A Christmas Miracle

She laughed. “Is that the way you feel about loans, as well?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“So you come across as all concerned for us, but you’ll close us down if you have to?”

He nodded, passing her a straight piece that she laid, directing the track toward a shelf of vintage holiday cards. “I don’t always enjoy what I have to do, but I hope you and everyone else here will realize none of my decisions are personal.”

“They should be personal. You should be going out of your way to meet these people. We’re not in some big city like New York. In a town this small, you have to study each face and family. You should try to understand what’s at risk before you start destroying people’s lives.”

“I’m not destroying anyone. I’ve told everyone I’ve seen exactly what I’ve told you, but I can’t fix what’s wrong if I don’t do what’s right for the bank’s investors.”

“In a town of this size, with a bank this small, we’re all investors,” she said, her temper slipping a little, and he had to wonder if the cliché about fiery redheaded women might be true.

“I’m working for my family right now, and they’ve owned the bank for over a hundred years.”

Fleming eyed him as if he didn’t quite understand reality. “Not unusual in Bliss. Almost every family out on the square has roots that deep.”

“Where’s your family?” He had no right to ask, but he wanted to know. She’d told Lyle her mother would be back for Christmas.

“My mother recently married.” Fleming’s voice softened and warmed in a way that didn’t happen in his family. “She’d been dating this guy for a few years, but after I finished college, they married.” She looked even more wistful. “I always suspected she stayed here so long because of me, so that I’d have my home to come back to. After she moved to Knoxville to be with Hugh—that’s his name—I took over the store.”

“And refinanced?” Jason asked.

She nodded. “I had to pay my mom, although now I’m wishing I’d been a little less noble about that.” Her grin, as she reached for another piece of track, made him feel as if he knew her.

“I can see that.” Fleming must be paying her mother out of what she made each month, as well as paying the bank’s note. She was stretched thin, and from what he could tell, the economy in this remote resort had dipped in recent years.

“Why aren’t you with family today?” she asked.

He hesitated. Sharing his history spelled involvement, and he wasn’t used to getting involved. But he’d asked her a personal question, and he liked that she’d answered. “We don’t really do that. I have younger siblings.” His father made a habit of marriage. “But they’re all in college, or they have families of their own. No one went home this year.”

“And you’re home here, working?”

“I lived here once,” he said.

“I know.” She blushed as she pointed to a curving piece of track and started a path around the end of the shelf, getting to her knees. “Lyle told me. He remembers your parents.”

“I don’t remember being here. They moved when I was really young.”

“Maybe Bliss wasn’t big enough for them.”

For his dad? No. Bliss was no place to run an empire. “He profited by some boom years, and New York suits him better.”

“And you?”

Jason hesitated again, but she flipped her long, rich red braid over her shoulder, and she looked sweet and open. Not as if she were searching for a way to read him and use him. That had happened more than once. If he were the marrying kind, he’d be more like his father than he’d like to admit. At least he didn’t pretend he was the committing kind.

“I have itchy feet,” he said, more honest than he meant to be. “New places challenge me. New jobs.”

“I didn’t know that many banks could be rescued—or needed rescuing.”

“It’s not just banks,” he said. “I clean up all kinds of ailing companies.”

She was on the other side of the shelf, but she leaned back to look at him. “Then why the bank? Sounds as if we’re small potatoes.”

“Not to my grandfather. This was his pride and joy, and he gave it the foundation that allowed my father to move on. I owe him.” For that, and for so much more. More than Jason was willing to admit. He set the box of tracks on the floor where she could reach it. “Speaking of which, I should go. I have some work to look at. What do you say we meet to talk about your business?”

“Sure.” She pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “When?”

“And where. I thought you might prefer to meet at the hotel, or a coffee shop, somewhere other than my office.”

She got to her feet, clutching the metal track. “I’m not trying to duck you, but I have to work tomorrow. It’s a huge day for the shop.”

He hated the way people looked at him, as if he were trying to destroy them for a buck. “How about Saturday evening? After you close up? I can come by here.”

“Sounds good.” She shrugged, but then threw back her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Just be careful when you go back to your office. Paige might not be the only one who’s upset with the bank, and you can’t count on Mr. Oakes and his colleague showing up in the nick of time.”

CHAPTER THREE (#ud9f8e295-b3cb-5612-b5a3-34d995d4522e)

IF ONLY SHE’D kept her mouth shut. Jason was already reaching for the door when she’d told him to be cautious—as if she knew him at all. As if she had any right, or there were any reason.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Fleming,” he said. “I can see it’s bothering you—the loan, the attack...”

“It’s this situation. I never understood how hard my mom worked while I flitted around town, dropping off flyers about sales or ornament-making workshops.” She was still talking too much, and she needed to put some flyers together.

“We can work this out. A new loan will help you. I’m not sure why I can’t convince anyone of that.”

“We’ve been burned.” Fleming stacked the track in her hand on top of the pile in the box. Time to stop dressing up the store and get down to business. “It’s hard to trust another guy in the same job. I don’t mean to be rude, but what you really want is for the problem to go away. We’re problems to you.”

“What I want is to get back to my own life and the work I’ve put off to help my grandfather.” He didn’t stop at the door this time, except to say “I’ll see you after you close the shop on Saturday.”

The door shut behind him with an ironic jingling of bells.

“Kind of sensitive for a guy whose major function is to shatter dreams.” She tried to be ironic, too, but that was a little tricky with a knot of tears in her throat.

* * *

ON FRIDAY, the customers flowed like a lovely mountain stream. Saturday, she sold almost as much. And she tucked a flyer for ornament-making classes into each shopping bag.

Unfortunately, she’d forgotten she had to wrap packages after work, for a holiday gift drive. She called Jason’s office, deeply aware that meeting after hours was a favor he was doing for her and not a professional requirement. She explained her commitment to Hilda.

“The gifts have to be wrapped in stages,” she said. “Or we don’t finish them all.”

“I know. I have a pile myself that are due at the Women and Children’s Shelter on Wednesday.” Hilda’s voice lowered, as if she was looking away. “Let me check his schedule. I know he wants to see you as soon as possible.”

“Well, I’m hardly fragile. I could meet him at his office on Monday morning.” Fleming grabbed a couple rolls of wrapping paper and dropped bows into a shopping bag. “Or he can come to my house. You can give him my address.”

“I’ll do that, but I’ll tell him to call or text before he shows up.”