holiday baking mixes, up the ornate staircase and in all the second-floor rooms, including the alcove devoted to Christmas dolls. “You can’t go now. And you guys can’t leave early.”
Byron just looked at her.
“I’m serious.” She narrowed her eyes and put the ice in her voice that made the two-hundred-dollar-a-billing- hour attorneys quake in their Prada loafers. “You and Bronte don’t get off until six o’clock.”
“But boss lady, it’s Christmas time.”
“Good, Byron,” she praised, nodding. It wasn’t clear to her if his brain was merely water-logged or if he was just plain dumb. “And we’re a Christmas store, so that means we’re busy and I need you to do your job.”
Byron gave her his puppy-dog eyes. They’d worked on her during his first couple of shifts, but now she knew better. He didn’t have a big paper due the next day or an important exam first thing in the morning. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t even
So she wasn’t giving in again. She wasn’t giving in to one more thing! Not to impulse, not to hormones, not to puppy-dog eyes, emergency requests, or guilt-tinged obligations. She was here, saving the family farm, and wasn’t that enough?
The rattle of jingle bells drew her eyes to the door. An older man entered, just as “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” piped through the store’s speakers.
Instead of red felt and white fur, the man coming through the door wore a blue-and-gold cap that read “U.S. Navy Retired.” And she doubted he was bringing her anything she wanted for Christmas. Yesterday this very gentleman had phoned to set up this afternoon’s meeting, letting her know it was “imperative.”
“Hey,” Trin said, sotto voce. “Is it my imagination or what, but does that guy look like General Waverly from
Bailey looked over at her friend. “What are you talking about?”
“You know, the classic
“Vermont.”
“I think it’s Maine.”
“Trust me,” Bailey said. “It’s Vermont.”
Trin scowled. “I thought you hate the holiday and everything that goes along with it.”
Turning away from her friend, Bailey forced a welcoming smile, though instinct was telling her she should be anything but. “Captain Reed,” she said with a little wave. “Or should I be calling you President?”
He strode toward her, chuckling. “Bailey, I’m the president of the chamber of commerce, not the United States, as you very well know.”
“Your orders sounded mighty presidential over the phone yesterday.” But when she’d asked him why they had to meet, he’d held out his reasons for the face-to-face.
“I like to do these things in person when I can,” he said, still smiling.
Next chance she got, she was going to smear suntan oil on the surface of Byron’s old-school longboard. It was a surfer’s prank guaranteed to give him a cold dunking when he tried to stand on his first wave of the day. She hadn’t grown up half Gidget for nothing.
The captain drew out a folded piece of paper from the breast pocket of his sport coat. “Don’t worry, I won’t take up much of your time.”
Bailey eyed the paper. “What do you have there?”
“First off, I just want to extend the chamber’s appreciation for stepping forward, Bailey. We understand you have your own job, but this is important too. To your family and the community at large.”
She didn’t bother wondering how he knew so much about the circumstances. Coronado comprised a mere seventy-five hundred households-and due to the military presence, that meant significantly fewer were full-time civilians. Those civilians were the kind of people who reveled in the small-town atmosphere that included plenty of small-town gossip.
“We knew we could count on you, Bailey. We’re all glad you didn’t turn your back on The Perfect Christmas. It’s a landmark.”
“An institution.” She should have turned her back on it. That would have been the easier path. But the weight of tradition and her innate firstborn perfectionism had rendered her genetically incapable of allowing the decades- old family business to fail on her watch. She’d had to at least
“I’m doing my best until the twenty-fifth,” she said, making clear she had her limits, though. “After that…”
The captain beamed through her warning. Bailey supposed she was glad someone still felt like smiling. She could barely breathe for the weight of the albatross.
Which only got heavier as he held out the paper in his hand.
“What’s this?” she asked, afraid to take it.
He still wore his charming smile as he forced the sheet into her hands. “The chamber events scheduled for the store.”
“Events? What events are those?” she asked, but slowly opened the paper. It outlined the next days until Christmas.
Santa Storytelling Hours.
Christmas Movie Nights. Which apparently included dessert.
Tea for the walking tours on Saturday mornings.
Her head shot up. “We can’t possibly do this. I don’t have the time or the extra employees necessary.”
She’d pressed Byron and his twin, Bronte, to find her additional help, but they were more interested in the state of the surf than the state of the store’s staff. “I’m sorry, but The Perfect Christmas will have to back out of these events this year.”
He was already shaking his head. “I know it might be difficult, but the flyers have been posted all over town for weeks. Concierges in the big hotels have organized groups of interested guests to attend together. We can’t disappoint the tourists. It’s our livelihood.”
Behind her, Trin was whispering in appalled tones. “Bailey, he’s a veteran! You can’t let the general down. Who’ll bring snow to Maine?”
She tried picturing Byron in the dry-cleaner-wrapped St. Nick costume hanging in the back office.
Bailey groaned. On her watch it was going to be the Big Kahuna playing the Big Claus. Terrific.
But despite that, with Trin whispering behind her and the chamber’s representative wearing an expectant smile in front of her, she discovered she couldn’t say no to the gen-
She still didn’t have the answer to that question at 11:58 p.m. that night. Back from the store but unable to sleep, she was wide awake when the phone rang in her old room. Channeling her inner teenager, she automatically picked up the receiver on the little table beside her bed.
Her spine jerked straight against her skinny pillow when she heard the voice on the other end.
And she couldn’t say no to that person either.
