Читать книгу A Christmas Miracle - Anna Adams - Страница 11

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.”