There’s no place like Bliss for the holidays...

What else does Jason Macland have to do this Thanksgiving except save the town of Bliss from the idiot banker his dad hired? Step one: fire the idiot banker. Step two: help Fleming Harris save her Christmas shop or—better yet—foreclose on the place, because it would take a miracle to save a store that can’t break even selling holiday trinkets during the holiday season. And all Jason wants to do is cut his dad’s losses, salvage what local businesses he can and get out of the hometown he doesn’t even remember before all the ghosts of his past—and one particularly memorable Christmas-shop manager—threaten to melt his Scrooge heart.

“I’m not going to attack you because I wasn’t smart enough with my business.”

Having said that, Fleming couldn’t help weighing Jason up as the villain of her bad holiday season.

As they walked into the hotel, Lyle Benjamin appeared at the top of the cellar stairs, his arms full of firewood.

“Not you, too, Fleming?” he asked, glancing from Jason to her.

She blushed.

“The gossip in this town defeats any need for the internet,” Jason said impatiently.

“Sorry.” Lyle sent Fleming an apologetic look. He carried the wood to the hearth near his check-in counter and tossed a log into the fire. “Table for two?”

“No.” Fleming flinched as Jason’s voice echoed her own.

“I’ll call down for room service,” the banker said.

Fleming breathed a sigh of relief. She had to create a battle plan. This man wanted his bank in the black. He might say he was helping her, but he’d take the Mainly Merry Christmas shop if shutting her down bettered his bottom line.

Dear Reader,

It’s holiday time in Bliss, Tennessee! Jason Macland’s in Bliss to rescue his family’s bank. Unfortunately, that means he might have to foreclose on some bad loans, including the one for Mainly Merry Christmas, a shop run by Fleming Harris.

Fleming believes in the spirit of the holidays. Jason just wants to do his job and move on to the next one. Determined to remain detached from the citizens in the hometown he doesn’t even remember, every day for him is like a visit from some ghost of his past. Will he learn about joy from Fleming? And will he help her finally believe that a loving, honorable man can stay?

I’m so happy to be back in Bliss, the Smoky Mountain town where Now She’s Back and Owen’s Best Intentions are also set. As always, my visit back was like a trip through memories of my own childhood in the Smokies. I hope you’ll find your own sweet memories bounding up out of this story of celebrating love.

All the best,

Anna Adams

A Christmas Miracle

Anna Adams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ANNA ADAMS wrote her first romance on the beach in wet sand with a stick. These days she uses pens, software or napkins and a crayon to write the kinds of stories she loves best—romance that involves everyone in the family and often the whole community. Love, like a stone tossed into a lake, causes ripples to spread and contract, bringing conflict and well-meaning “help” from the people who care most.

For Pete, and for all of us who love you. My memories of you will always bristle with joy and your laugh. I miss you so much, but you are not lost to any of us.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

DESPITE BEING GOOD friends with technology, Fleming Harris answered Jason Macland’s summons to the bank with printed copies of all the paperwork she could find. She knew very little about Jason. He was the son of the bank’s owner, but he was a stranger to the remote Smoky Mountains town of Bliss, Tennessee, not having set foot there in decades.

Fleming had heard stories. People said Jason was his father’s hired gun, brought in to close accounts, trim fat, sew up loopholes.

She swallowed a lump of panic as she smoothed her skirt beneath the pile of folders on her lap. Across the room, Hilda Grant, Jason’s admin, shared an empathetic smile that worried Fleming.

Her shop, Mainly Merry Christmas, was her future and her past. She’d grown up “working” with her single mother behind the counter, playing with the wooden trains that doubled as decoration during the holiday season, learning to count by handing out change. Her pride was tied up in the twinkling lights and the beautiful ornaments.

And the burdensome loan payments. She’d missed only two. Shame burned her. Only.

This bank guy wouldn’t have summoned her if he wasn’t about to threaten her shop.

“You can go in now,” Hilda said.

At the same time, the office door opened and a man emerged, lean and tall, with wary dark eyes and dark brown hair. His gaze caught her as if she were in a spotlight.

“Hello,” she said, when what she meant was What do you want from me?

“Please, Ms. Harris.” He held the door for her, ushering her inside. His mouth, a generous slash of masculine fullness, did not curve.

She stood, and her legs felt as stiff as planks as she passed in front of him, into the office of the bank’s president, William Gaines. Some said Mr. Gaines had taken a pre-Thanksgiving vacation, but she’d also heard he’d been fired.

“Mr. Macland,” she began, keeping things on a formal footing.

“Jason.” He shut the door behind her and gestured with an open, capable hand toward the leather couch in front of a wide fireplace, where a tablet was set up on a rustic, scarred coffee table. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know why I’ve asked you here,” he said.

Her mouth opened in surprise at his abruptness. She shut it. She wouldn’t give up the store to some bully. She’d find a way to fight him.

He waited for her to sit. “Would you like coffee?”

“I’d like to get this over with.” She tried to appear more confident than she felt. “I know I’m behind on payments.”

His hard mouth softened. He sat in the chair kitty-corner to the sofa and turned the tablet so they could both view the screen. “That’s exactly what I want to discuss.” He straightened one leg, looking more like a jock than the loan police. Muscles and strength. Power, leashed by frustration. The observation unsettled her even more.

He continued. “Mr. Paige, the former loan officer—”

“Former?” Bliss’s ultra-busy grapevine had fallen down on reporting part of the news cycle.

Untroubled by her interruption, Jason merely breathed in and went on, his husky voice claiming all her attention. “Mr. Paige was let go because he approved loans for certain of his clients under terms that were inappropriate.”

“I’m not understanding you.” She stood. “Are you suggesting I’ve done something wrong?”

He glanced down at the sofa, clearly asking her to sit again. “Not at all. You are behind on your loan, but that’s not why I’ve asked you here. Mr. Paige was skimming from several of the accounts and I believe he knew you’d never be able to continue to repay under the terms he offered you. I assume he meant to run before my father caught on to what’s been happening here.”

“The bank did something wrong?” A moment’s relief made Fleming realize she hadn’t breathed freely for two months. Was there a way out of this mess she seemed to be making of her life? “Am I going to keep the store?”

His expression didn’t change. She had the feeling he’d been repeating this conversation with other clients like her.

“I’m offering you a chance to secure a new loan with more affordable terms,” he explained. “Mr. Paige will be speaking to the district attorney. The bank is making restitution for his actions.”

“So that’s your point.” She followed his blunt lead. “I’m not interested in suing the bank. I only care about keeping my store, and I thought you were going to tell me I’m about to lose it.”

He nodded, reaching for the tablet. His hands distracted her again as he slid his fingers across the screen, his glance lifting to her face.

This man held her future in his spreadsheets. Fleming had some dreams she wanted to make reality, and keeping Mainly Merry Christmas for her own children was one of them.

“Not everyone has reacted as calmly as you have,” he said.

“You’re trying to measure whether I’m aware of what’s happening?”

He sat back. “No, Ms. Harris. I don’t doubt your intelligence.”

“Fleming.”

His smile caught her unawares.

She didn’t want to be attracted to him.

“Fleming,” he said, and turned back to the tablet. “If you’re agreeable, we’ll start from the beginning with a loan for you. I don’t usually work in the loan office, but since this is my family’s bank, I have the same concern you do that we all succeed in Bliss.”

“Are you saying I have recourse? Have I overpaid?”

A commotion interrupted from the outer office. Raised voices and thudding as if something had dropped on the floor.

Before Jason could speak, the door burst open. A tall glass vase tumbled and broke and furniture skidded as a man dived over the back of the couch, trying to plant his fist in Jason’s face.

With barely any effort at all, Jason stood and twisted out of the intruder’s reach. Jason climbed over the table and put himself between Fleming and his attacker, who’d ended up on the floor.

“Paige,” Jason said, as he pulled Fleming up and tucked her behind his back. The man at their feet scrambled for handholds on the table and the sofa.

Without thinking, Fleming flattened her hands on Jason’s back. “We need the police,” she gasped.

He urged her toward the office door. “Get out of here.”

She froze. “I can’t just leave you with him.” Walk away and leave someone else in possible danger? She looked into his eyes, and in that moment of ugly violence a bond formed between them. She took a step back, but not because she was afraid of the intruder.

“Stay there,” another voice barked.

Two armed, uniformed guards bounded over the furniture to scoop up the bank’s former loan officer. One hustled their prey, stunned by his fall, out of the room. The other, a long-time acquaintance of Fleming’s, faced Jason.

“We’ve called the police. They’re on their way.”

“Did he hurt anyone out there?” Jason glanced toward the reception area.

“No, sir. Seemed intent on getting in here. Fleming, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Oakes.” With relief flowing to every extremity, but feeling incredibly awkward at the same time, she hid her face as she bent to gather the files she’d dumped on the faded, flowery rug. “He must have tripped on these when he landed.”

“Let me help you.” Jason’s hand brushed hers as she picked up a file, which she dropped immediately.

Mr. Oakes, who’d also provided security for high school football games in years past, managed to retrieve the rest and handed the pile to her. “You should go home.”

“I have to go to work.” She stared into the hall, where Paige suddenly reappeared, writhing against his captor’s hold. “He never said a word.”

“He made his point, though.” Jason looked calm, but his voice seemed a thread huskier. This time, as she stared, fascinated, he looked away, feeling for his tablet underneath the chair. “You might want to stay in case the police...”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’ll email you the information I was hoping to discuss. We can talk about it again.”

After seeing him attacked, the last thing she wanted to talk about was her money troubles. It was embarrassing. If she lost the shop, she’d lose her home. She’d lose her mother’s respect. She’d lose her own.

“I trusted Mr. Paige.” How on earth could she believe that Jason Macland, whose family name was on the bank, really wanted to help her out of a financial catastrophe?

“A lot of people did,” Jason said, “including my father.”

So he wasn’t here just to fix the bank. He also had someone he didn’t want to disappoint.

* * *

“MR. MACLAND, that was your last appointment.” Hilda was already buttoning her coat. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home.”

By the time the police had left, Jason and Hilda and Fleming Harris had formed a triad—the first people Paige had found the guts to attack in person, rather than hiding behind a predatory loan. “You’re coming back tomorrow?” Jason asked.

She nodded. “As long as that man’s in the county jail.”

Which was apparently over the ridge that almost completely surrounded the town.

“You don’t happen to have Ms. Harris’s phone number?” he asked. Fleming had lingered at the edges of Jason’s mind since she’d left the office. She wasn’t the only person Paige had cheated. There was the man whose house was in danger of foreclosure, the two elderly ladies who’d retired to Bliss to open an ice cream parlor. Others, too. And all the while, Jason kept thinking of the woman who’d refused to leave a man she didn’t know when he might be in danger.

“I’ll find the number for you.” Hilda opened a file on her computer and then wrote the phone number on a slip of paper. “She must have been afraid.”

As Paige had sailed past Fleming’s shoulder, every story of workplace violence he’d ever heard had replayed in Jason’s head. His only thought had been to protect her, the innocent bystander who happened to be in his office at the worst possible time.

“I thought I’d offer to meet her somewhere else,” he said.

“That’s kind.”

Jason managed not to laugh. Kind was not a word often used to describe him.

He’d had to make hard decisions before. He normally analyzed a failing business, provided structures and policies for dragging it back into financial profit and then moved on to the next troubled company. He’d never had the slightest urge to work for his father in any of the Macland banks. His involvement now was supposed to be a favor for his grandfather, who’d actually been the one to notice something was going on in Bliss. Jason meant to be in and out, with his report sewn up by the first week in January.

He took the piece of paper. “Thanks, Hilda, and listen, you don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “The guy’s angry with me because I’m the one who told him he got caught.”

“I’m sure a few days in a cell will make him a lot happier.”

“We can hope he’s also cheated any attorney who’s capable of getting him bail. If you hear him coming down that hall again, jump in the nearest closet.”

“I’ve already made that plan.” She turned back to her screen. “You might try meeting Fleming at her shop. My girls and I spend a lot of time there this time of year. The Harrises put on activities for children, and Fleming’s mother makes the best hot cocoa I’ve ever tasted.”

He pushed the phone number into his pocket. “That’s a good idea. I’m curious about a place that sells holiday ornaments all year long.”

Or maybe he was curious about the owner of such a place. The year held other holidays. A smart business owner would consider diversifying. Fleming might be able to use his expertise.

* * *

FLEMING MANNED HER post behind the counter until the last of the pedestrians walking past on the sidewalk had disappeared for the day. The night before Thanksgiving was never busy, but she felt anxious. Bliss had never felt anything but safe until today.

Maybe a few customers would have taken her mind off this morning. Business would pick up on Friday.

Her stomach growled. She’d been so intent on making the store as inviting as her mother had when Fleming was a child that she’d forgotten to eat. The hotel at the end of the courthouse square had been doing a turkey dinner with fixings all week.

If she went to the hotel tonight, she’d probably have leftovers for a sandwich tomorrow, and she could finish making the shop shine by Friday morning.

Fresh eyes, she told herself.

It certainly wasn’t that she felt reluctant to go home alone.

She put on her coat and shoved the warm gloves she’d worn in this morning’s heavy frost into her pockets. She left Christmas lights twinkling in the windows and around the long wooden counter and set the shop’s alarm, then locked up before heading for the hotel.

Outside, the streets were almost empty. Earlier in the week, garlands had begun to go up, but the decorations weren’t yet complete. What with the danger of losing the shop and that Paige guy’s rage this morning, she finally admitted her world felt off balance tonight.

“Fleming?”

Startled, she whipped around. A car passed by. The courthouse bell began to toll. And Fleming laughed because she felt ridiculous. Jason Macland stepped off the curb across the street.

“I meant to call you,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened in my office this morning. Are you all right?”

“Fine.” She did feel fine now. He’d stepped in front of her with Paige, and now he made her feel safe because she wasn’t alone in the streets. She checked herself. How could she ever be afraid in Bliss, the mountain town that was part of her body and blood?

“How about you?” she asked.

His smile was self-deprecating and frustrated at the same time. “Also fine, except you and I will have to talk again. I’m sorry, but we have to discuss your loan.”

So—not so much concern for her as for his bank. “I’m gathering the information your assistant emailed about.”

“Good. The sooner we settle better terms, the safer your business will be.” Jason stepped onto the sidewalk, towering over her, ominous even if he didn’t mean to be. “I’m trying to get you into a better position before the rules of your loan take over. I can’t help you after that.”

“If the loan wasn’t legal...”

“That’s the problem for all of the people in jeopardy because of Paige. You signed the agreement, so you’re responsible for terms that are immoral, but not illegal.”

She was caught between worrying he was another bank guy trying to play her, and respecting his honesty. If he was being honest.

She turned, continuing toward the hotel, and somehow, Jason remained with her. “Why are you trying to help me?” she asked. “Why do you care?”

“I’m trying to help anyone who still wants to do business with Macland. It does the bank no good to write off bad loans. Especially as many as they have right now.”

They? She glanced at him, surprised.

He looked back at her, unbuttoning his top coat button as if he were uncomfortably warm. “We could bring down the local economy.”

“How did Mr. Paige manage to fly under the radar?”

“The former bank manager was taking a cut.” Jason turned toward the hotel with her, but when she reached for the door he stopped, looking down at her hand.

“I’m having dinner here tonight,” she said.

“Oh.” He looked back at the square as if he wished he’d planned to be elsewhere.

As they stepped inside, Lyle Benjamin, the hotel’s owner, appeared at the top of the cellar stairs, his arms full of wood for the fires that would roar until midnight in the parlor dining room and reception area.

“Not you, too, Fleming?” he asked, glancing from Jason to her.

She blushed, and Jason looked impatient.

“The gossip in this town defeats any need for the internet,” he said.

“Sorry.” Lyle sent Fleming an apologetic look. “Will your mom be home for the holidays?”

“She and Hugh are on a vacation.” A month in a fancy hut in Bora Bora. She couldn’t control a smidge of envy for their carefree thirty days. “But they’ll be back for Christmas.”

“Good to hear it.” He carried the wood to the hearth near his check-in counter and tossed a log into the flames. “Table for two?”

“No.” Fleming flinched as Jason’s voice echoed her own, and they both turned down the opportunity to share a meal.

“I’ll call down for room service,” he said.

Fleming breathed a sigh of relief. She had to create a battle plan. This man wanted his bank back in the black. He might claim he was helping her, but he’d take Mainly Merry Christmas if shutting her down bettered his bottom line.

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER A SOLO Thanksgiving dinner in his room the following evening, Jason tried to concentrate on his tablet. He’d just about decided what he could do for Fleming. Next up was a guy who ran one of the last barbershops in America.

All these people were becoming far more than names on electronic files. He’d turned Paige’s information over to an assistant DA friend in New York. He wanted someone to make sure the local prosecutor put Paige away for as long as he deserved. Jason had several more weeks to negotiate small-town, Christmas-spirited Bliss.

He feared he wouldn’t be the only one who doubted the existence of Santa by the time he finished this favor for his grandfather.

On the up side, he was charging his father top dollar for work that was a lot less complex than his usual contracts.

He stood, stretching the muscles in his back. Voices from downstairs had risen through the old floorboards as families celebrated while he worked. He’d been so focused on his task he’d hardly remembered it was Thanksgiving.

Lights seemed suddenly to dance on the courthouse steps. He crossed to the window. A group of people with glow sticks in Christmassy colors was gathering.

Carolers? He shrugged.

Not that he was hot for singing holiday songs, but he hadn’t been outside these four walls all day.

He grabbed his coat and hit the hallway. Downstairs, the lobby was empty. When he went outside, he heard the first strains of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

He almost turned back, but a little boy going by waved a shy hello with the hand his mother wasn’t holding. Jason didn’t have the heart to show his cynical side to someone too young to understand.

Instead, he smiled and waved back.

He didn’t cross the square to the carolers, but he walked quickly along the sidewalk. Fresh air. He needed some of that.

Apparently, he was witnessing some kind of Bliss, Tennessee, ritual. Most of the citizens and shop owners appeared to be trailing toward the courthouse. It wasn’t until he reached a cotton-swathed window displaying a Christmas village and a running train that he saw another human being not joining in the singing.

He looked up. A rich red sign hung overhead, emblazoned with the words Mainly Merry Christmas. He looked inside again. Fleming, on the wide-plank floor inside, was engrossed in putting together another train track, clearly set to run around a verdant Christmas tree.

Jason tried the door. To his surprise, it opened.

She looked up eagerly at the sound of the sleigh bells above her door. Her face sobered as she saw him.

“What’s going on at the courthouse?” he asked.

Her smile was a surprise that made him feel less at loose ends. They shared a puzzling intimacy after yesterday.

“It’s tradition.” She scrambled to her feet as he shut the cold out behind him. “Everyone goes to the courthouse, and we sing carols to welcome the holiday season. Your bank files must show you we do a lot more business around here this time of year.”

“Until spring,” he said, “and then there’s a slight dip until summer vacationers arrive.” He went to get a closer look at the train track. “Need some help?”

She joined him. “I do, but not with this. Why don’t we talk about my loan?”

The figures were burned inside his head, but he didn’t want to make a mistake. “This isn’t a workday. Why aren’t you out there singing?”

“I’m maybe weeks away from losing my shop. I have to work today and sell tomorrow.” She sat and started placing the track again.

“You could sell this train set and make a sizable sum.” His grandfather had a similar one he’d bought at an auction and shared with Jason all the Christmases they’d spent together.

“More tradition.”

He retrieved a box of spare track from the window seat and carried it to her. “You could run this all around the store.”

“I’m torn between the charm of how that would look and the risk of children stepping on it.”

“Take the risk.”

She laughed. “Is that the way you feel about loans, as well?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“So you come across as all concerned for us, but you’ll close us down if you have to?”

He nodded, passing her a straight piece that she laid, directing the track toward a shelf of vintage holiday cards. “I don’t always enjoy what I have to do, but I hope you and everyone else here will realize none of my decisions are personal.”

“They should be personal. You should be going out of your way to meet these people. We’re not in some big city like New York. In a town this small, you have to study each face and family. You should try to understand what’s at risk before you start destroying people’s lives.”

“I’m not destroying anyone. I’ve told everyone I’ve seen exactly what I’ve told you, but I can’t fix what’s wrong if I don’t do what’s right for the bank’s investors.”

“In a town of this size, with a bank this small, we’re all investors,” she said, her temper slipping a little, and he had to wonder if the cliché about fiery redheaded women might be true.

“I’m working for my family right now, and they’ve owned the bank for over a hundred years.”

Fleming eyed him as if he didn’t quite understand reality. “Not unusual in Bliss. Almost every family out on the square has roots that deep.”

“Where’s your family?” He had no right to ask, but he wanted to know. She’d told Lyle her mother would be back for Christmas.

“My mother recently married.” Fleming’s voice softened and warmed in a way that didn’t happen in his family. “She’d been dating this guy for a few years, but after I finished college, they married.” She looked even more wistful. “I always suspected she stayed here so long because of me, so that I’d have my home to come back to. After she moved to Knoxville to be with Hugh—that’s his name—I took over the store.”

“And refinanced?” Jason asked.

She nodded. “I had to pay my mom, although now I’m wishing I’d been a little less noble about that.” Her grin, as she reached for another piece of track, made him feel as if he knew her.

“I can see that.” Fleming must be paying her mother out of what she made each month, as well as paying the bank’s note. She was stretched thin, and from what he could tell, the economy in this remote resort had dipped in recent years.

“Why aren’t you with family today?” she asked.

He hesitated. Sharing his history spelled involvement, and he wasn’t used to getting involved. But he’d asked her a personal question, and he liked that she’d answered. “We don’t really do that. I have younger siblings.” His father made a habit of marriage. “But they’re all in college, or they have families of their own. No one went home this year.”

“And you’re home here, working?”

“I lived here once,” he said.

“I know.” She blushed as she pointed to a curving piece of track and started a path around the end of the shelf, getting to her knees. “Lyle told me. He remembers your parents.”

“I don’t remember being here. They moved when I was really young.”

“Maybe Bliss wasn’t big enough for them.”

For his dad? No. Bliss was no place to run an empire. “He profited by some boom years, and New York suits him better.”

“And you?”

Jason hesitated again, but she flipped her long, rich red braid over her shoulder, and she looked sweet and open. Not as if she were searching for a way to read him and use him. That had happened more than once. If he were the marrying kind, he’d be more like his father than he’d like to admit. At least he didn’t pretend he was the committing kind.

“I have itchy feet,” he said, more honest than he meant to be. “New places challenge me. New jobs.”

“I didn’t know that many banks could be rescued—or needed rescuing.”

“It’s not just banks,” he said. “I clean up all kinds of ailing companies.”

She was on the other side of the shelf, but she leaned back to look at him. “Then why the bank? Sounds as if we’re small potatoes.”

“Not to my grandfather. This was his pride and joy, and he gave it the foundation that allowed my father to move on. I owe him.” For that, and for so much more. More than Jason was willing to admit. He set the box of tracks on the floor where she could reach it. “Speaking of which, I should go. I have some work to look at. What do you say we meet to talk about your business?”

“Sure.” She pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “When?”

“And where. I thought you might prefer to meet at the hotel, or a coffee shop, somewhere other than my office.”

She got to her feet, clutching the metal track. “I’m not trying to duck you, but I have to work tomorrow. It’s a huge day for the shop.”

He hated the way people looked at him, as if he were trying to destroy them for a buck. “How about Saturday evening? After you close up? I can come by here.”

“Sounds good.” She shrugged, but then threw back her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Just be careful when you go back to your office. Paige might not be the only one who’s upset with the bank, and you can’t count on Mr. Oakes and his colleague showing up in the nick of time.”

CHAPTER THREE

IF ONLY SHE’D kept her mouth shut. Jason was already reaching for the door when she’d told him to be cautious—as if she knew him at all. As if she had any right, or there were any reason.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Fleming,” he said. “I can see it’s bothering you—the loan, the attack...”

“It’s this situation. I never understood how hard my mom worked while I flitted around town, dropping off flyers about sales or ornament-making workshops.” She was still talking too much, and she needed to put some flyers together.

“We can work this out. A new loan will help you. I’m not sure why I can’t convince anyone of that.”

“We’ve been burned.” Fleming stacked the track in her hand on top of the pile in the box. Time to stop dressing up the store and get down to business. “It’s hard to trust another guy in the same job. I don’t mean to be rude, but what you really want is for the problem to go away. We’re problems to you.”

“What I want is to get back to my own life and the work I’ve put off to help my grandfather.” He didn’t stop at the door this time, except to say “I’ll see you after you close the shop on Saturday.”

The door shut behind him with an ironic jingling of bells.

“Kind of sensitive for a guy whose major function is to shatter dreams.” She tried to be ironic, too, but that was a little tricky with a knot of tears in her throat.

* * *

ON FRIDAY, the customers flowed like a lovely mountain stream. Saturday, she sold almost as much. And she tucked a flyer for ornament-making classes into each shopping bag.

Unfortunately, she’d forgotten she had to wrap packages after work, for a holiday gift drive. She called Jason’s office, deeply aware that meeting after hours was a favor he was doing for her and not a professional requirement. She explained her commitment to Hilda.

“The gifts have to be wrapped in stages,” she said. “Or we don’t finish them all.”

“I know. I have a pile myself that are due at the Women and Children’s Shelter on Wednesday.” Hilda’s voice lowered, as if she was looking away. “Let me check his schedule. I know he wants to see you as soon as possible.”

“Well, I’m hardly fragile. I could meet him at his office on Monday morning.” Fleming grabbed a couple rolls of wrapping paper and dropped bows into a shopping bag. “Or he can come to my house. You can give him my address.”

“I’ll do that, but I’ll tell him to call or text before he shows up.”

“Perfect,” Fleming said.

Sort of. Maybe if he came to her home, he’d feel the bond she had with Bliss, Tennessee. The mountains outside her doorway were her strength. She depended on the ridges that somehow looked blue on a misty morning. They didn’t leave. They stayed where you needed them. And she loved the store like that, too. She’d do whatever Jason asked of her to keep it. She just needed a chance that was real this time.

* * *

IN HIS CAR, Jason plugged in Fleming’s address and let the nav system take him out of town. He turned right just past the courthouse, and soon the two-lane road began to climb among dark evergreens, past lit-up chairlifts and trees wreathed with strings of colorful balls that glittered in his headlights.

At a spot where he didn’t see a break in the forest, the voice on his navigation system insisted he turn right. Just in time, he saw the narrow road. He turned, and the slim ribbon of pavement shrank even further. The scent of wood smoke filtered into the car. He breathed deep.

The woods closed in around him, but he didn’t feel suffocated. He could imagine Fleming running through this almost-winter landscape, her red hair flashing between the trees, her flight as impetuous as her conversation.

If he hadn’t come to Bliss to make the lives of several of its citizens miserable, he might better be able to enjoy the beauty of this home he’d never known. Already, down in town, city workers had begun to string holiday lights between lampposts on the streets. A huge Christmas tree was being decorated on the circular concrete piazza in front of the courthouse.

Blinking lights in the woods suggested he’d reached Fleming’s place even before his GPS told him to turn. He found her driveway just as the voice in his car gave directions.

Fleming had set up floodlights that shone on the old-fashioned wraparound porch fronting her small farmhouse. She’d looped a strand of Christmas lights along the railing and started on the roof ledge, as well. Smoke curled out of the chimney, gathering above the roofline.

He parked in front of her garage and got out of his car, bringing the ubiquitous tablet with him. His feet crunched on gravel. He breathed deeply the scents of fire and fallen leaves.

Funny how he missed familiar city smells, the occasional stench of garbage on the sidewalk and honking cars.

The door opened and Fleming came out, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold.

“Thanks for coming out here,” she said.

“You’re in the middle of putting up decorations?”

“I stopped when I couldn’t see the roof well enough to find the nails from last year. And I have to wrap packages tonight.”

“Already? They start Christmas early around here.”

He started up the stairs. Her smile as he reached her warmed him, and he couldn’t help wondering how many women had met their men at this door. This little farmhouse had been here a long time.

“Come in.” She reached for his coat as they went inside. “Would you like coffee? A drink? Some cocoa? I have a recipe from my mother. Best hot cocoa ever.”

“I’ve heard that.” He nodded.

“That’s funny. The details of gossip in my town...” Smiling, she stopped in the living room, where she scooped the files she’d carried into his office from beneath a pile of wrapped packages.

“What are you doing there?” he asked.

“They’re for a women-and-children’s shelter in town. We used to ask donors to wrap them, but sometimes the gifts weren’t appropriate, or someone would give a slightly used present. We’re grateful for anything for the shelter, but at this time of year, we like the children to remember how special they are, and a new gift seems to send that message more strongly.”

Jason usually gave his assistant a list for his family, and asked her to do the angel gifts some of the department stores offered. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” he said, following her into the kitchen, a clean gray-blue room that somehow wrapped him in warmth.

A couple of candles scented the air with a faint fragrance of apple, one on the quartz counter and one on the butcher-block island. The flames reflected off the white tiles above the wide sink.

“Have a seat.” She motioned toward the stools around the island as she began gathering ingredients. “Or there at the table, if you prefer.”

He glanced toward the long, rustic table that fronted a wall of windows. It was too dark now to see the trees.

“You don’t need drapes or curtains out here,” he said.

“Not on this side of the house, anyway. I probably don’t on the front, either.” She glanced at him with a rueful grin. “Wednesday night was the first time I’ve felt anxious in here since I was a teenager.”

“I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Not your fault.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not blaming you. I felt foolish for being afraid.”

“No one’s ever attacked you at work?” he asked ruefully.

She turned from the fridge, holding a carton of milk. “I hope it’s not a common thing for you?”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Good.” She poured milk into a saucepan on the stove, but then came to the island and opened her folders. “Help yourself,” she said, too trustingly. “I think I have everything.”

“Let me check these figures, and then we’ll go over the offer I have. If these numbers look different, I’ll change things as we go.”

She hesitated. “I guess, but Mr. Paige sounded that certain, too, and he turned out to be...”

“I’m not Paige.”

She blushed so easily, as if she was as honest and innocent as she sounded.

Jason shook his head, glad when she went back to the stove. He had to halt this attraction now. No more noticing the soft, vulnerable line of her jaw, the richness of her voice. The way she made him feel welcome and wanted, and then was frank enough to admit she might not trust his motives.

She reached for a knob on the stove and a gas flame whooshed beneath the saucepan. The domesticated scene should have put him on his guard. This would normally be the moment he remembered an early meeting or some task he’d forgotten.

He dragged his attention to the tablet, swiping the screen with more firmness than necessary. While Fleming worked, he did, too. His rage at Paige grew, as it did every time he studied one of these files.

“What kind of guy comes to a town like this and robs the people most in need of honest lending?”

“You mean because I’m barely making ends meet?”

“Well.” Jason sat back, folding his arms. “Yes. You were a mark to him.”

“You know that’s not a compliment, right?” She pulled her red silicone spoon out of the saucepan and used a quilted mitt to lift the pan and pour hot chocolate into a tall, wide-mouthed cup.

“It just means I know you can’t afford to be cheated.”

“But you’re asking me to refinance.” She filled the other cup, this one as bright red as Santa’s gift bag.

“With terms that won’t drive you into foreclosure,” Jason said.

“So I’m about to take on greater debt again?”

“Not in the long run.” He took the mug she handed him, warmed by her touch. She didn’t seem to notice him react. “And I hate to suggest this, but you can refinance again when your circumstances improve.”

“If they do. If I keep starting over with a new loan, I’ll never be able to retire.”

Jason laughed, but then hoped she meant it as a joke.

She took the saucepan back to the sink and quickly washed it. “This choice isn’t intuitive.”

She didn’t have much of a choice. Not for the first time, he wished he could make things easier. Not just for her, but mostly for her.

“You’re quiet,” she said.

“I normally make a plan that will allow a business to succeed. By the time the hard decisions start, I’m on to the next job. Maybe this is why I prefer it that way. I don’t like to see your fear or anyone else’s.”

“I understand you have a job you need to do,” she said, “but my mom opened this store when I was a child. We used to make a good living. I’m not sure what’s gone wrong, but I do know that the store saved us from poverty. She scraped together the original money and persuaded suppliers they could trust her. And every year, she made everyone in this town remember how magical the holidays are supposed to be.”

Jason shrugged. He had a vague memory of trying to be asleep for Santa—but that might be from some TV show he’d watched with his nieces and nephews.

“You never waited for Santa?” Fleming asked. “You never tried to make yourself sleep while you listened for sleigh bells on the roof, because someone convinced you he wouldn’t come until you closed your eyes?”

Jason swallowed, uncomfortable with her mind reading. “I guess my family is different than yours. More pragmatic, maybe,” he said. “Bankers, almost every one of us.”

“My mom’s practical. She’s had to be.”

“What about your dad?” Jason grimaced as he expressed an interest he shouldn’t have. “Is he—”

“I don’t know what he is.” She tucked the cocoa and sugar into a cabinet, wiping the counter so hard Jason was surprised she didn’t shave off a layer of stone. “He went out one day for doughnuts, of all things, and never came back.” She shook her head. “Well—he came back in a few years and claimed he wanted to make things right. He just never managed to follow through.”

And this new guy her mom had married? Jason had the good sense not to ask. “I’m sorry, Fleming. None of my business. What’s the opposite of Santa Claus? Because that’s who I am.”

“I believe that man’s name was Scrooge, not Macland. Let’s look at the information you brought me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

LOOKING AT JASON’S facts and figures, Fleming felt as if she’d ended up at the top of the naughty list. “I’d love to talk to Mr. Paige about why he did this.”

“I’ve talked to him. He has a story about how the bank didn’t set him up with a fair retirement, and he was just providing for his own. Forget about him. You have to concentrate on what you want. Does this store mean as much to you as it did to your mother?”

“Are you suggesting I give it up?” Fleming eyed the numbers on his tablet screen with horror and reached blindly for her hot chocolate. “My mom and I both love that store. I have to find a way to keep it.”

He straightened. “For your mother?”

“For me.” She had a secret she never shared, not even with her mother. Writing. She’d thought she’d have that and the store, and one would feed the other. She’d been making up stories about their customers since she first stood on a step stool behind the counter.

So far her writing hadn’t gone the way she’d dreamed of, but none of her plans included walking away from the store that had been her after-school care, her shelter from the storms of childhood and her summer job each year of college.

It had been her and her mother’s place. Like their home. She couldn’t walk away.

“Fleming?”

“It matters to me, too, but I didn’t actually understand how much business has fallen off this year. How can a shop that caters to Christmas fail in November in a resort town that explodes in population this time of year?”

“Give me a try,” he said. “I’ll help.

She felt sick. “That’s exactly what Mr. Paige said.”

“But Paige was lying. I don’t lie.” Jason dusted his hands on his jeans. “It’s business,” he said. “The fewer loans we lose, the better off we are.”

“I think you’re telling me you’re giving me more time at a slightly lower interest rate, but I’ll still be paying almost the same amount over the life of the loan.”

He nodded. “I want to help you, but I can’t actually take a loss on the arrangement.”

With shaking fingers, Fleming leafed through the pages of notes and compared the figures he’d jotted down to her income and outgoing debt payments. She got up and grabbed her phone off the island to open the calculator and rerun the equations.

Her cheeks flushed, but she ducked her head and tried to let her hair flow over her face. She could almost feel his longing to get out of here, making the whole situation even more humiliating.

“It’s a building,” he said. “Not a person. Not a member of your family.”

“You say that because you haven’t found the place you want to stay. You aren’t tied to a building or people.” Though Fleming didn’t buy that all bankers were that detached.

“I’m asking you to think about this decision, the same way I’ll ask everyone else I have to see. If you take on new terms, you’ll be putting a lot of money and even more time into a place. You can get another job.”

She shook her head stubbornly, trying to see herself anywhere but in Bliss, doing anything else. Except the writing that was her secret joy, the dream she superstitiously feared shattering if she shared it. “This is who I am.”

He sipped his cocoa once, then again, but was so intent on her finances he didn’t seem to notice how much he clearly liked the drink she’d made him. “Have you considered carrying different lines from less expensive suppliers? Your profit margin seems to shrink every year.”

Her hackles rose. “I can’t sell tawdry items. That wouldn’t go over in this town. You don’t know Bliss.”

“You have that right.”

“And even if I were positive you’re in this with our best interests, rather than the bank’s, I can’t afford your consulting fee.” Fleming ran out of breath. “Sorry. Again. I’m sounding rude, but I’m really trying to be careful. This time.”

“I keep trying to make you see the bank won’t survive if its customers fail.” Standing, Jason took his jacket off the back of his chair. “You don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you, but talk to someone you do trust, and let me know what you decide.”

Maybe she could breathe deeply again without him in her house. He picked up his cup and headed toward the sink, but she took it from him. Washing her dishes was absolutely beyond the scope of his job description.

* * *

“YOU’VE BEEN HERE three weeks, Jason. You know people actually choose Bliss as a place to have fun?”

Jason looked over his coffee cup at Lyle. “When there’s snow on the slopes, I assume?”

“They’re making snow right now. You could take a car up the mountain and ski back down.” Lyle waited until Jason put his cup down, and refilled it.

“Thanks. I don’t think so.”

“Afraid one of the hundreds of people who’ve paraded through your office at the bank will follow you up there and shove you off? I heard what happened the day before Thanksgiving.”

“That was different. Paige lost his retirement fund.”

“He took funds from a lot of people. You can’t make it right for everyone.”

Jason pushed his chair back. “People tell you things, Lyle.”

“We’re a small community. We tell each other everything—except our secrets. But someone always discovers them and tells those, too.”

“No one’s told you I’m not here to make things right. I’m here to do a job for my grandfather and move on.”

“I remember your grandfather.”

That wasn’t information Jason felt inclined to investigate. He didn’t remember this place. He didn’t necessarily want to remember it later. The only important thing he needed to know was that when he left, his father would make sure a decent loan officer and bank manager took over.

“Thanks for breakfast.” Jason stood up, sliding his phone into his pocket. “I’m going out for a while.”

“Sure.” Lyle smirked a little, as if to say he didn’t mind a dismissal.

Jason felt like what he was. Rude, uncomfortable, and maybe pushed a little too far, because he didn’t know how to react to people here, who didn’t outwardly want to use him. Unlike his father.

He started down the sidewalk, his pace as fast as it would have been in New York. After he weaved around the third stroller, he realized he was racing with himself. At the same time, he almost ran into a harried father holding on to two children and an oversize shopping bag.

Jason caught the shop door that almost hit one of the boys. Toy store. For once, maybe he could choose his own gifts. He knew where to buy wrapping paper and bows and tape, and Fleming could also tell him where to deliver his packages.

Every shop in Bliss seemed to smell as if someone had just baked an apple pie in it. Did the scent of apple pie prompt people to part with their money?

He took a basket from the stack by the door and started by filling the bottom with small cars. Even he could wrap an undersized square. He chose a few foam puzzles and some cylindrical barrels of building logs. He’d loved those things when he was a kid. He’d built ranches for his superhero action figures to live on.

They made superheroes smaller these days. After he topped the basket off with them, he took his purchases to the counter.

“Whoa,” said the young guy waiting to check him out. “Big family?”

“Sort of. Can I leave these here and finish?”

“Sure.” He started unloading. “We’ll push them all to the end until you come back.”

Jason had one more thing he wanted to buy. He loved trains as much as Fleming did. His grandparents had given him one every year. He still had them packed away. Somewhere.

He chose a wooden one, like the one he loved best. The cars were hand painted. Each fitted neatly to its mate via wooden couplings. The train ran on a wooden track that made a neat series of wide turns, accommodating play for a young child not yet completely in charge of dexterity.

Shopping bags in hand, he went on to Mainly Merry Christmas, passing both a card store and a stationery shop that probably carried a wide selection of paper and ribbons.

Fleming looked up from her open laptop when the bells jingled above his head.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “Nice to see you, too.”

She grinned, her embarrassment kind of charming. “I meant, welcome. What can I do for you?”

“I need a few things.”

“You have a few things.” She pointed to the bag. “Getting to your Christmas shopping early?”

Her soft mockery left him a little tongue-tied. “I was thinking last night, while you were wrapping your gifts...”

Fleming came around the counter, her smile a welcome into her community the likes of which he’d never been offered. “You bought some things for the shelter?”

“I always ask my assistant to write a check or choose a charity, or even to buy gifts for those trees in the department stores.”

“Oh.”

“You made me feel ashamed last night,” he said.

“I doubt anyone cares how the gifts arrive.”

“Maybe not.” He lifted the bag onto the counter. “But I thought I could put in a little effort.”

“I like to see a rich guy trying to walk in normal shoes.”

“I’m not that rich.” But just for a second, he wasn’t himself. He wished he could offer some of his own money to ease the holiday suffering he was causing here in Bliss.

“Let me donate wrapping paper,” she said.

“Fleming, are you insane?” He walked so close to her that his breath stirred the red strands around her face. “You can’t afford to give me paper. I’ll buy enough to wrap these, and some bows and those little cards.”

She laughed, but then hurried around the counter to a tree, where she touched a shiny, hard plastic candy cane. “If you wanted, you could add a little ornament to the bows. Nothing breakable, but something a child might keep for her own home next year.”

He hardly heard because he was so busy taking in Fleming’s happy face. She might tempt a man to believe in magical holidays.

“You choose,” he said.

She shook her head, touching his arm with her fingertips. “I’ll help you.”

He wanted to cover her hand and pull it to his mouth, to feel her soft skin against his lips and learn what she would say if she knew how her happy warmth touched him.

Instead, he completed his purchases, took his bags and left, reminding her to read the refinancing paperwork he’d given her.

* * *

FLEMING CLOSED THE shop early after Jason left, barely managing not to press her face to the door and watch him walk away. He would not be staying, she reminded herself. He’d always walk away.

And she had to focus on her own work. Sadly, no one was fighting to come inside the shop. Maybe they’d seen her collaborating with the enemy and hadn’t wanted to join them.

She locked the back door behind her and walked to her car, shivering in the cold night air. What she wouldn’t give for one more of those years when she and her mother had held the doors open during the first post-Thanksgiving week until ten or eleven at night.

This year, with an über-efficient businessman putting fear in everyone who’d fallen behind on one of Paige’s loans, people seemed to have locked up their wallets. Her business was an easy luxury to cut.

Driving home, she took comfort from the decorations going up in the heart of town. Snowflakes on Victorian streetlamps. Wire-and-light Santas and snowmen waving from the corners. Eight tiny reindeer grazing on the grassy areas of the courthouse square.

Even as she plunged into the darkness of the country roads she passed signs of the coming holidays. The Hadleys’ fence sparkled with loops of twinkling red and green lights. Blue and white stars loomed on the Petersons’ iron gates. The Bradleys’ Christmas-tree farm was an oasis of holiday decor, inviting passersby to stop in and choose a tree of their own.

Fleming pushed her anxiety to arm’s length. She’d read the refinancing contracts. She hadn’t called her mother during what was essentially a honeymoon. She had to refinance or give up the store, and that wasn’t a choice.

All her anxiety had given her a plan for the pages she needed to write tonight, a scene that cried out for the emotion she was fighting so hard not to feel in real life.

She turned in at her driveway, pausing to collect the mail from the black metal box that still bore the dents from an unfortunate mailbox-baseball incident on Halloween. She should replace it, but every little penny...

* * *

ON THURSDAY MORNING, Fleming waited outside Jason’s office, uncertain whether she was more anxious about seeing him or dealing with the loan.

Voices rose loudly inside the office. Instantly concerned that someone else might be attacking Jason, Fleming glanced at Hilda, who grimaced and stared at her phone. “I have 911 on speed dial now,” the woman said.

“I’m sorry you have to. It’s just a bad time of year for this to happen.”

Hilda scrunched up her eyebrows. “But if he’d waited, some people would have lost their homes and businesses.”

“I’m one of them,” Fleming said without thinking.

“What a mess.”

The office door opened and Jason came out, his arm across the shoulders of a man in coveralls. Fred Limber, who owned a tire shop a few blocks from the square.

“So don’t worry. I’ll send you the terms. I don’t see any reason you can’t meet this obligation, Fred, and if you have problems, you get in touch with me.”

“I can’t afford your advice on my business, Jason.”

“My name is on this bank.” Jason wiped his free hand down his leg, as if it were sweating. “I can spare you the time.”

Fleming stood, and both men looked at her. Jason’s gaze, warm with a smile, made her heart seize in a funny, clenching cramp. She smoothed the skirt of her navy shift dress.

He didn’t believe in Santa? With his offers to help the people who were in trouble thanks to Mr. Paige, it was like he was carrying around a big old sack of gifts.

Fred turned and shook Jason’s hand. “Sorry for yelling at you.”

“Sorry for yelling back.”

“I’ll read those papers and talk to my brother. He’s an accountant. Then I’ll set up an appointment with Hilda.”

“Good. We’ll see you then.” Jason walked Fred to the door, and after he shut it, he leaned against the heavy wood for a second. He might pretend to be detached, but clearly, walking away from the problems he was making for people in Bliss was not as easy as he might have thought. He smiled at Fleming, and then rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I know you don’t make coffee, Hilda—”

“No, I don’t.”

“But—”

“Just this once.” She rose from behind her desk. “Want one, Fleming?”

With brandy, for goodness’ sake. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll bring it in.”

Jason went into his office and Fleming followed.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

No need to beat around the bush. “I’m going to save the store.”

“Are you sure?” He took a stack of papers from his desk and then came to the sofa, where she’d already taken the same seat she’d occupied the other day.

“Maybe I can help you, too.” He lifted the first page and glanced toward the doorway. “Like with Fred,” he said.

It seemed clear that he was trying to tell her he didn’t care more for her than he should. She was just another victim of the bank’s bad loan officer.

She knew Jason’s plans. He was leaving town as soon as he finished this unwelcome favor.

“I’m happy to take advice,” Fleming said, purposefully rejecting the idea that it would come straight from him.

“I have a few suggestions.”

“But you won’t be here.” She closed her eyes briefly, determined to fight her own inner demons. Since the day her father had walked out of her life, she’d mistrusted men in authority. And yet let a guy go out of his way to help someone, and she couldn’t restrain herself from being attracted. “And I can’t entirely trust a bank that agrees I can afford their loan.”

“I’m not pretending it will be easy, but maybe we can streamline your processes in the shop to save some overhead. Spend more wisely.”

She lifted her chin. “The shop is still mine. I make the decisions.”

“You have three days to change your mind, Fleming. Don’t let the deadline pass.”

CHAPTER FIVE

AFTER ENDURING FRED’S shouting and Fleming’s prickly mood, Jason ducked past the registration desk in the hotel that night. It usually took a few weeks for him to get this anxious to leave a work site.

He’d made a mistake. He should have stayed downstairs and asked if he had unexpected company, because a tall, thin woman in a worn dress was waiting beside his door. She blushed and smiled at him, but tears welled in her eyes.

“Mr. Macland?”

“Jason,” he said automatically.

“I’m Rachel Limber.”

“Fred’s wife?” Should he brace for a fight or help her down the stairs?

She held out a Santa-decorated tin. “I make homemade fudge,” she said. “It’s really good, and right now it’s pretty much all we have to offer as a thank-you.”

“Oh.” He took the metal container and shook her hand at the same time. “You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

“I wanted to. Fred came home hopeful, and for that, I owe you. That old shop of his is mud and oil and nasty smells, but only to me. To him, it’s his favorite place in the whole world. I don’t know what he’d do if he lost it.”

That sounded familiar. Fleming had said the same thing—how many times? “I guess some walls and a place with memories can matter that much, Mrs. Limber.”

“It does to Fred. I was ready to give up and move to Knoxville, but our family’s here.”

Jason smiled. “Remind Fred he can call me or email anytime.”

“Thanks.” She looked at him closely. “I knew your grandmother.”

His grandparents had sold their home and moved to New York to help with Jason. Their support had become ever more vital to his father, who’d managed to retain custody of Jason’s younger sisters and brother as he divorced their mothers.

Robert Macland’s parents had given the family stability. Safety.

“I don’t think she ever came back here. She or my grandfather.” Jason had taken his grandparents so much for granted that he’d never thought to ask if they missed the place.

Why hadn’t he asked? Self-absorption must be a genetic trait.

“I wish she had. She was good friends with my mom. I know she would have been welcome.” Rachel Limber hooked her purse more securely over her arm and turned toward the stairs. “People shouldn’t disappear from each other’s lives. That’s what I hate most about this bank thing. You’re helping Fred, but you were too late for some.”

He nodded. “My grandfather asked me to come and to move quickly.”

“Good people, your grandparents, but we all knew your father. This little world was never going to be big enough for him. Merry Christmas, Jason. I hope I’ll see you around town.”

He stared after her, listening to the clack of her heels on the wooden stairs. Hadn’t he said almost the same thing about his father to Fleming? The small town of Bliss seemed to be closing in on him.

In his suite, Jason tossed the big key that weighed down his jacket pocket onto a table in front of the fireplace. He set the tin of fudge beside it.

Aromas from downstairs drifted up. His stomach growled as he glanced at the mail. He considered phoning down for dinner, but then rejected the idea, striking a long match to the logs and kindling waiting on the hearth.

He turned back to the stack of letters that he’d collected from his temporary post office box. Even in an age where a man did most of his correspondence via email, he still received a bundle of mail most days.

A long, lavender envelope caught his eye. Not the envelope, but the penmanship. Fat, round writing that was familiar because he’d read every line in every one of the day planners his mother had left behind when she’d abandoned him and his father. He stared at the name on the return address: Teresa Macland Brown.

It left him feeling as dazed as if he’d stormed headfirst into a wall.

His mother had written to him?

She’d hardly ever bothered. No cards, no emails, though he’d written to her almost the first moment he’d set up his own email address. He’d searched for her contact information on his father’s computer.

Secretly. Because Robert had been so angry at his wife’s disappearance that he had discouraged Jason from trying to get in touch with her. He’d reminded Jason regularly that she would only hurt him again.

Jason had never forgotten that last morning with her.

After an earsplitting argument between his parents, Jason’s mother had called a porter to take her luggage down to the street, and then she’d left. Jason sneaked into the elevator of their Manhattan loft to follow her, but she didn’t even wait for her bags. She was running out of the building’s other elevator as the doors opened on Jason’s.

He hurried after her, but when he reached the glass doors in the lobby, someone tall grabbed his shoulders and jerked him back.

“Careful, son, that’s a busy street out there.” It was the doorman.

Jason’s mother had run, sobbing, into the arms of a pale-haired man. He’d tipped up her face and wiped at her cheekbones with his thumbs. Then he’d kissed her with a tenderness that made Jason feel sick, because the man wasn’t his dad.

The runaway couple had scrambled into a waiting cab as if they couldn’t escape fast enough. With a jolt, the vehicle had started forward, and his mother and the stranger had disappeared into the flow of traffic.

She’d never looked back.

She’d hardly ever called. Initially, his father had tried to make excuses for her. For that, Jason had been grateful, but that image of her grabbing her new man and running away from their life stuck in his head even today.

No explanations had ever been necessary.

She hadn’t loved his father or him enough to stay. His dad said staying in one place wasn’t her thing, and he couldn’t blame her for that when he suffered from the same affliction. But Jason had never understood what he’d done to make her leave him, too.

Finally, he’d told his dad he understood that his mother didn’t love him, and they’d never discussed her again. She’d called once or twice, and they’d talked like strangers. Then they’d stopped talking at all.

Tightening his jaw, Jason finally opened the ridiculously feminine envelope. A single page slid out onto the floor. He picked it up. Heavy writing had impressed the pale purple paper with a few lines that showed through the back of the sheet. He needn’t have dreaded a long explanation, or an excuse.

But how had she known where to find him? How long had she been keeping tabs on him?

He unfolded the piece of paper. She wrote the way she’d talked all those years ago, as if she still didn’t have a lot to say. Just his name, a diffident request to meet, “I want to talk to you,” and her phone number.

He’d had more emotional communication from the bank’s frightened clients. He dropped the brief note and envelope on a side table with his keys.

After all these years, that was her best effort?

Why now? Why here?

How badly did he want to know?

He changed into running clothes and headed downstairs. The slap of his shoes against the sidewalk felt good. The stretch of his muscles as he ran and the cold air biting into his face reminded him he was alive. He was working. Nothing here was permanent. He just had to keep running to put everything back into perspective.

But then he came to Fleming’s shop, where she was stringing lights along the window. For a second, he considered running on past, but he couldn’t leave her standing on a chair to handle the lights alone.

He stopped, breathing hard enough to cause a cloud of steam to form in front of his face. Fleming, tangled in lights, stared at him as if to ask what he wanted.

If she’d asked out loud, he wouldn’t have known how to answer. He wasn’t even certain how he’d ended up in the one place she was sure to be. “Why don’t you let me help you?”

She looked down at him, considering. “I can do this by myself.”

Ignoring her stubbornness, he put his hand on the back of the chair. “Do we really need this?” He reached up to the metal frame of the awning in front of Mainly Merry Christmas. It was about four inches higher than his fingertips. “I guess we do.”

He took off his hoodie so he could see what he was doing and traded places with Fleming on the chair, noticing as they passed each other, just shy of touching, that she couldn’t look away from him any more than he could tear his gaze from her.

Slowly, she handed him a roll of green duct tape that matched the awning. She’d been using it to fasten the light cords to the canvas. She lifted the string of lights, and he took it, leaning back to see how she’d been lining them up.

“Why are you angry with me, Fleming?”

“I’m not.” She said it in such a rush it was obviously untrue. “I’m sorry. Maybe I am lashing out a little, because I find myself in a bad situation.”

“You can afford this loan. You won’t lose the store.”

“Why are you so helpful? You act as if the bank’s at fault.”

“I guess it is.” He probably shouldn’t say that. “According to the attorneys, Paige kept the loans just this side of legal so they’d go through the system. He’ll be going to jail because he got greedy enough to skim the profits.”

“Otherwise, the bank would have been part of his scam,” she said.

“I guess my family does have a level we won’t stoop below.” Jason smiled, but he wasn’t entirely joking. “I’m helping you and everyone else he cheated because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s best for this town if all of you can continue to do business with Macland’s.”

“Now you sound like a commercial,” she said, with a smile that made him feel less insulted, more as if they were back on the shaky footing of their unacknowledged attraction.

“That burns a lot more than being called heartless.”

“You’re imagining things.” Briskly, she handed him the last of the lights, and he put them up, secured them with the heavy-duty tape, and then stepped off the chair.

“Want to turn them on?”

Nodding, she went inside and threw a switch. The lights began to twinkle just as a snowflake landed on his cheek. He looked up and saw blue-gray sky, but when he turned his head to look at the courthouse behind him, he saw more flakes, thickening in the air.

“Snow,” he said, as the shop bells jangled and Fleming rejoined him.

“About time. That should help everyone in business up here.”

He searched her face, impressed that he’d never heard panic in her voice, even the day she’d agreed to sign the loan.

“I swear you’re going to be okay,” he said, taking her hand. “I took into account the slow times. You’re in this for the long haul. If you were only looking to make a quick profit and turn the place over to a new owner, we would have discussed different terms.”

She nodded, tears pooling in her eyes. Her throat moved as she tried to swallow, and he pulled her closer still, wrapping one arm around her.

“Until you close on the loan, nothing is permanent.”

“I need to close. My life here is permanent.” She pressed her cheek to his chest. She was warm and alive and unguarded on this cold day, and she needed his comfort.

It was a potent combination, but when she said the word permanent, it reminded him who she was. He couldn’t tip up her face and kiss the generous mouth that haunted him when he should have been busy with his own plans. He couldn’t put his other arm around her and pretend they could be more than friends.

He did hit-and-run relationships with a mastery he’d learned at his father’s knee. Fleming was not a temporary kind of woman.

“Let me take your chair inside before it gets wet,” he said.

“I hope the snow now is a good sign for more to come.” She held the door, and he carried the chair past her.

Fleming followed him inside, but the bells on the door didn’t sound as cheery as now.

“You know, I don’t think you’re heartless.” She went to the front window of the store as if looking for customers to drag inside. “No one here thinks you’re heartless.”

“Have you been gossiping?” He went to the tall, silver coffeepot she kept behind the counter and poured two cups. He passed one to her, making no effort to avoid contact.

She put one finger through the handle and wrapped her other hand around the cup’s rim. He couldn’t help noticing every little thing she did.

“Maybe it’s gossip,” she said. “Maybe people are grateful, and we’ve talked about it over the doughnut case in the bakery and the egg fridge in the grocery store. When you first arrived, you were all rules and regulations, even when you were sorry you had to do the right thing for the bank.”

“I may still have to do that.” But he wasn’t sanguine as he thought of the number of loans he still had to study.

“You’re accidentally getting to know us, and business as usual isn’t as easy as it’s been in the past.”

“You’re right about that. I didn’t expect to be treated as if I belonged here. People take me at face value.” He moved away from her, fingering the thick batting that nestled the miniature village in faux snow in the window. “But I am still the bank’s representative.”

“I haven’t forgotten you’ll put the bank ahead of us.”

“If I have to, but I didn’t with your loan.”

“That’s what I don’t understand about you. You obviously cared about Fred, and I know you’ve been considerate of me, but if the bottom line creeps up, that’s where your attention will go.”

“It’s my job.”

“Your job,” she said. “That’s your first priority, isn’t it?”

He met her measured gaze, knowing she wouldn’t let him put his arm around her now if he tried. “The job is why I’m here.”

“I won’t let myself forget again.” She took her cup to the counter. “But aren’t you ever tempted to find out if you could belong somewhere?”

“Fleming—”

“I know,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”

“You’re content here in these mountains. I’m not asking you why you aren’t tempted by everything you’d find outside this world.”

“Because I belong. My life here is a suit of clothes that fits. You haven’t found that outfit for yourself.” She opened her laptop. “And I don’t think you’ll allow yourself to look.”

“Just like I don’t believe you’re capable of opening your eyes to anywhere else.”

“And now we’re getting personal. That’s a mistake.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “I’m asking the attorney for a closing date.”

And shutting him out. Making sure he knew she wasn’t open to any relationship that might take her away from her beloved mountain home.

“Good,” he said. “The sooner you commit to your business, the better.” He looked at his watch, not even seeing it. “I should get back to work, too. Good night, Fleming.”

“Night.”

Her cheery voice irritated him. He set his cup on her counter and looked at her, not hiding his awareness of what they were truly saying to each other. She belonged here. He was leaving.

Neither spoke again as he exited the store and walked away.

* * *

FLEMING FELT THE silence in the shop as if it were a pillow smothering her. She sent her email to the bank’s loan attorney and closed the laptop, not even tempted to open her story file for a change.

Her heart felt a little broken. She and Jason had talked a lot since she’d first met him in his office that day. They’d never been as personal or as honest as in these last few moments.

She’d met other men, been interested in other men, but laughed to herself now, recognizing that she’d never felt like this before. Attracted, afraid, grateful for the sound of his voice, at a loss when he left her.

But she’d always been clear about where she stood, where she’d stand forever. In Bliss, her home.

Her phone rang, startling her as it vibrated in her pocket. She reached for it and tears burned in her eyes. “Mom,” she said, answering.

“Am I too late? Why haven’t you called me?”

Fleming picked up her coffee cup and carried it to the back room, where she put it in the sink. “The grapevine got hold of you?”

“I’ve heard a few things. Is it true about the loan?”

“Absolutely true, but everything’s fine. I have a new one that I’ll be able to cover, and the shop will be fine.”

“I don’t care about the shop.” Her mother paused. “Right now, anyway. You sound sad.”

“No.” Fleming lied as she never had to her mother before. She couldn’t explain that her heart had gotten involved without her permission. “I’m fine. Where are you calling from?”

Her mom didn’t answer.

“Hello?” Fleming glanced at the phone. It was a long way to a beach hut, but the call remained connected.

“I asked Hugh if we could come home early. Just a few days. I’m on my way from Knoxville right now. I hope you won’t be upset with me for being concerned, but we both thought you might need me.”

Fleming didn’t know how to respond. “I’m twenty-four, Mom, not a child. Hugh will think—”

“That I wanted to see my daughter. He’s part of our family now, too. He understands what the shop means to us both. Besides, he’s excited about getting back to the hospital in the morning. Who knows how cardiology might have changed since the great Dr. Belford tempted fate by taking a vacation?”

Her mom was rightly proud of her new husband, who’d never go out for pastry and disappear. “Thank him for me,” Fleming said, “and be careful getting here. It’s starting to snow.”

“Oh, that’ll be good for business.”

CHAPTER SIX

FLEMING HAD ALL BUT tackled her mother when she arrived at home the night before. Over hot chocolate and oatmeal cookies, they’d discussed what had happened with the shop and the loan, and then they’d gone to bed.

In the morning, Fleming woke to the smells and sounds of breakfast. She jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs. Her mother turned from the stove, where she was frying bacon.

“I thought pancakes and bacon and coffee and some fresh fruit,” she said. “How’s that with you?”

“Amazing. I usually just grab an apple or a boiled egg. Even your coffee smells better than mine.”

“Help yourself.” Katherine went to the fridge and took out pancake batter she’d already mixed. “We should be eating in about ten minutes.”

Fleming rubbed her stomach. “Can’t be soon enough.”

“Now tell me what you’re doing to bring up sales in the store.”

“I’ve distributed flyers for an ornament-making workshop. I haven’t decided what I want to do so it’s pretty vague, but I’ll provide the materials as part of the cost.”

“I wondered if you’d keep up with the ornament tradition. You should do one each week.”

“I was thinking papier-mâché. My friend Julia did some in art school. She might help me come up with something.”

“Would she consider running the workshop?”

“We could share the profits if she’s willing. I have the shop and she has the skills. She might even be able to put on other classes during the year.”

“I’d talk to her,” Katherine said. “Call her after breakfast.”

“I will. Actually, I kind of have an idea. You know the special ornaments we do each year? I modeled the ones for this year on the snowflakes the town puts on the streetlights.” They were 3-D stars with six sides, made so that each leg formed a diamond point. “What if we did something like that, only in jewel colors, with varnish? Nothing ornate—these would be for the children.”

“Might be worth the effort if it brings in shoppers.”

“And their little ones. We’ll keep it easy so the children can be involved in making them.”

“Good idea. You should try.”

Fleming smiled. “That wasn’t so hard for a few minutes of work.”

Maybe she’d been putting all her creativity into her writing. Writing her mother didn’t even know about. Her own little secret.

“Don’t rest your brain now. You’ll need more of that kind of work,” Katherine said.

“If you have ideas, I’m open to them.”

Fleming set silverware and plates on the table. Her mother brought the pancakes and bacon.

“I could stay until you feel better about handling the business and the new loan.”

“You could, and I appreciate the offer, but you have a life with Hugh. I’ll call you if I have questions. I’m so glad to see you, but I feel guilty that you’ve come all this way, and ended your vacation early.”

Her mom grinned. “Don’t. I’m not sure Hugh and I are vacation people. Remember, all you have to do if you need help is call me, and I’ll be on my way.”

Katherine reached out and squeezed Fleming’s hand. “I’m a little worried that you’ve committed to this because you feel as if you owe me the store. You don’t. It was my dream, not yours.”

“It’s part of all the Christmases we ever had, Mom. Part of the thread of my life. I want the store. And someday, if you and Hugh come home to this house, after he retires, you may be so bored you’ll want the business back.”

Katherine laughed. “I can’t actually deny that.” She sat, tucking her napkin in her lap. “I’m glad I came.”

“So am I. Stay a day or two, and we’ll visit, if Hugh doesn’t mind. You always restore my faith in myself.”

Faith that Jason had shaken, not because he was cruel or meant to hurt her, but because he was, himself, a pragmatic, practical businessman who’d shown her she’d been complacent and trusted the wrong person.

* * *

JASON WAS WALKING to a lunch meeting when he saw the chalkboard on an easel outside Mainly Merry Christmas: “Make a Blissful Ornament. Papier-mâché. Classes Inside.”

He lifted both brows. Not a bad idea. Something for parents and children to do together. Something for Christmas.

A gust of wind burned his eyes. He tried to imagine living here, being part of this community. It was easier to imagine his sisters and brother having families. Bringing some sort of Macland tradition back here with the kind of marriage his grandparents still kept alive.

But his grandparents were the exception, not the rule of Macland marriages. No one in his family would be coming back here. And he wouldn’t be staying.

He sped up, his feet eating up the sidewalk. Thoughts of his mother and her note came to mind. She was family. He hadn’t even tried to see her.

She hadn’t tried to see him, either, when he’d needed her most, but suddenly, for the first time in a long time, he wondered why. It wasn’t that he’d love to forgive and forget, but a guy who spent most of his life uncovering answers to troubling problems shouldn’t have been so content to just let the years slide by.

Something about the holidays must be getting under his skin. He glanced at Fleming’s sign again.

A car slid to the curb at Jason’s side. A luxury SUV. A man rolled down the window.

“Jason, I thought that was you. Glad I made it in time for our appointment.” Gabe Kaufman, a client who happened to be driving from Knoxville to Asheville, climbed out of his car. “I’m glad you could see me.”

Jason felt for the phone in his overcoat pocket. “I’ve got your files. Let’s talk.”

He walked the guy over to a little restaurant behind the square. A server seated them at a linen-covered table, brought a silver carafe of coffee and unobtrusively served a five-star lunch while they discussed Gabe’s trading business. They finished the details about the same time dessert arrived, a chocolate mousse confection that took Jason’s mind off work for the first time since they’d sat down.

“What are you doing out here?” Gabe asked. “It’s a cute little place, and I can’t believe you have access to dining like this.” He looked around the smoke-scented, low-beamed room. “But why have you buried yourself in the Tennessee mountains at this time of the year? You don’t even have convenient access to an airport.”

Jason allowed himself a small smile. Gabe was an important client, but they weren’t such close friends that he’d be sharing his family’s business with him. “I lived here when I was a kid. I’m just home for a visit.”

“Seriously?” Gabe made a big show of his disbelief. “I never knew that. I thought you were Beekman Place, born and bred.”

“I spent most of my childhood there, but my roots are here.” Nothing had ever sounded more foreign to him. Or less true. He’d never had roots. He didn’t need roots like most of mankind. He needed the next challenge. “Everyone goes home once in a while. What are you doing in Asheville for the holidays?”

“The music scene,” Gabe said. “My oldest daughter plays a violin. Well—” he swallowed hard “—apparently, it’s a fiddle now. If I could tell you the money I’ve paid for lessons... But she suddenly loves bluegrass, and she heard there was good music here. My wife wanted to spend some time away from the city where there was a chance our phones wouldn’t work.

“And you know what? She succeeded. Here I am, and my phone is useless at the place where we’re staying. The wife did a little recon trip ahead of our family holiday, and she chose this chalet where she couldn’t get reception anywhere on the grounds.”

Jason laughed, commiserating. “No one understands a guy who can’t relax.” Women just assumed such men ran from one place to the next to avoid commitment. Like Fleming... But no—he had to get her out of his head. “Has your family gone to Asheville ahead of you?”

“We’ve been there a few days, but they came with me today. They seemed to think I might get distracted and not show up back at our equivalent of a desert island.” Gabe’s smile was wry, as if he was only about half as impatient with his downtime as he was pretending to be. “I dropped them back at that little holiday shop. Can you imagine anything as hopeless as running a store devoted to Christmas year-round? I might beat myself to death with one of the ceramic Santa Clauses in the window.”

To his surprise, a surge of irritation stiffened Jason’s spine. “It does all right for business,” he said, as if there were some good financial reason for him to lie about Fleming’s store being in the peak of good fiscal health.

“Yeah? You know the people who run it? Maybe the snow and the ski resorts put visitors in mind of Christmas. So how do people keep busy up here in summer?”

Good question. Jason had no answer. His mind went blank, as if he didn’t know how to have fun. He usually worked. For fun, he’d started flying lessons last summer. One year, he’d done some work in Hawaii and dived in the clear waters every free moment he could find. “What do you do anywhere in summer? Whatever’s available, I guess.” He glanced at the discreet crowd of would-be customers milling quietly by the door. “We might be taking more than our allotted share of time here.”

He dropped a wad of cash for lunch on the table and stood, leaving Gabe no choice but to follow. On the street, Jason put out his hand to shake his client’s. “It’s been good seeing you. Study the files I emailed you, and call me with your questions.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not running out as if you can’t afford a few minutes off the clock. Come down to the little store with me. I want you to meet my wife and girls.”

Another great idea. Fleming had made her position pretty clear during their last uncomfortable meeting. Jason made a show of checking his watch. “I don’t know...”

“Forget it.” Gabe pounded his back as if they were old football teammates. “The global economy won’t collapse if you take your eye off it for a few minutes.”

Without ever actually agreeing to go, Jason found himself walking with Gabe to the store. He even stepped in front of his friend and opened the door, which was wreathed in hand-drawn candy canes.

Gabe entered ahead of him, but stopped so suddenly Jason thudded into his back. Then he caught sight of the chaos. The door was the only clean thing left in Mainly Merry Christmas.

Three girls and two small boys, all covered in white goop, along with two women who apparently had some connection to the shrieking children, seemed to be wrapping mummies at the small table opposite the cash registers. Their animated voices drowned out Fleming’s attempt to calmly instruct them. A third woman had given up to retire, laughing, behind the checkout area.

Fleming caught sight of Gabe and Jason, and said something that got lost in the racket. From her look of consternation, Jason had to assume she wasn’t rejoicing at his arrival. Nearly encased in papier-mâché herself, she squared her shoulders, smoothed the white stuff off her hands onto the newspaper-covered table and smiled.

“Good afternoon. May I help you?”

Jason, bemused, didn’t have to answer. The two smallest girls bolted for Gabe and pummeled his suit with their sticky hands, shouting “Daddy!” with the elation of children who’d thought their father might have disappeared forever.

One of the women looked at Fleming, her body language an expression of sheer helplessness. Fleming dampened a length of paper towel in a plastic tub of clean water and passed it to her.

“Gabe,” the woman said, “maybe we should stay here in Bliss tonight. I think we’ve got the hang of this papier-mâché thing, and the girls want to finish their ornaments.”

The older daughter, clearly bored and nowhere near as coated in goop and glue, shook her head. “I don’t.”

“The girls want to finish their ornaments,” her mother said again. Then she lifted both hands, sticky still, and now slightly fluffy with paper-towel remnants. “And so do I.”

“Then, by all means.” Gabe turned toward Jason. “Maybe you could give me directions to a good hotel?”

“Sure.” Jason brought up the web page for Lyle’s place and texted a link to Gabe’s phone. “You can call and arrange for a room. Or just walk down the block. It’s on the right at the end of the square.”

“Go ahead, Gabe,” his wife said. “We’ll meet you over there after we finish.”

“Jason, this is Anita. Anita, my friend Jason. And these are my daughters. Starting with the tallest and least interested in hanging out with the family,” he said, grinning with affection, “Delia. And this one—” he flattened his hand in the air above a small, glue-laden head of brown hair “—is Kay. Last but not least, this limpet on my leg is Georgina.”

The small redhead clung to him with all her gluey might. “Daddy, I come with you.”

“After you finish your art project,” Gabe said with justifiable reluctance. “Jason, join us for dinner tonight.”

He should welcome the break. Some time with people who didn’t owe his family or the bank anything and had no reason to resent him. But he dreaded more questions, and he suspected Fleming and her store might be a topic of dinner-table talk now that Gabe and his family had met her. “Thanks,” he said, “but—”

Without thinking, he glanced at Fleming, and she ran her fingers through her hair, streaking it with white. She took a moment to decide to take mercy on him, but then came to his rescue. “Actually, Jason and some friends and I have plans for tonight. We’re planning...” She stopped, her blank expression certainly not helping Jason’s cause. “A Christmas thing. On the square. Caroling.” She finished with a look of triumph.

Gabe’s smile was crooked with disbelief. He glanced at Jason assessingly, as if he couldn’t decide how best to make fun of him. “Okay. See you in a while. Anita, hose the kids down before you let them be seen in public, will you?”

He hit the sidewalk, wiping at his suit.

His wife made a face at his back as he walked away. “He was joking.” She dampened her hands again with the clear water. “I think.”

“Jason, why don’t you come make an ornament?” Fleming asked, with irony in her voice as if she expected him to say no to the possibility of participating in something fun. “We’re doing a test run today, but we’re thinking our methods need a little work. Let us try some changes on you.” She waved toward the young woman behind the cash register. “This is Julia Walker. She’s our instructor for today.”

“Julia.” He couldn’t help doubting her skills, because the place was covered in glue and globs of wet paper. He looked back at Fleming with a nod. Did she think she could scare him off with a challenge?

She came around the counter, rubbing her hands together like a mad scientist on a bad television show. “We may have to turn these snowflakes into snowmen. Here we go again.”

* * *

“OF COURSE YOU turn out to be a papier-mâché prodigy,” Fleming said later that afternoon, as she scooped the last of the glue off the table with a scraping tool Julia had lent her before she’d left for a dinner date.

Jason twirled his ruby-colored ornament above her head. “I think I’ll lacquer this.” He held it out to her. “You want it?”

Somehow, his not wanting to keep it made her feel as if it didn’t matter to him. But why should it? He didn’t go in for things like tradition. “You aren’t planning to have a tree?”

“I don’t even know where I’ll be on Christmas.”

“With your family?” She couldn’t imagine Christmas without her mother and Hugh.

Could Jason be that detached? Didn’t his family celebrate, even with several different mom-and-child combinations?

He still hadn’t answered her question.

“Aren’t you going home?” She handed him a moist paper towel, but he wasn’t entirely covered in glue the way everyone else had been: she and Julia and Anita Kaufman and the rest of the small class who’d agreed to be her guinea pigs.

“Christmas is like Thanksgiving. It’s just a day, Fleming. I don’t have children. I don’t have to eat cookies for Santa or carrots for Rudolph.”

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