If fall colors were a person, it’d be me. Odd, given my name was Winter.
I was going to wear a bowtie but thought that might be overkill. I was nervous but oh so excited as I walked up the road and turned onto Main Street, my breath steamy plumes, and I stopped.
With snow on the ground and beams of sunlight cutting through the clean, crisp air as it came over the mountains, and all the cute storefronts and heritage awnings, it stopped me in my tracks.
It was so beautiful.
And I took it as a sign. There was no way today could be anything but amazing.
Jayden wasn’t at the diner when I walked in, butCrystal served me. “Morning,” she said brightly. “Big day for you, huh?”
“Yes. I’m really excited,” I said. “But mostly relieved that the wait is over.”
“I bet. Everyone in town is excited. It’s all they’ve been talking about.”
That made me so freaking happy to hear. “Oh, thank you. I sure hope so anyway.”
“What can I get for you?” she asked. “Your usual coffee order? Is your aunt Ro with you, or just the one?”
“Just the one for now. She’ll be down later.” Then I made the mistake of looking in the cabinet. “And I’d better have one of those bear claws.”
She nodded sagely. “Wise choice. You’ll need the sugar today.”
“And a treadmill if I keep this up,” I added, because oh lord, there were so many good things in this town.
She slid my order onto the counter and rang me up. “Don’t forget they’re lighting the Christmas tree tonight,” she said. “And it’s December first. Main Street gets all prettied up today.”
“I just stopped out there before because of how pretty it was, with the snow and the sunbeams over the mountains. Like, how is this place even real?”
She laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Just you wait, when you close the store this evening, do yourself a favor and take a look at Main Street. You’ll see what I mean. Christmas is coming to town. Santa will be here before we know it.”
And I was so looking forward to it.
Christmas had always been a weird time for me. I would normally go see my mother for lunch, give her a gift, sometimes get one in return, and exchange pleasantries neither of us truly meant, before I’d then go spend the afternoonand dinner with Ro. She’d usually make some joke about how she should smudge me with burning sage, then we’d laugh and have a wonderful dinner together.
Just us.
And we’d done that for years. The first time had been when I was twelve and my mother had taken herself on a cruise over the holidays, leaving me with Ro. Ro had made sure it was the best Christmas ever—and it was—and every year thereafter, we’d made it our tradition.
But this year it was different.
We weren’t in Boise anymore. We had no obligation to deal with the wicked witch of the west—as Ro had every right to call her sister—and we could enjoy the whole day together, just the two of us. The way it should be. Ro was the only motherly figure in my life, and I adored her with every fiber of my being.
I made a mental note on my way back to the store to begin a list of food that I could order to make for Ro’s Christmas lunch.
She deserved something special this year.
Well, every year, but extra special this year. And a gift...I need to think of a gift.
A thought I put out of my mind as I readied the till, re-perfected the table display, made sure the mood music was at the perfect volume, and that the storeroom was tidy and the stock of all the super popular fiction books I’d been posting about on the store’s website were easy to grab.
And the two copies I had ofNever Let Me Gowere still there. Was it likely I’d sell both copies today? No. Was it possible? Maybe.
At least, I reasoned, it’d be amazing if I did.
With that in mind, I took one copy and popped it behind the counter, wrote his name on a holding card, and slipped it inside at the top.
Ro arrived just after eight-thirty, coming in through the back door with the basket of two very bright-eyed little white-and-ginger monsters trying to escape from their blankets, and not ten seconds later, Evie knocked on the back door. “I saw you come in,” she said. “I’m so excited to babysit today.”
