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.”
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
