew that. ‘Cause your hand was sweaty when we went out the door.”

“You scoundrel. What’re you trying to do, catch me in a fib?”

“Yeah.” He laughed so hard he almost slipped out of his chair. Then his mirth vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he turned his serious young face in her direction again. “Mom, when are we gonna get a Christmas tree?”

Joella looked down at her plate. “Um, I’m not sure, Nathan. I was thinking…maybe we won’t exactly have a tree this year.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you know I was telling you how money’s going to be tight. I was thinking, maybe we’d spend that money on other things, instead of a tree that we’ll have to throw out the first of the year anyway.”

“What things?”

She heard the challenge in his voice and knew she was treading on thin ice. She dared not say what she was really thinking. Things like bread and milk or one more month of paying the heating bill. No, that would never do. “I don’t know exactly, but…Christmas things, maybe.”

Nathan flattened a crumb of cornbread under his thumb, then drew it thoughtfully to his mouth. “I liked it better before Patsy Kelley told me Santa Claus didn’t bring the presents.”

Joella sighed. He was growing up so fast. Too fast to suit her. “I know. Me, too.”

“So, when is the town going to turn on all the lights and stuff?”

The ice she trod grew thinner yet. Explaining to the children of Bethlehem that there might be no lights this year would be just as bad as explaining there was no Santa Claus to bring their hearts’ desire. This year the Grinch was truly in danger of stealing Christmas, at least here in Bethlehem, South Carolina.

“Sweetheart, I don’t know the answer to that yet, either.” But she kept praying that the miracle of Christmas would come to Bethlehem one more time before the village rolled up its sidewalks for good. “But you know that lights and presents aren’t what Christmas is all about anyway, don’t you?”

He ignored her question. “You only call me sweetheart when something’s wrong. Something’s wrong about Christmas, isn’t it? I mean, something besides the money being tight.”

Joella stifled another sigh. Raising a son alone was hard enough without having to raise one who, to all appearances, was too smart for his own good. “Finish eating, Nathan. You’ve got all those posters to finish before bed.”

He put his fork down on his plate and stared at her with the unyielding look that was his father all over. “They’re not going to celebrate Christmas this year, are they?”

She sighed. No fibs allowed. “I don’t know, Nathan. Maybe not. Nobody’s sure yet.”

“It’s that Mr. Scoville, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t that, Nathan.”

“It is, too! Just look at him. If Patsy Kelley hadn’t already told me there wasn’t a Santa Claus, he’d tell me himself. He doesn’t believe in Christmas and he doesn’t care if anyone else does, either!”

“Now, Nathan, you don’t know that. You’re doing exactly what everybody in this town is doing, getting all worked up over something that may not even happen.”

“I’m not all worked up.” But Joella saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes before he picked up his plate and cleared it from the table. “But I don’t see why Mr. Jordan Scoville has to come in and ruin Christmas for everybody. It’s not fair!”

Seven wasn’t old enough to hear the explanation that life was seldom fair. So all Joella knew to do was pull Nathan close to her and give him a hug that she hoped would wipe away a little bit of his frustration. “Nathan, we don’t need the Scovilles’ lights to have a wonderful Christmas.”

“Yes, we do,” he mumbled against her chest. “If we don’t have lights, we won’t have any Christmas.”

“We sure will, sweetheart. I promise you. We’ll have the best Christmas ever, even if we don’t have a single light.”

She wasn’t sure how she was going to keep that promise. But she’d raised her son to know that one of the things he could count on was that his mom wouldn’t fib to him. As she ran a sinkful of hot, soapy water, she closed her eyes and whispered, “God, I know You’ve got a lot more important things to worry about. But please don’t let me be fibbing this time, either. If it means changing Jordan Scoville from the Grinch into jolly old Saint Nick, please help me see to it that my boy gets his fill of Christmas joy our last year in Bethlehem.”

Chapter Three

Jordan was glad, as he drove up to the Scoville estate on the edge of Bethlehem, that he had chosen to stay in one of the family’s smaller houses near the center of the village. He could deal with the massive stone Tudor in small doses. But he didn’t feel up to coping on a daily basis with the suffocating rigidity it symbolized to him.

The circular driveway gave off impressions of darkness and isolation as he pulled the black Lincoln to a stop. The single round window in the carved wooden door glared forbiddingly and the tap of his heels on the marble entryway echoed of solitude. The feeling shivered around him and through him, the memory of his childhood.

Now thirty-four, Jordan thought he’d long since put those memories to rest. It disconcerted him to discover they merely lurked in quiet corners of his heart, waiting.

He shouldn’t have come back. He knew it. If he’d had another choice, he wouldn’t have.

Dinner hour had just begun at the Scoville estate, so Jordan joined his father and his uncle in the dining room. He’d already eaten his microwaved chicken-and-vermicelli frozen dinner while standing, the morning’s newspaper spread across the kitchen counter, open to the business pages. He read of stock options and interest rates while devouring the low-fat, low-salt, low-taste food. It had settled heavily in his tension-knotted gut, and sat there still as he accepted the glass of tea his uncle Truman offered. Truman’s hand trembled, the spout of the pitcher tinkling against the rim of the crystal goblet like chimes in the breeze.

“So, my boy, are you getting settled in?” Nerves gave Truman’s voice a quivering quality not much different from the sound of crystal against crystal.

“Yes, thank you.”

“I truly don’t understand why you feel you have to stay over there, anyway,” Mitchell added, and paused for an explanation that didn’t come. Eventually he jabbed his fork in the direction of his half-eaten veal chop. “We would have fed you, you know.”

“I’m accustomed to feeding myself,” Jordan said, and instantly despised the stuffy chill of his voice. As a little boy, how many times had he sworn he’d never let himself sound that way? He tried to soften his words, his tone, but couldn’t be sure he’d succeeded. “I don’t eat heavy dinners much anymore.”

They ate and he sat, sipping his tea, wondering how they managed to force food down their throats while waiting for the ax to drop.

You have to understand, Venita had said, they were only trying to help. It made all the sense in the world to them.

He waited for them to finish. He listened to their small talk about the men at the club he might remember, and who had broken eighty last summer. Truman rhapsodized that with the mill closing, giving him more time on the greens, perhaps he could shoot his age next summer. Jordan couldn’t keep his mind on their words. His thoughts kept straying to Venita’s revelations—and the slow-voiced, softeyed woman who wanted him to reassure her about the future of Bethlehem’s families.

The sweet tea tasted sour on Jordan’s lips.

At last they finished their meal—including an excellent trifle made from one of Grace’s original recipes, although the cook from Jordan’s childhood had passed away about fifteen years ago, before his mother, even. Jordan felt the past tug at him again. Grace, with her big, soft arms and the broad expanse of her comforting embrace, had always been fragrant with homey spices. Between Grace and Venita, he’d gotten all the hugs a little boy needed.

The feeling welled up in him again, that needy feeling that had swept over him when he’d watched Venita’s young friend, Nathan, engulfed in his mother’s hug. Needy and empty.

Shrugging it off—again—he followed Mitchell and Truman into the drawing room.

Lambs to the slaughter.

Ornate Art Deco lamps with their tasseled shades cast a soft, golden glow over the dark-paneled room. Leather-bound books and crystal growing dull beneath a film of long-standing dust set the tone for the room. Truman poured coffee. Mitchell accepted, Jordan declined.

“Well,” Mitchell began cheerfully, “I hope you and Venita resolved this whole issue of the Christmas lights. You know, people have grown concerned, but I kept telling them, wait until Jordan arrives. He will know exactly how to take care of this little situation.”

“Oh, yes,” Truman added. “Rightly said.”

“We’ve resolved the issue,” Jordan said. “The lights will be dismantled as soon as possible.”

“Dismantled?” Truman’s withered shoulders straightened a tad beneath the seersucker. “But surely not now. Not right before Christmas.”

“Oh, surely not.”

Jordan set his jaw and refused to be moved by the dismayed confusion in his relatives’ voices. “We’ve been approached by a buyer. Some sort of theme park. Some of these decorations are antiques. Quite valuable, it seems. Venita tells me if we act quickly, we can get a good price.”

“A good price? But, son, these decorations, they’re…well, they’re…priceless.”

“And lest we forget, they belong to the town, you know.”

“They belong to the mill,” Jordan corrected his uncle. “Like everything else in this town. And like everything else in this town, those decorations are going to have to be converted to cash if we’re going to keep you two out of prison.”

“Out of—!” Mitchell’s hand jerked, sloshing his coffee onto the arm of the striped velvet chair that had always been “his” chair. A Brugge lace antimacassar soaked up the brown liquid, another minor indiscretion that would go unnoticed now that his wife was gone.

“Prison? Oh, my!” Truman leaned over and very carefully, using both hands, set his china cup on the Duncan Phyfe side table that was no longer highly polished. “Surely, my boy, you don’t mean that.”

“I’m afraid that’s exactly what will happen,” Jordan said, doing his best to soften his boardroom voice. Why was he using his boardroom voice at all? Why had he found himself despising his actions so many times in these few short hours since he’d been back in Bethlehem? “Unless the two of you have a very good explanation for the four-point-six million that’s disappeared from the retirement trust fund over the last nine months.”

“Oh, that!” Mitchell looked up, his eyes much brighter now. “Why, son, that’s simple. Tell him about that, Truman.”

Truman clasped his hands between his knees and leaned forward earnestly. “Oh, of course. That was all very aboveboard. And unfortunate. I can do no more than admit it was an unfortunate circumstance. But there was nothing…I cannot stress it to you enough…there was nothing…the least bit…dishonest. I can assure you of that.”

Despite himself, Jordan felt something he could only call hope stirring beneath the dread in his heart. Perhaps Venita didn’t know the whole story. Maybe, just maybe, there was some reasonable explanation and all this potential scandal would disappear. “Where is the money, Dad?”

“Why, it’s gone, of course. It was just as Truman said. Unfortunate. Most unfortunate.”

Jordan felt his flicker of hope give way to anger. He tried to keep it in check by reminding himself that these two men were not one whit like the nearscoundrels he did business with every day. These men were not land speculators and wheeler-dealers. These men were his befuddled but kindhearted father and his bemused but sweet-tempered uncle. These men were the last of the Scovilles to live off the labor of others, and naively expect gratitude in return.

“What happened to the money, Dad?”

“Well, we met this nice young man. At the club. Last…when was that, Truman? Last spring? Was it that Easter weekend at the member-guest or was it…Yes, that was it. The member-guest. I remember because Curtis was my partner and…”

“The money, Dad.” His voice, finally, was soft, the sound of his heart breaking for two old men he still loved with the devotion of a child. Yes, this was the feeling he’d tried to shield himself against since he’d arrived—heartache. He pursed his lips to keep them from trembling.

“Yes, of course. The money. Well, he told us about this deal. Something to do with stocks, if memory serves. And, well, we knew even then that the mill was in trouble. And when he told us what kind of profit margin he expected…Well, we knew if we invested with him we could save the mill. But the only money we had…” He shrugged.

“The retirement account.”

Mitchell smiled, clearly gratified that his son could see the wisdom of this decision.

Jordan sighed, but willed his face to remain composed and expressionless. Why hadn’t someone told him the senior Scovilles had reached such a state of irresponsibility? Why had they been allowed to go on? Why hadn’t Venita realized, and called him?

When he’d asked her that very question earlier in the day, she had stared hard at him through narrowed eyes. “How many times have you been home in the last ten years, Jordie? How many times have you even returned their calls when they left messages for you?”

And the answers to all his questions were clear to him. The responsibility had been his. Venita had little, if any, real authority over the senior Scovilles. And the retirement account wasn’t under her jurisdiction, anyway. Saving Mitchell and Truman from themselves wasn’t her job, although she’d done it more times than any of them knew, of that Jordan was certain.

No, saving the family honor was Jordan’s job. And if he hadn’t been willing to do it at the right time, then it fell to him to figure out how to do it after the fact.

He must keep his father and his uncle out of prison. He must make sure no one ever knew the real story—especially the woman with the precocious son and the baseball cap, who was determined to gain an audience with him. Yes, he must save the family name. He must stay away from Joella Ratchford. And he must find four-point-six million to cover the loss. At exactly the time when he was on the verge of losing every penny of his own in a risky scheme.

The very idea was almost laughable.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Joella knew there must be a law against stalking, but she didn’t see where Jordan Scoville was leaving her much choice.

He’d been in town almost an entire week now. Six days, to be precise, since she’d met him unexpectedly in Venita’s office the day she went after Nathan. In those six days she’d called the Scoville executive offices and asked for an appointment with him no less than twelve times. Once the first day. Twice the second and again the third. Three times on the fourth day and…Well, at any rate, the calls added up. And had accomplished absolutely nothing.

Jordan Scoville thought he could ignore her. To him, Joella—and every single soul in Bethlehem, she’d be willing to bet—was no more than an ant in his picnic.

Joella had never been one to believe the Scovilles thought themselves high and mighty, although plenty in Bethlehem did. The old gentlemen were always gracious and friendly whenever she chanced to see them at the Independence Day fireworks or the Labor Day pig-pickin’. But now that Jordan Scoville had taken over the big office, she might be changing her mind on the matter of the high-andmighty Scovilles.

She would pray for patience. But first, she would remember that God helped those who helped themselves.

The first place she tracked him to was the grocery store. Thompson’s SuperMart stayed open late on Tuesday and Thursday nights and she followed him there after he left his office.

A man in a suit was such a rarity in Bethlehem that it wasn’t hard to keep track of him, even in the busy store. Even though the workday had ended for a man like Jordan Scoville, he didn’t take his suit coat off. He didn’t loosen his tie. Not one single thing about the man relaxed a bit. He even grabbed his cart and plowed down the aisles like a man on a deadline. He also walked with a sure stride, like a man who owned everything in his path. Which, come to think of it, was pretty much the case.

Joella bypassed a cart for herself and followed along, wondering if anyone would see anything strange in her actions. If so, it would be all over town tomorrow, sure as sunup, that she’d been seen skulking around behind Mr. Scoville like some country girl with a crush. Still, she kept her eyes on his broad back and moved a little faster. She even pretended not to hear when Mavelle Lingerfelt called out a greeting, because Mavelle did not know how to exchange two words when two hundred could be swapped instead.

He didn’t pause until he got to the long refrigerator cases in the middle of the store. Then he stopped and began to toss frozen dinners into his cart. A Yankee pot roast and a sweet-and-sour chicken and a linguini with clam sauce. Then breakfasts. Joella wrinkled her nose at the thought of frozen scrambled eggs and link sausage, then felt herself overcome with something a lot like pity for a man who cared no more for himself than to indulge in a steady diet of frozen dinners.

The image of him standing in front of a microwave, waiting for it to ding at him, almost made her turn away.

Goose! she chided herself. He’s got the money to cater in a gourmet dinner every night if he wants to. He doesn’t need your sympathy.

So she marched right up to him just as he put his hands on frozen doughnuts. It would be neighborly to tell him about the fresh ones at the diner every Wednesday and Saturday morning. Instead, she stood smack in front of his cart and chased every notion of neighborliness right out of her head. “Mr. Scoville, you’ve been avoiding me.”

He dropped the carton into his cart. “Have I?”

“Yes, you have. I’ve called you twelve times this week and you haven’t called back yet.”

He put his hands on the handle of his cart and backed away. Right here under her nose, he was trying to get away!

“I intend to see you, Mr. Scoville.”

“You’re seeing me now, Mrs. Ratchford.” And he began moving down the aisle. Toward the checkout. “If you have something to say, why don’t you do it now?”

“I don’t think you understand.” She scampered along to catch up, trying to stay ahead of him so she could look back and stare him straight in the eye. “The people of this town have elected me to represent them. And I intend to do that.”

“Isn’t it a little late to start a union, Mrs. Ratchford?”

He pushed his cart up to the checkout line and started unloading his frozen cartons. She glared at his back.

“I think you’d better take this seriously, Mr. Scoville.”

He stopped long enough to turn and look her straight in the eye. His eyes were dark and bottomless and set her heart scurrying. It was that intimidation thing Nathan had mentioned, of course.

“I do take it seriously. Seriously enough that I know it’s only going to slow things down having a woman who doesn’t know anything about law or finance questioning every step we take. We want this to be as painless as possible for everybody, Mrs. Ratchford. Don’t make it any more complicated than it has to be.”

She felt short of breath, but she would not let him see it. “When do you meet with the lawyers again, Mr. Scoville?”

“I don’t think you’re listening to me, Mrs. Ratchford. It’s really none of your concern when I’m meeting with the company lawyers.”

“You’re the one who isn’t listening. I want an audience with you. And if you don’t play nice with us poor, dumb mill workers, you’ll find out we know how to play dirty.”

Joella had no idea what she meant by that, but it sounded good and she knew it was time to talk tough, despite her racing heart and wobbly knees. Besides, Nathan had already warned her that would be the only way to get Mr. High-and-Mighty’s attention.

“Are you threatening me, Mrs. Ratchford?” He turned and put his hands on his hips. He looked about as intimidating as anything Joella had ever seen and she figured she was melting a lot faster than the stuff in all his little cartons. “Threatening me, right here in plain view of half the town?”

With that, he waved his arms and Joella realized a fair-sized crowd of folks had rolled their grocery carts around for a better view of the ruckus.

“No,” Joella said, putting her hands on her hips and knowing full well her faded jeans and sweatshirt were no match, intimidation-wise, for his charcoal suit and red-striped tie. She sent up a silent prayer for courage and for a voice that wouldn’t wobble and give her away. “I wouldn’t dream of threatening one of the powerful Scovilles. All I’m doing is appealing to you as a gentleman. I know all the Scovilles are gentlemen. So, I’ll be in your office one hour before first shift starts tomorrow, to discuss how you’re going to include me in your planning from now on.”

Then she saw the frown crease his forehead and she smiled. “A fine gentleman like you wouldn’t dream of disappointing a lady, now, would you?”

He sighed and pulled out a money clip, passing on a stack of bills to the cashier. “Okay. How’s this, Mrs. Ratchford? I’ll keep you informed. In writing. Formal memos, every week.”

Joella’s heart pounded. He was negotiating. With her. “Every day.”

He took his change without glancing at it, shoved it into his pocket and hoisted two bags into his arms. “Tuesdays and Fridays,” he countered, walking away.

She followed. “Okay. It’s a deal.”

“Good.” He dropped the bags into the front seat of his car and slid into the driver’s seat. He moved with a grace that men in pickup trucks didn’t seem to have. As if money somehow oiled his joints, smoothed the rough edges.

She put a hand on the car door before he could close it. “And you’ll talk to me before you make any major decisions.”

He looked exasperated. “Mrs. Ratchford—”

“If you’ll just agree to talk to us ahead of time, I’ll promise not to make a pest out of myself.”

She could tell right away that was her trump card and she’d played it just in time.

“We have a deal, Mrs. Ratchford.”

She took her hand off the door to shake on their deal, but he slammed the door instead and drove off before she could open her mouth.

But they had a deal and she couldn’t wait to tell Fred Roseforte that Jordan Scoville would be forwarding memos on the bankruptcy proceedings every Tuesday and Friday. With God’s help, she’d stood her ground. David against Goliath.

She had to remind herself that smugness wasn’t an admirable trait.

Chapter Four

Joella looked once again at the too-brief memo in her lap, the one with Jordan Scoville’s bold signature across the bottom.

The signature was the only thing that really told her much. The signature said the author of the memo was self-assured and important and far too busy to waste much time on memos to the masses. All the memo said was that no decisions had been made about the future of Scoville Mill, although further discussions were planned.

Of course, Joella had done her best to make the memo sound more significant than it was, when she read it for the gathering in the church fellowship hall. No one had been fooled and the church was now empty, the grousing now only a disurbing memory. The only ones remaining were Hat Martin and Claire Denny, who was helping fold the chairs and stack them against the wall.

“I guess I’m no match for Jordan Scoville after all,” she said, stuffing the memo into her back jeans pocket.

“Let it be.” Claire picked up her coat as the last of the chairs found its place against the wall. “You’ve got enough to worry about. Let Fred Roseforte take on the Scovilles. He’ll enjoy the tussle.”

Joella was tempted, Her best friend, the only other single mother in Bethlehem, was right. Joella had her hands full just staying one step ahead of Nathan; how could she hope to keep up with Jordan Scoville, too? She looked at Hat Martin, who held out her corduroy parka so she could slip her arms into the sleeves. Her watch caught on the torn sleeve lining. She kept meaning to mend it, but there never seemed to be time. She supposed she’d have plenty of time soon.

She also supposed she’d look pretty shabby job-hunting in her old coat.

“Have you tried asking for help?” the minister asked as he switched off the lights and the three of them walked out into the nighttime chill. “A little assistance in softening Mr. Scoville’s heart?”

Claire chuckled. “That’s going to take more help than Joella’s going to find around here.”

Joella glanced at Hat, saw his gentle smile and knew exactly what he meant. Had she prayed about it, he wanted to know. Had she asked for a little help from above?

“I have to admit,” she said, “I’ve been thinking this is something I can do on my own.”

Hat nodded. “Ah. That so often gets me in trouble. I hope you have better luck than I when it comes to taking charge of things all by myself. I typically find myself woefully inadequate on my own.”

The three of them started down Main Street on foot. The street was quiet. The night was crisp and cool, the kind of perfect night that late autumn often brought to the South. The trees were already bare, the velvet blanket of the sky studded with stars. Joella left her parka open, let her bare hands swing at her side.

“It’s a shame everything can’t be as perfect as this night,” she said wistfully.

“Maybe it is,” Reverend Martin said. “Maybe God’s plan for us is as perfect as this beautiful night, but we just can’t see it as clearly.”

Joella tried to bite back the words that came to mind. But she’d known Hat Martin so long that she’d long ago given up keeping her thoughts to herself. “I know we’re supposed to have that kind of faith. But it sure would be easier if God could see fit to let me in on His plan.”

Claire rolled her eyes, but Hat Martin just chuckled.

“If it was all plain as day, Joella, they wouldn’t call it faith, now, would they?” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Maybe this is another opportunity for you to learn to leave things in God’s hands.”

“I learned that lesson a long time ago,” Joella protested. “But—”

“But we never get it perfect,” the minister said. “We always have a new opportunity to learn the lesson at a deeper level.”

Joella sighed. “You’re right. But I still say it’s one thing to have faith in God’s plan and another thing entirely to put any kind of faith in Jordan Scoville.”

Reverend Martin paused at the corner that would lead him to the parsonage. “No one is suggesting that you have faith in young Mr. Scoville.”

Joella nodded. “I’ll pray about it.”

“You do that,” the minister said. “Put Jordan Scoville in God’s hands, see what happens.”

The two women continued the three blocks to their little houses.

Claire shook her head, her golden curls lifting on a whiff of cool breeze. “I say leave Jordan Scoville in Fred Roseforte’s hands. That would serve him right.”

Joella laughed. “Nobody deserves that.”

“That’s always been your problem, Jo. You think everybody’s good at heart.”

Joella thought of the man who had fathered her son then walked out on them both, and knew that wasn’t true. She thought of the drunk driver who had robbed Claire and her two boys of their husband and father, and knew it wasn’t true.

“I think everybody could be good at heart,” she clarified for her friend. “We’re all God’s kids, after all.”

“Yeah, well, some of God’s kids ran away from home and don’t even call on holidays,” Claire said.

“I know.”

Was Jordan Scoville one of those? It certainly appeared so. The Reverend Martin was right, the only thing that had a chance of working was to leave the man in God’s hands and hope for a miracle.

“What are you going to do, Jo, when they shut down?”

Joella heard the hushed whisper of fear in her friend’s voice, mirroring what was in her own heart. The two of them had grown up in this town, spent virtually their entire lives here. What did they know but Bethlehem and Scoville Mill?

“My brother said I could stay with him.”

“I guess big brothers do come in handy from time to time.”

“He thinks I ought to go to the technical college.” J.T. had plenty of ideas about turning his younger sister’s life around. He always had. Get out of Bethlehem, he’d been saying for years. Make something of yourself. Maybe he was right. He had a good job at the cement factory in Spartanburg, a nice little house with a low-interest mortgage payment, a new pickup truck every couple of years. And what did Joella have?

“I was thinking of that, too,” Claire said. “I could get nurse’s training. What do you think about that?”

Joella thought it sounded scary, starting over. She wondered what Claire would do with her boys and how she would get by financially if she decided to go to school. How would she manage a new town with traffic and strangers and more living expenses? The same fears Joella had for herself. She remembered starting over, and she didn’t want to go through it again.

“That sounds exciting,” she said. But she knew she hadn’t managed to work much enthusiasm into her voice. A glum silence hung in the air for a moment. “And scary.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

They reached Claire’s house first. Claire paused before turning into her sidewalk. “It’s not always going to be this hard, is it? We’re not always going to be struggling just to get by, are we?”

“Of course not,” Joella said softly, remembering how she’d clung to her faith after Andy left her. And God had seen her through it. “Things will look up.”

“Right. And you’re going to whip Jordan Scoville into line.”

Joella grinned. “He’s quaking at the thought.”

Jordan replaced the phone in its cradle and looked across the desk at Venita. “Okay. It’s a done deal. They’ll be here in three weeks to start dismantling the Christmas decorations.”

The barest of creases marked her forehead, but her eyes were full of censure. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you not promise Joella Ratchford to inform her before you made any major decisions concerning the town?”