Читать книгу The Christmas Company - Alys Murray - Страница 6

Chapter One

December 23

Some may have called Kate Buckner biased, but she believed no one on planet Earth did Christmas better than the small town of Miller’s Point, Texas. Okay, she was totally biased. After living there her whole life—almost twenty-seven years—she was allowed to love it, especially at this time of year. Miller’s Point was a special place all year round, but it had a glow of its own once the weather turned chilly. Yes, even Texas got chilly, though Miller’s Point accentuated the natural winter wind with more fake snow and crystal icicles than anywhere else in the world.

The town’s glow was only partly due to the lights strung around the town square’s famous Christmas tree. The rest came from the twinkling of thousands of others decorating every building in town.

Kate crouched precariously atop an eleven-foot ladder, her boots covering the “DANGER—DO NOT STAND ON TOP LEVEL” sticker. Her thighs burned as she reached out for her target… Just a little further… A little more…

“Hey!”

Kate froze atop the ladder. Even the subtlest of starts would send the ladder tipping, and she did not want to explain to Doctor Bennett how she cracked her skull open. Without moving anything but her eyes, she braved a glance down towards the cobblestones making up Main Street. In just a few hours, they would be covered in fake snow, but for now, they cleaned up nice, sparkling from last night’s rainfall. The familiarly muddy boots of Carolyn Bishop, however, ruined the perfect cleanliness—and Kate’s view. Kate would’ve smiled if she hadn’t been deathly afraid the slight movement of muscles would send her toppling down to the cold, hard ground.

Her official job title was “Director of Festival Operations,” but everyone called her Miss Carolyn, and for good reason. With her eternally good-natured smile and cracked skin testifying to how long she’d been living here, everyone generally considered her the town matriarch. The silver-haired woman with narrowed brown eyes stood lower than five-foot-nothing, but her presence towered over Miller’s Point. Kate loved her almost as much as she feared her, which explained the slamming of her heart when she heard the worried accusation in Miss Carolyn’s voice.

“What are you doing up there?”

“This light is out!”

Kate stretched her fingers. She was so close, and if she could only just reach… She grabbed ahold of a tiny bulb and twisted it. Once, twice, three times. There. The light flickered on, joining the rest of its illuminated brethren on the thick, green cord. It was only one piece of a very, very large puzzle, but Kate felt that the little details made all the difference. Miss Carolyn, for her part, didn’t share Kate’s enthusiasm for tiny lightbulbs or women who put themselves in dangerous situations to fix them.

“You’ve got to be the most hardheaded girl in town! Get down here before you fall and break your neck! No, you know what? A fall might actually do you some good. Maybe it’d knock some sense into you!”

As she made her way down the ladder, Kate couldn’t help but survey the square surrounding her. She would never joke about something as important as Christmas, but she definitely wasn’t kidding about the grandeur of Miller’s Point. Every year, The Christmas Company—an event planning firm that was a subsidiary of Woodward Enterprises, the corporation that owned most of the ranching operations out here—transformed Miller’s Point from one of the countless flyover Texas towns into a Dickensian Christmas wonderland. The square received a makeover, with Hollywood-style facades and enough fake snow to make their humble streets look so much like Victorian London that even a time traveler couldn’t have told the difference.

From the day after Thanksgiving until New Year’s Eve, the town banded together to host the Miller’s Point Christmas Festival, where guests from all over the country flocked to join in the celebration. Everyone enjoyed the caroling and costumes, but the highlight of the festival—the real reason everyone went—was the immersive reenactment of A Christmas Carol. Every night, guests could follow Scrooge on his journey and watch him change from a bitter, hateful miser into a man with the spirit of the season coursing through his veins like an injection of sugarplum juice.

Their town square hosted such scenes as the Ghost of Christmas Present’s journey through London and the final celebration after Scrooge’s transformation. The Christmas Company spared no expense or labor in making it a dreamscape of holiday fantasy. Paintings on Christmas cards and backdrops in Bing Crosby movies couldn’t compare. Lush green garlands wrapped in red ribbons adorned the storefronts covered in fake snow and frost. Countless fairy lights illuminated wreaths and holly, ornaments and decorations of every size and description. Outdoor lanterns and lampposts blazed. No matter where a visitor turned to look, the town simply glowed. It was the perfect backdrop for Tiny Tim to sit on Scrooge’s shoulder and shout, “God bless us, everyone,” and no matter how hard she tried to remain professional, Kate always cried when they got to that part.

When she finally set her feet on solid ground, Kate braced herself for an earful from Miss Carolyn. After volunteering with the festival since she was seven years old, Kate graduated to full-time employee status at nineteen, the youngest person ever hired by The Christmas Company, and as Assistant of Festival Operations, her list of duties was as extensive as it was satisfying. She ran into trouble, though, with her enthusiasm. As a volunteer, she scrambled to make herself useful, invaluable. Now, as an employee, she always found herself trying to do everything, a habit her boss hated. Miss Carolyn wanted her at her side, not off fixing the hem of Mrs. Cratchit’s costume or refilling the mulled wine in Fred’s apartment scene.

“What have I told you about getting up on that ladder?” Miss Carolyn asked, hands firmly on her hips, silver eyebrow firmly raised. Kate avoided her gaze. She focused instead on breaking down the ladder for storage, no easy task considering the ladder’s height.

“Tomorrow’s the big day and everything has to be perfect.”

“There’ve got to be a thousand lights on that tree. How in Heaven’s name did you spot the broken one?”

There were actually 12,460 lights on the Main Street Christmas tree, but Kate didn’t want to correct her boss. Or look like the biggest festival nerd in town, though everyone probably already suspected as much. She shrugged.

“It’s a gift.”

To be fair, her eagle eye came more through experience than through some miracle of heavenly gift-giving. A lifetime of staring up at the tree with joy and awe had taught her the weak electrical spots. With the ladder broken down and folded, Kate scooped up the handle, groaning with the effort. She’d definitely feel the strain in her muscles tomorrow, but it was all worth it for that one tiny light. If the tree brought joy and the holiday spirit to even one person, Kate’s mission would be accomplished. Christmas Eve was the night the crowds were the densest and most hopeful; Kate didn’t want even one thing to go wrong for them.

She started off for Town Hall to return the ladder. With its balcony level and classic architecture, the main ballroom was used as Scrooge’s house, but they used some of the anterooms and recreation rooms for storage and costume changes. Miss Carolyn followed behind.

“You’re my best worker, kid, but you’re stubborn as they come.”

“We make Christmas for people, Miss Carolyn. What we do is important, right down to the tiniest little light bulb.”

“You really love this, don’t you?”

“More than anything.”

Kate didn’t need to think about that for more than a second. Her entire life revolved around the festival. As far as she was concerned, Christmas was the best time of year. Not because of the presents or the food, though those were certainly part of it. To her, Christmas was the one time of year when everyone put aside their differences and sat together at the table of humanity. Hope lit the lamps and compassion played the music. Christmas wasn’t a holiday but a microcosm of the best of mankind, a reminder of what they could be if they only carried the spirit with them all year round.

It also made her excessively poetic.

“Well.” Miss Carolyn cleared her throat and pulled Kate away from the side door. “I need you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“We have a visitor from Woodward. And they’re waiting on us.”

The swinging of the heavy, oaken front doors of the town hall punctuated the ominous line. Heavy ladder still in tow, Kate stepped through the main marble atrium to see they were not entering some intimate meeting with their corporate overlords.

Judging from the sheer number of people present, the room looked more like an intervention than a meeting to discuss cost-cutting measures or whatever it was corporate decided to throw at them next.

Heads turned at the doors opening and a sea of worried, familiar faces turned to greet them. Mitch and Betsy Plinkett held hands and stared with distant eyes. Lindy Turnbull’s perfect skin wrinkled with concerned lines. Even little Bradley Lewisham, their Tiny Tim, gripped his prop cane until his knuckles went white. Costumes mingled with plain clothes, but one thing was consistent: fear.

Something had happened. Or was happening. And no one had told Kate about it. Her stomach dropped too far for her to pick it back up. She glanced sidelong at Miss Carolyn. She was a rock of consistency and positivity. If there was a North Star in this room, she would be it.

But when Kate looked, there was no guiding light to follow. Miss Carolyn’s rosy cheeks sunk into a pale shade of gray. Her eyes hardened. Dread prickled the hairs on the back of Kate’s neck. If whatever happened was enough to rankle their leader, it could only mean one of two things. Either someone had died, or they were getting shut down.

“Good evening.”

Kate’s head snapped to the front of the room, where a hastily constructed podium and a microphone stood. Too distracted by her friends and neighbors, she hadn’t noticed the setup when she walked in, but now it was all she could do to even blink. Behind the podium stood a solitary man. Against the white walls of the atrium, his black suit and golden hair stood out with the entrancing shock of an abstract painting, as if he were nothing more than lonely brushstrokes on a canvas.

He was also, as far as Kate could see, the only person in the room without an identifiable expression in his face. For someone so young—he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than her, if that—he had the practiced look of a lifelong poker player. She wouldn’t have stood a chance against him in a game of Hold ’Em. His natural state seemed to be one of stone. Worse still, when he spoke, she realized it wasn’t just a skin-deep distinction. His unavailable emotions went all the way to his core.

“My name is Clark Woodward, and it’s my sad duty to inform you that my uncle, Christopher Woodward, passed away last month.”

Gasps from every corner of the room, including Kate’s. Mr. Woodward was a good, kind man. He lived in Dallas, but he made time every month to come and visit the ranches in Miller’s Point, and of course he visited the festival every year. He even played Scrooge in the festival once, after the real Scrooge took ill and couldn’t get out of bed. What he lacked in acting skills, he made up for with the biggest heart in all of Texas. Kate cracked at the news, but the young man behind the podium held his hand up for quiet, effectively silencing them with a single gesture. He wasn’t done yet.

“As the new CEO of my uncle’s company, it is also my duty to inform you that we will be shutting down The Christmas Company subsidiary, effective immediately.”

CEO. Uncle. Shutting down. Immediately. The words all made sense individually, but when sliced into that order and delivered with such dignity, Kate wasn’t sure she understood them. How could this man be Mr. Woodward’s nephew? Who made him CEO?

Kate didn’t even flinch when her shaking hands dropped the folded ladder with a room-shaking thunk, drawing the attention of a room full of her friends and neighbors. The other questions and confusions were nothing in the face of her biggest issue:

Destroying The Christmas Company would mean the end of Miller’s Point as they knew it. Woodward’s ranching operations made many of the families good livings, but the seasonal work meant working for The Christmas Company during the colder months was all that stood between many in Miller’s Point and the stinging crush of poverty. Her chest tightened in pain at the reality of it.

Around her, the room erupted into conversation and denials, questions and protestations, each more vehement and heartbreaking than the last. But Kate remained squarely focused on their executioner as he dealt the final death blows, not caring if they could hear him over their distressed chatter.

“All salaried and hourly staff will receive a generous severance package, and I will remain in town for the next few weeks as I oversee the dissolution of the company. Any questions can be directed to the phone number found on your severance letters, which will be in the mail in the next five to seven days. We thank you for your years of service.”

With the crowd still reeling from the announcement, he stepped down from the microphone and moved to leave the room. Just like that. Without any warning and without any apologies, he marched down the hall’s middle aisle towards the front door. People watched him as he passed, still talking among themselves, but no one said or did anything to stop him, not even Kate. She watched his mirror-shine shoes take command of the floor as if he owned the land he walked on. Step, step, step, step. It beat the tune of a song no one wanted to sing, the song of finality. A song that ended with the slam of the chamber doors behind him.

When there was nothing left of him but the faint whisper of cold air, the assembled crowd turned back towards Miss Carolyn. Some of them surely caught Kate in the periphery of their gazes, but she, too, stared at the weathered old woman for some sort of comfort. Miss Carolyn always had a plan. She had a plan and contingency for every scenario. The hall was silent. Kate couldn’t even hear her own breathing. Everyone waited for Miss Carolyn’s wisdom to save them.

But when she didn’t speak and instead turned to Kate with wide, wet eyes, the younger woman understood their wished-for wisdom would never come. The dread fluttering in Kate’s stomach turned to lead as the reality of their situation fully sank in. If Miss Carolyn didn’t know how to save them, they’d already lost.

“I,” she began, her voice wavering from tears. The room seemed to lean in. Here it was. The big speech to rally the town and save Christmas. She opened her mouth once. Then twice. She scanned the room, meeting the expectant eyes gazing at her.

And then, just when everyone thought she’d give them all the answers, Miss Carolyn slumped. A wrinkled hand ran its way through her hair and she sighed deep enough and defeated enough for all of them combined. “I’m tired. I think I’m going home. Y’all should, too.”

For a moment, no one obeyed. They waited for a punchline, for a “just kidding. Let’s go punch the big city rat until he gives us what’s ours.” She met their hope with nothing but silence. Slowly people stood and collected their things, muttering well wishes for the season to their friends and neighbors.

Kate didn’t move. Every time she blinked, more of her life crumbled before her. There would be no Christmas Eve festival tomorrow night. There would be no Christmas celebration. Scrooge would never again sing. The town would never celebrate its nightly tree lighting ceremony again. Friendships forged over the festival would dissolve. Some families would lose their main livelihood, others their supplemental income and others still would lose a reason to stay alive through the winter. The charities they supported would go unfunded. The town might not even survive without the tourist income. Kate’s found family would disintegrate, just like that. Everything was lost.

As the thought occurred to her, a little sniffle made itself known. It was so clear and so loud she couldn’t ignore it. Kate turned to find little Bradley hiding his tears behind his Tiny Tim cane. Kate wondered briefly how many other children had worn that cap before him. How many lives had been changed by those children? What would those people have been without the festival?

Who would she be without the festival?

The questions were more convicting than the answers, and the brain-piercing goodbyes of her chosen family were one big key turning the ignition of her fury. This was her family. No one was going to tear it apart, not as long as she had a say.

“Stay here, Miss Carolyn.”

“Kate…what are you doing?”

Miss Carolyn’s question wasn’t going to stop her. Kate apparently no longer had a job to lose; she no longer had to listen. These people were her family, her community, and she wasn’t going to stand by while some stick-in-the-mud Dallas boy tried to tear them apart and make this world a little bit worse.

With a spine as straight as a flagpole and chin held twice as high, she stormed out of the Miller’s Point Town Hall. Her hammering heart joined the steady rap of her shoes as she jogged down the front steps towards the shadowed figure in the black sport coat.

“Hey!”

He was the only one on the street, hence the only one she possibly could have been talking to, but he didn’t respond to her hail. The flames of frustration and anger licked at the back of her neck, threatening to consume her. She tried to keep them at bay and maintain some semblance of coolness—the last thing she wanted was to be accused of being an emotional or irrational woman by this stranger—but it was next to impossible. When she thought about all the lives this one tiny decision would touch, it burned up every sense of rational control she possessed.

“Hey, Woodward!”

Was it the use of his name, her razor-sharp tone or the whipping wind that caused him to tense up like that? Kate didn’t care as long as he paid attention to her. She closed the small space between them, catching up to him just in front of the Scrooge and Marley office. During the off-season, it served as a general store, but she called it the Money-House all year round. Not even the sight of it, which usually sent a thrill of sentimentality through her, could calm her now. When he didn’t turn to face her, she took the liberty of hopping down off of the curb so she stood directly in his eye line. This forced her to gaze up at him, but she didn’t think there was anything doe-eyed about her. If anything, she felt like an avenging Valkyrie, riding for justice. No one, not even this arrogant stranger, would make the mistake of underestimating her.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

His face remained as composed and disinterested as ever, but Kate spied the fingers of his right fist clenching and unclenching. She almost smiled. He had a tell; something was bothering him.

“I’m looking for my car,” he announced.

“Your car?”

“Yeah, I parked my car here,” he pointed to an empty space in front of Town Hall, “earlier today and now it’s gone. It’s a rental.”

“It got towed, then.”

“Towed?”

“We don’t allow cars in town during the festival. It ruins the illusion.”

Kate almost laughed as she said it, but quelled the urge to do so by crossing her shivering arms over her chest. Everyone with half a brain knew no cars could come into town during the festival. It was on every brochure and article ever written about their little Christmas town; plus, the Martins made a tidy penny renting out their field as a parking lot during the winter. Yet another source of income they’d lose if this guy managed to go through with his plan.

“You should be thanking me, then. I’m modernizing the place already.” His tone managed to be smug even as she wondered if the slight shrink of his shoulders meant he may not entirely believe that. “Who do I call about getting it back?”

What arrogance! She’d come out here to give him a piece of her mind and he had the audacity to ask her about his car?

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere until you give us some answers.”

“With all due respect, I don’t owe you answers.”

“Oh, really?”

“For my years of service focusing on profitable divisions of his business, my uncle left me the company and I’m doing my best to protect his legacy.”

“His legacy? Look around you! This is his legacy!”

She said is when she supposed she should have said was. Though, in Kate’s estimation, a man’s legacy didn’t die with him; it was a living, growing thing that outlasted him and stretched as long as other people cultivated it. Mr. Woodward would only really die if they let this festival die with him. It was yet another reason Kate continued to fight even when this arrogant jerk couldn’t stop staring down the bridge of his nose at her like she was no more than a receipt stuck to the bottom of his shoes.

“This festival isn’t profitable.”

“Maybe not in money, but—”

“What other kind of profit is there?”

Kate opened her mouth and closed it twice, not because she didn’t know the answer to his question, but because she knew it wouldn’t move him. He was a numbers and cents guy. Telling him what the festival lost in funds it more than made up for in revival of the human spirit probably wasn’t going to do anything other than make her out to be some silly, sentimental woman.

Which she was. But she just didn’t want him thinking it.

“No?” he asked. If she were the fighting type, she might have punched that smug, condescending smirk of victory off of his face, but she refrained. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now, tell me who I call about the car.”

“I could.” Rather than violence, Kate decided to deal in bitingly sweet sarcasm. “But I have to do what’s best for my town, just like you have to do what’s best for your company. And I don’t think it’s good for us to have a lunatic like you out on the road.”

“If I hear you out, will you give me the number?”

She’d meant her quip about him driving around town as a joke, but he responded as though they were finally speaking the same language: the language of transaction. In some ways, Kate had to admire him for that. He was as single-minded in his determination as she was; they shared a sincere faith in the rightness of their cause. Sure, he couldn’t have been more wrong, but at least he believed in something, even if it was just the power and importance of money. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I’ll consider it.”

“Then I’m listening, Miss…?”

“Kate.”

“Kate.”

It must have been a strong, random winter wind sending chills through her body; it couldn’t have been the almost tender way he said her name. She coughed and tightened her arms across her chest, hoping the pressure would stop the sensation.

“What should I call you? Scrooge McDuck, or…?”

To her surprise, he laughed. It wasn’t an evil movie villain laugh or anything, just a nice chuckle with a warm ring to it. She dismissed how much she liked it as a fluke. Even cold, unfeeling statues sometimes look almost human in the right lighting.

“You can call me Clark.”

Kate didn’t repeat his name as he did hers. It somehow felt wrong to call him by his first name; she felt more comfortable calling her former high school teachers by their first names than she did calling him Clark. It was such a wholesome, all-American kind of name. Clark Kent. Clark Gable. Clark Woodward wasn’t the correct third for that trio.

“Listen.” All of Kate’s strength went into fueling her empathy for this man. Focusing on her friends and family would just leave her angry and bitter; focusing on him would give her a much better shot. Most men liked an appeal to vanity. Maybe it would work on him. “I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. But your Uncle Christopher was a good man. He believed in this town. I mean, your family basically built this place. The library is named after you. The school auditorium. The football field. The gazebo in the park, for goodness’ sake. It’s all yours. You can do whatever you want with it—”

“Great. You understand where I’m coming from.”

“No. I mean, yes, but you don’t understand where I’m coming from.” He raised an eyebrow, which she took as a sign to continue. “You have a town full of people who stare at your name every day with hope. And gratitude. Are you going to betray all of these people? Take away their livelihoods?”

“I don’t know any of these people. I don’t care about any of these people.”

Those two statements landed on Kate’s jaw like a string of one-two punches. What kind of man just…didn’t care?

“If they want jobs, they can herd cattle like the rest of my employees, but I can’t waste money on this Christmas foolishness for another day.”

“But your uncle—”

“I am not my uncle!”

It was a roar, a statement to the heavens; the force of it almost knocked Kate back a step. Somehow, she managed to hold her ground even as she couldn’t quite understand the nerve she’d struck. Everyone wanted to be Mr. Woodward; he was as kind as he was insanely rich. The perfect combination. What kind of man hated a man like that?

“Clearly.”

The sharp flash of emotion dissolved as quickly as it appeared. Clark straightened his jacket.

“I think I’ve heard enough. You can go ahead and give me that phone number now.”

“One last thing,” Kate said.

“Yes?”

“During your… During your little speech, you didn’t even wish us a Merry Christmas.”

His refusal to do so left her with a nasty taste in her mouth. A small gesture it might have been, but its absence was so blatant she couldn’t let it go.

“That’s because I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Don’t celebrate Christmas?” Kate choked.

“No. Now, give me the number.”

Dumbstruck, Kate’s brain didn’t quite possess the processing power to say anything as she gave him the number. The cogs in her mind were too busy trying to puzzle out his declaration. But once he had the number, he was gone, leaving her with nothing but questions. There was no goodbye. No, “for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Just a curt “thanks,” as he walked away dialing. Kate stood alone on the sidewalk for only the briefest of seconds before a hand touched her shoulder. She didn’t turn around or tear her gaze from the spot where Clark stood just a moment ago; she knew who would be there.

“How’d it go, dear?”

The pity in Miss Carolyn’s question stung. Kate hadn’t even realized tears were forming in her eyes until they left cold tracks down her flushed cheeks. She failed. She tried to save her town, and she failed. With a weak shrug, she decided a little gallows humor was probably for the best.

“Do you know if any places are hiring?”