He stepped behind the sales counter and picked up a box of apple butters. “Here’s the box we came for. Let’s head back to the house.”
Penny and Eva quickly agreed and he ushered them out the door. After turning off the lights, he locked the door behind him and gestured across the parking lot toward the farmhouse. “Shall we?”
As the trio crunched their way across the gravel, a voice called out, “Hey, Danny!”
Daniel peered in the direction of the big red barn. “Gabe, that you?”
“Someone I want you to meet!”
The trio approached the barn door and peered in. At the far end of the barn, Gabe was standing with a fellow who Penny knew quite well, along with a third visitor who Penny had heard a lot about but had not yet had the pleasure to meet.
“Omigosh,” Eva whispered, then turned to Daniel. “Can we?”
“Of course,” Daniel said. “After you.”
Eva raced ahead, phone out, already filming.
“Danny,” Gabe said as they approached. “I’d like to introduce you to my friend and neighbor, Jeremiah.”
The man standing next to Gabe, a stocky fellow in his late forties with a brown beard and a round face built for smiling, stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Daniel shook Jeremiah’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, too.”
“Jeremiah,” Gabe said, “you know Penny and Eva, right?”
“Oh, of course,” Jeremiah said with a chuckle. “Good to see you both.”
Penny turned to Daniel to explain. “Jeremiah’s wife Nancy works at the bookstore.”
“Ah,” Daniel said.
“Eva,” Jeremiah said, “how’s nursing school?”
“It’s really good, Mr. Johnson,” Eva said as she moved around them, phone in front of her, focused on filming. “It’s hard, but I’m learning tons.”
“What are you doing there with your phone?”
“Mr. Bedford’s publisher hired me to get video of everything Mr. Bedford does during his visit to Heartsprings Valley.”
“Is that so?” Jeremiah said, his eyebrows rising.
“His publisher wants the world to know how much he loves Christmas.”
“Why do they want that?”
“You heard about what he wrote, right?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “What did he write?”
Eva glanced at Daniel. “Oh, gosh. It was, like, an essay? And basically he said that Christmas is … overrated.”
Penny suppressed a smile. Daniel had said a lot more than that in his Christmas essay, but it was interesting to hear Eva’s take.
Gabe jumped in. “Danny’s essay is what I’d call a … critique of the holiday’s commercialization.”
Jeremiah shifted his attention to Daniel. “So you got a few problems with Christmas.”
Daniel shrugged. “A few, yes.”
