Page 13

“Of course not. What would be the fun in that?” He picked up a fry from his plate, dipping it in the balsamic ketchup that had come with the meal before grinning at her. “Are you going to guess what I’ve gotten you?”

“Hmm.” Mabel considered for a moment. “Well, you expect me to think that you’re getting me something practical, since you’re such a gruff, practical man.” She smiled teasingly at him. “So I think you’ll get me something frivolous. Jewelry, probably. Something I don’t need that caught your eye.”

George chuckled. “Well, we’ll just have to see when Christmas Day rolls around, won’t we? Whatever it is, you’ll know I picked it out to show you how much I love you.”

Mabel smiled to herself at the mischievous look on his face. He’d opened up so much over the two years they’d been together, and she loved that she got to see parts of him that no one else did. Looking at him across the small table, his silver hair slightly mussed by the evening breeze and his eyes reflecting the candlelight, Mabel felt the same sense of wonder that she always did when she thought about their relationship for very long. Two years ago, if someone had told her that she’d be having romantic dinners with George Lowery, she would have laughed until she cried. Their prank war had been such a fundamental part of Fir Tree Grove’s social fabric that imagining them as anything other than friendly adversaries had seemed impossible.

But here they were, planning Christmas gifts and sharing how much they meant to each other, sitting in the place that meant the most to both of them together.

“I love you too,” she said softly, reaching across the table to take his hand. His fingers were warm despite the cold air, callused from decades of physical work. “And I can’t believe I’m saying that to the man who once filled my shop with plastic flamingos wearing Santa hats.”

George laughed, a real, full-bellied laugh. “Hey, those flamingos were a work of art. It took me three weeks to find enough of them, and another week to figure out how to get them all into your shop without you noticing. That was a masterpiece of planning.”

“It was ridiculous,” Mabel said tartly, but she smiled at the memory. “I walked into work that morning and thought I’d been transported to some kind of tropical Christmas fever dream.”

“That was nothing compared to how you retaliated” George shot back. “I still don’t know how you managed to get that mariachi band to show up during my busiest Saturday afternoon. The look on my customers’ faces when “Feliz Navidad” started playing at full volume while they were trying to select Christmas trees…”

Mabel laughed out loud, shaking her head. Looking back now, she thought, she could see how much creative energy and attention they’d been investing in each other, even when they’d told themselves and everyone else that it was just a friendly rivalry.

“I think all those pranks over the years helped me to understand you better,” George said quietly, when they’d come down from their laughter. “Now I just use those skills to figure out how to make you happy instead of how to surprise you with plastic reindeer.”

Mabel snorted. “Those reindeer were particularly obnoxious. Forty-seven of them, if I remember correctly, all positioned to look like they were grazing in my front window display.”

“That sounds about right.” George chuckled. “That was a good one.”

“That reminds me,” Mabel said after a moment, reaching for her wine again, “have you finalized your plans for the holiday market this weekend? I know you mentioned wanting to have an assortment of wreaths ready for the booth, along with some smaller tabletop trees.”

George smiled. He hadn’t had a booth at the market in the past, but Mabel had talked him into it, convincing him that it would be good for the business. The market had a special significance to her too—she thought of it now as the first place that she and George had had an actual date, even though they hadn’t thought it was one at the time. And she was sure that a Merry Pines booth would be a hit.

“I’ve got about two dozen wreaths,” he said. “Different sizes, some with traditional decorations and some left plain for people who want to customize them at home. I also thought about custom arrangements—people can choose their own greenery and decorations and I’ll assemble them while they wait.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Mabel said, genuinely impressed. “Would you like some help with the setup or the actual market days? Vanessa could run the toy store’s booth so that I can help with customers or keep track of inventory.”

The offer seemed to surprise him. “You’d want to do that? Work together instead of running competing booths?”

“Of course,” Mabel replied, realizing that she hadn’t even considered any other option. “We’re together now. That means we support each other instead of competing with strategically placed lawn ornaments.”

George smiled, chuckling softly. “I like the sound of that. Partners instead of prank-war adversaries. Honestly, I prefer it.”

“I do too,” Mabel said honestly. “It was fun while it lasted, but I like this better.”

She loved it, she thought—how they could partner and collaborate on things now without overthinking what it might mean, or always needing there to be a silly edge to it, a barrier so that they didn’t admit to themselves or each other what they felt. It all seemed so obvious now, that that was what they’d been doing, even though she hadn’t seen it at the time.

And she’d wondered, sometimes, if their good-natured-but-heated prank rivalry in the past might have made them incompatible with each other. If they’d ever be able to just relax together instead of each continuously trying to one-up the other.

She had never really thought she’d end up in a relationship with George, even if the whole town had a betting pool on it back then. But sitting there in the glow of the candles and the Christmas lights, chatting about gifts and wreaths and making plans and sharing memories, she’d never felt closer to him… or more sure that they were the perfect match for each other than she did right then.

CHAPTER NINE

Early Wednesday morning, Nicole sat curled in an overstuffed armchair in her room at the bed and breakfast, feeling more relaxed than she could recall feeling in recent memory.

She hadn’t quite mastered sleeping in yet—she was still up by seven every morning—but now she could spend her mornings as she pleased, and that was wonderful in and of itself. She’d brought a knitting project with her, an elaborate infinity scarf that she was working on as a Christmas present for Amy, and the soft click of the knitting needles soothed her and kept her mind from spiraling off in thoughts about her job situation or whether or not she was going to stay in Fir Tree Grove.

The scarf, at least, was a tangible thing that she could see progress on and feel satisfied with, and that helped too.

A mug of hot coffee was sitting next to her, filling the air with fragrant peppermint and chocolate steam, and a cinnamon streusel muffin was on a plate next to it. She’d been picking at the food; the knitting might have kept her mind busy, but she still had a knot of anxiety in her stomach that wouldn’t completely go away, no matter how relaxed she was.

Vanessa had been absolutely correct about job hunting in Fir Tree Grove. Over the past two days, Nicole had spent hours researching local businesses online while using the B&B’s Wi-Fi, looking for company websites that might list employment opportunities. What she’d discovered was exactly what Vanessa had implied—most of the shops and restaurants on Main Street had websites that were either severely outdated or nonexistent, and those that did exist didn’t have hiring pages.