“Can we go somewhere on neutral ground where we can discuss this? I realize you have a store to open, but the likelihood of customers coming in during this snowfall is slim.”
Against her better judgement—and perhaps for her own sanity to sort this out—she found herself agreeing. “There’s a coffee shop on the other side of the bakery. We can go there.”
“Thank you.” He waited by the door while she ran upstairs for her coat and wallet.
She paused briefly to stare at the view from her office. Would this all come to an end? Would she lose her beloved scenic view and store? This Christmas was turning out nothing like she had expected, and it had only begun. Her stomach twisted into tiny knots that couldn’t be easily undone.
Each step downstairs thudded in her ears. Her heart sped at an erratic rate, wanting answers but not if they meant she had to leave. In a matter of minutes her world had been turned on its axis, and she felt strangely out of balance.
She stopped at the counter and wrote a sign for the door stating that she’d open at nine-thirty. She taped it to the glass and locked up. Taking a step back, her feet landed on a patch of ice she hadn’t seen.
Gabe’s hand flew to her elbow and steadied her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she replied with curtness born from a bruised ego.
“One day when I was in sixth grade, my mom dropped us off at school. I stepped onto the sidewalk and slipped on a patch of ice in front of the entire car rider line. Fell flat on my backside and my books went flying everywhere.”
She wanted to dislike him, but he had a genuineness about him that wouldn’t allow that. Offering a temporary truce, she smiled. “You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”
He groaned. “I wish. That’s not even the worst of it.”
“How so?”
“It was Valentine’s Day, and I’d worked all night making a card for a girl I had a crush on.” He held his hands out wide. “It was massive. I wanted to be sure she’d love it.”
“Did she?”
“She never got the chance to see it. Morgan Seibold, the school bully, saw it fly out of my bag. He snatched it off the ground and read it aloud to everyone before crumpling it and throwing it in the trash.”
“That’s terrible.” She shook her head, recollecting the bullies in her school. They’d been cruel to a select few kids and left her alone, but she’d had one other girl make her high school years terrible.
“It was, but it saved me a different form of embarrassment.” He looked at her and grinned. “My crush had her eyes set on someone else. They became inseparable and ten years later, they married after graduating from college.”
“I’ve heard of high school sweethearts, but not middle school ones.”
“They were lucky to find each other early in life.”
An unbidden pang of jealousy of a couple she’d never met struck her. Everyone had a turn at romance but her. She dated, but she’d never experienced a strong connection with any of those men.I’d rather wait for the right man than marry the wrong one. It was an argument she repeated often, but it didn’t fill her loneliness.
Unwilling to linger on that train of thought, she dropped the conversation and pointed to her side. “There’s the coffee shop.”
Chapter Four
Gabe sat on a wooden chair, cradling a plain white ceramic coffee mug in his left hand. Now that they had their drinks and had found a table, the easy conversation they briefly shared had died.
When Mr. Winston said Uncle Frank considered Cora the daughter he’d never had, Gabe had pictured a lady near his parents’ age, not his. He’d been unprepared for the beautiful woman who’d greeted him at Mistletoe Mercantile.
She was average height and build but had wavy hair that reminded him of wheat fields blowing in the wind. She had a cute nose that twitched when she was nervous, and pink lips free of artificial color. Light brown eyes showed every emotion she felt, and he’d already seen an array of them in the short time he’d known her.
He imagined she didn’t care much for him, simply on the basis he now owned her building, but she was polite enough to hear him out. If he ever started talking.
“Who is your uncle,” she asked, breaking the silence.
“Frank Dawson.”
A bittersweet smile stretched her lips. “I should have known. Now I know why your name sounded familiar.”
“I wish I’d had the chance to know him better.” It would be one of the regrets of his life. “He came to Kansas a few times, and we came here occasionally.”
