and scarves, all while her mind wrote plans and made to-do lists. When she was done, she gave him a firm pat on the back for good luck. She wouldn’t want his job, either, but he was the only person she trusted with the task. No one said no to Michael. Even in a world with Tom Hanks, Michael took the top prize for most effortlessly likable guy on earth.
“You’re the best guy in town. If you can’t do it, no one can. I believe in you.”
“But—!But—!”
His protests faded as she sprinted from the diner and hopped on her bike, which was waiting outside for her. As she pedaled towards the massive mansion on the far side of town, speeding past Dickensian facades and garlands, Kate’s motives solidified. There was only one way to save Miller’s Point. There was only one way to save the festival. There was only one way to save the solitary man in the diner from his own self-imposed darkness and isolation.
She had to make Clark Woodward believe in Christmas.
Chapter Three
It was so provincial. Clark Woodward couldn’t think of any other word to describe Miller’s Point. Provincial in every sense of the word. Nearly everything about them revealed how small they were, and what was worse, they reveled in their smallness. They clung to their superstitious belief in the holidays. They fought the inevitable march of progress he was going to bring to the company and their backwater enclave. The diner didn’t even have avocado on the menu.
As he waited for his pancakes, Clark opened the newspaper. They didn’t get the Dallas Observer out here, so the local gossip would have to do. He scanned the words, each one sinking in less deeply than the one before it. Out of the window framing his booth, he could see the entire town square, including the town hall, where only yesterday he and Kate—he never got her last name—had faced off.
Last night, he hadn’t allowed himself the time or the thought to take in the beauty of the town’s historic district. And it really was beautiful, even if it being beautiful just reminded him how wasteful the entire enterprise was. How much money did they spend on these facade recreations of London’s Cheapside? How much of his family’s fortune got washed away every night with those fake snow machines? And the lights! They might as well have built a fire out of all the greenbacks they wasted.
Wasteful and beautiful. The worst combination.
More dangerous, though, was thinking about the beauty who’d dared to challenge him. She’d burned herself into him yesterday with her persistence and the fiery passion behind her eyes.
He appreciated how strangely alike they were, even as they fought for completely different goals. If he hadn’t been spooked by her insistence that his uncle would have saved the festival, he could have stayed on those steps and talked to her for hours. She was a sharp debater with a biting wit. In a town like this, he’d expected to be greeted as a king. His family, after all, was responsible for their survival. But she didn’t bow and scrape; she challenged him.
She was wrong, of course, and he was right. But the challenge still thrilled him, even if he didn’t dare let it show on his face. He didn’t want anyone thinking they had any kind of power over him.
The most striking thing about her, perhaps, was her ability to embody everything he despised about Miller’s Point. That dichotomy of wasteful and beautiful dwelled within her. She had much to offer; he saw that even in their brief interaction. Yet, she chose to stay in Miller’s Point, where she could do nothing but waste her life putting up tinsel.
Clark knew he should push all thoughts of her directly from his head. A distraction like her would only get in the way of his plans. His mission was simple, but like a fine watch even the slightest bit of sand carried the potential to destroy everything. In three steps, he could be done with this stupid festival. Step One: Dissolve The Christmas Company. Two: Sell off its assets. Three: Return to civilization and Dallas before New Year’s. He could only do that if all distractions were kept to a minimum and all pieces of sand stayed far out of his way.
And he could only accomplish his three-step plan if people actually went to work instead of spending their Tuesdays watching Hallmark movies or whatever it is they did when they “celebrated” Christmas. Clark’s mind boggled at the way this town shut down on this useless holiday. The McDonald’s, where he first attempted breakfast, had locked its doors.
“But—! But—!”
Clark’s head popped up from the blurred words of his newspapers at the loud shouting of a stranger. He whipped his head around just in time to see a flash of a red-scarfed woman dash out of the door and a desperate man sitting at the diner counter. Clark was aware of small-town manners. A good citizen would have invited the freshly liberated man to join him for breakfast, but Clark wasn’t a good citizen, and even if he was, he didn’t think anyone in Miller’s Point would particularly want to share a meal with him.
“Can you believe her?”
It took at least fifteen seconds for Clark to realize the other man was talking to him. He focused on an article about a high school track meet. Apparently, this small town dominated at the recent district meet, held at Christopher Woodward Stadium. He wondered if they’d keep the name now that his uncle was dead, or if they’d turn it into the Christopher Woodward Memorial Stadium to acknowledge his legacy or whatever.
“I wasn’t listening. Sorry.”
Apparently, to the man at the counter, this was all the invitation he needed to join Clark for breakfast.
“This seat taken?”
No, but it isn’t open either. Please leave me and my pancakes in peace. Clark fought to keep the snark at bay. There was nothing he wanted less than company at the moment, especially when the entire town was afflicted with candy cane fever. He didn’t want any of that foolishness rubbing off on him. But it didn’t seem this guy was in the mood to take no for an answer.
“Go ahead.”
“Thanks.”
Balancing his array of half-finished plates across his forearms, he plopped into the seat, rattling the table. It took longer than a polite minute for the man to arrange his extensive breakfast, which only added to the heat flaring up the back of Clark’s neck. His lips flattened into a thin line of displeasure when Mel appeared with a piping hot plate and mug. He placed them on the table, and Clark pulled them close, grateful for the distraction. He couldn’t decide what the stranger across from him wanted, but if he thought he could convince him to change his mind about the festival, he’d be just as disappointed as Kate. Did these people have some sort of committee, dedicated to twisting the simplest of business decisions into a city-wide ordeal?
“One order of pancakes and bacon. And a black coffee. Syrup’s over there. Can I get you anything else?”
Clark started to say no, but was cut off.
“Can I get some more coffee, Mel? Oh, and one of those blueberry muffins.”
“They’re about two days old.”
“Can you pop it in the microwave for about thirty seconds, then?”
His easy intimacy with the diner owner put Clark’s transactional replies to shame. Without the protection of his newspaper, Clark had to actually
