A Christmas Miracle Read online

  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 w
ere 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 ho
urs 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.