A Christmas Miracle

Jason tried the door. To his surprise, it opened.

She looked up eagerly at the sound of the sleigh bells above her door. Her face sobered as she saw him.

“What’s going on at the courthouse?” he asked.

Her smile was a surprise that made him feel less at loose ends. They shared a puzzling intimacy after yesterday.

“It’s tradition.” She scrambled to her feet as he shut the cold out behind him. “Everyone goes to the courthouse, and we sing carols to welcome the holiday season. Your bank files must show you we do a lot more business around here this time of year.”

“Until spring,” he said, “and then there’s a slight dip until summer vacationers arrive.” He went to get a closer look at the train track. “Need some help?”

She joined him. “I do, but not with this. Why don’t we talk about my loan?”

The figures were burned inside his head, but he didn’t want to make a mistake. “This isn’t a workday. Why aren’t you out there singing?”

“I’m maybe weeks away from losing my shop. I have to work today and sell tomorrow.” She sat and started placing the track again.

“You could sell this train set and make a sizable sum.” His grandfather had a similar one he’d bought at an auction and shared with Jason all the Christmases they’d spent together.

“More tradition.”

He retrieved a box of spare track from the window seat and carried it to her. “You could run this all around the store.”

“I’m torn between the charm of how that would look and the risk of children stepping on it.”

“Take the risk.”

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

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.”

“Perfect,” Fleming said.

Sort of. Maybe if he came to her home, he’d feel the bond she had with Bliss, Tennessee. The mountains outside her doorway were her strength. She depended on the ridges that somehow looked blue on a misty morning. They didn’t leave. They stayed where you needed them. And she loved the store like that, too. She’d do whatever Jason asked of her to keep it. She just needed a chance that was real this time.

* * *

IN HIS CAR, Jason plugged in Fleming’s address and let the nav system take him out of town. He turned right just past the courthouse, and soon the two-lane road began to climb among dark evergreens, past lit-up chairlifts and trees wreathed with strings of colorful balls that glittered in his headlights.

At a spot where he didn’t see a break in the forest, the voice on his navigation system insisted he turn right. Just in time, he saw the narrow road. He turned, and the slim ribbon of pavement shrank even further. The scent of wood smoke filtered into the car. He breathed deep.

The woods closed in around him, but he didn’t feel suffocated. He could imagine Fleming running through this almost-winter landscape, her red hair flashing between the trees, her flight as impetuous as her conversation.

If he hadn’t come to Bliss to make the lives of several of its citizens miserable, he might better be able to enjoy the beauty of this home he’d never known. Already, down in town, city workers had begun to string holiday lights between lampposts on the streets. A huge Christmas tree was being decorated on the circular concrete piazza in front of the courthouse.

Blinking lights in the woods suggested he’d reached Fleming’s place even before his GPS told him to turn. He found her driveway just as the voice in his car gave directions.

Fleming had set up floodlights that shone on the old-fashioned wraparound porch fronting her small farmhouse. She’d looped a strand of Christmas lights along the railing and started on the roof ledge, as well. Smoke curled out of the chimney, gathering above the roofline.

He parked in front of her garage and got out of his car, bringing the ubiquitous tablet with him. His feet crunched on gravel. He breathed deeply the scents of fire and fallen leaves.

Funny how he missed familiar city smells, the occasional stench of garbage on the sidewalk and honking cars.

The door opened and Fleming came out, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold.

“Thanks for coming out here,” she said.

“You’re in the middle of putting up decorations?”

“I stopped when I couldn’t see the roof well enough to find the nails from last year. And I have to wrap packages tonight.”

“Already? They start Christmas early around here.”

He started up the stairs. Her smile as he reached her warmed him, and he couldn’t help wondering how many women had met their men at this door. This little farmhouse had been here a long time.

“Come in.” She reached for his coat as they went inside. “Would you like coffee? A drink? Some cocoa? I have a recipe from my mother. Best hot cocoa ever.”

“I’ve heard that.” He nodded.

“That’s funny. The details of gossip in my town...” Smiling, she stopped in the living room, where she scooped the files she’d carried into his office from beneath a pile of wrapped packages.

“What are you doing there?” he asked.

“They’re for a women-and-children’s shelter in town. We used to ask donors to wrap them, but sometimes the gifts weren’t appropriate, or someone would give a slightly used present. We’re grateful for anything for the shelter, but at this time of year, we like the children to remember how special they are, and a new gift seems to send that message more strongly.”

Jason usually gave his assistant a list for his family, and asked her to do the angel gifts some of the department stores offered. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” he said, following her into the kitchen, a clean gray-blue room that somehow wrapped him in warmth.

A couple of candles scented the air with a faint fragrance of apple, one on the quartz counter and one on the butcher-block island. The flames reflected off the white tiles above the wide sink.

“Have a seat.” She motioned toward the stools around the island as she began gathering ingredients. “Or there at the table, if you prefer.”

He glanced toward the long, rustic table that fronted a wall of windows. It was too dark now to see the trees.

“You don’t need drapes or curtains out here,” he said.

“Not on this side of the house, anyway. I probably don’t on the front, either.” She glanced at him with a rueful grin. “Wednesday night was the first time I’ve felt anxious in here since I was a teenager.”

“I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Not your fault.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not blaming you. I felt foolish for being afraid.”

“No one’s ever attacked you at work?” he asked ruefully.

She turned from the fridge, holding a carton of milk. “I hope it’s not a common thing for you?”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Good.” She poured milk into a saucepan on the stove, but then came to the island and opened her folders. “Help yourself,” she said, too trustingly. “I think I have everything.”

“Let me check these figures, and then we’ll go over the offer I have. If these numbers look different, I’ll change things as we go.”

She hesitated. “I guess, but Mr. Paige sounded that certain, too, and he turned out to be...”

“I’m not Paige.”

She blushed so easily, as if she was as honest and innocent as she sounded.

Jason shook his head, glad when she went back to the stove. He had to halt this attraction now. No more noticing the soft, vulnerable line of her jaw, the richness of her voice. The way she made him feel welcome and wanted, and then was frank enough to admit she might not trust his motives.

She reached for a knob on the stove and a gas flame whooshed beneath the saucepan. The domesticated scene should have put him on his guard. This would normally be the moment he remembered an early meeting or some task he’d forgotten.

He dragged his attention to the tablet, swiping the screen with more firmness than necessary. While Fleming worked, he did, too. His rage at Paige grew, as it did every time he studied one of these files.

“What kind of guy comes to a town like this and robs the people most in need of honest lending?”

“You mean because I’m barely making ends meet?”

“Well.” Jason sat back, folding his arms. “Yes. You were a mark to him.”

“You know that’s not a compliment, right?” She pulled her red silicone spoon out of the saucepan and used a quilted mitt to lift the pan and pour hot chocolate into a tall, wide-mouthed cup.

“It just means I know you can’t afford to be cheated.”

“But you’re asking me to refinance.” She filled the other cup, this one as bright red as Santa’s gift bag.

“With terms that won’t drive you into foreclosure,” Jason said.

“So I’m about to take on greater debt again?”

“Not in the long run.” He took the mug she handed him, warmed by her touch. She didn’t seem to notice him react. “And I hate to suggest this, but you can refinance again when your circumstances improve.”

“If they do. If I keep starting over with a new loan, I’ll never be able to retire.”

Jason laughed, but then hoped she meant it as a joke.

She took the saucepan back to the sink and quickly washed it. “This choice isn’t intuitive.”

She didn’t have much of a choice. Not for the first time, he wished he could make things easier. Not just for her, but mostly for her.

“You’re quiet,” she said.

“I normally make a plan that will allow a business to succeed. By the time the hard decisions start, I’m on to the next job. Maybe this is why I prefer it that way. I don’t like to see your fear or anyone else’s.”

“I understand you have a job you need to do,” she said, “but my mom opened this store when I was a child. We used to make a good living. I’m not sure what’s gone wrong, but I do know that the store saved us from poverty. She scraped together the original money and persuaded suppliers they could trust her. And every year, she made everyone in this town remember how magical the holidays are supposed to be.”

Jason shrugged. He had a vague memory of trying to be asleep for Santa—but that might be from some TV show he’d watched with his nieces and nephews.

“You never waited for Santa?” Fleming asked. “You never tried to make yourself sleep while you listened for sleigh bells on the roof, because someone convinced you he wouldn’t come until you closed your eyes?”

Jason swallowed, uncomfortable with her mind reading. “I guess my family is different than yours. More pragmatic, maybe,” he said. “Bankers, almost every one of us.”

“My mom’s practical. She’s had to be.”

“What about your dad?” Jason grimaced as he expressed an interest he shouldn’t have. “Is he—”

“I don’t know what he is.” She tucked the cocoa and sugar into a cabinet, wiping the counter so hard Jason was surprised she didn’t shave off a layer of stone. “He went out one day for doughnuts, of all things, and never came back.” She shook her head. “Well—he came back in a few years and claimed he wanted to make things right. He just never managed to follow through.”

And this new guy her mom had married? Jason had the good sense not to ask. “I’m sorry, Fleming. None of my business. What’s the opposite of Santa Claus? Because that’s who I am.”

“I believe that man’s name was Scrooge, not Macland. Let’s look at the information you brought me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

LOOKING AT JASON’S facts and figures, Fleming felt as if she’d ended up at the top of the naughty list. “I’d love to talk to Mr. Paige about why he did this.”

“I’ve talked to him. He has a story about how the bank didn’t set him up with a fair retirement, and he was just providing for his own. Forget about him. You have to concentrate on what you want. Does this store mean as much to you as it did to your mother?”

“Are you suggesting I give it up?” Fleming eyed the numbers on his tablet screen with horror and reached blindly for her hot chocolate. “My mom and I both love that store. I have to find a way to keep it.”

He straightened. “For your mother?”

“For me.” She had a secret she never shared, not even with her mother. Writing. She’d thought she’d have that and the store, and one would feed the other. She’d been making up stories about their customers since she first stood on a step stool behind the counter.

So far her writing hadn’t gone the way she’d dreamed of, but none of her plans included walking away from the store that had been her after-school care, her shelter from the storms of childhood and her summer job each year of college.

It had been her and her mother’s place. Like their home. She couldn’t walk away.

“Fleming?”

“It matters to me, too, but I didn’t actually understand how much business has fallen off this year. How can a shop that caters to Christmas fail in November in a resort town that explodes in population this time of year?”

“Give me a try,” he said. “I’ll help.

She felt sick. “That’s exactly what Mr. Paige said.”

“But Paige was lying. I don’t lie.” Jason dusted his hands on his jeans. “It’s business,” he said. “The fewer loans we lose, the better off we are.”

“I think you’re telling me you’re giving me more time at a slightly lower interest rate, but I’ll still be paying almost the same amount over the life of the loan.”

He nodded. “I want to help you, but I can’t actually take a loss on the arrangement.”

With shaking fingers, Fleming leafed through the pages of notes and compared the figures he’d jotted down to her income and outgoing debt payments. She got up and grabbed her phone off the island to open the calculator and rerun the equations.

Her cheeks flushed, but she ducked her head and tried to let her hair flow over her face. She could almost feel his longing to get out of here, making the whole situation even more humiliating.

“It’s a building,” he said. “Not a person. Not a member of your family.”

“You say that because you haven’t found the place you want to stay. You aren’t tied to a building or people.” Though Fleming didn’t buy that all bankers were that detached.

“I’m asking you to think about this decision, the same way I’ll ask everyone else I have to see. If you take on new terms, you’ll be putting a lot of money and even more time into a place. You can get another job.”

She shook her head stubbornly, trying to see herself anywhere but in Bliss, doing anything else. Except the writing that was her secret joy, the dream she superstitiously feared shattering if she shared it. “This is who I am.”

He sipped his cocoa once, then again, but was so intent on her finances he didn’t seem to notice how much he clearly liked the drink she’d made him. “Have you considered carrying different lines from less expensive suppliers? Your profit margin seems to shrink every year.”

Her hackles rose. “I can’t sell tawdry items. That wouldn’t go over in this town. You don’t know Bliss.”

“You have that right.”

“And even if I were positive you’re in this with our best interests, rather than the bank’s, I can’t afford your consulting fee.” Fleming ran out of breath. “Sorry. Again. I’m sounding rude, but I’m really trying to be careful. This time.”

“I keep trying to make you see the bank won’t survive if its customers fail.” Standing, Jason took his jacket off the back of his chair. “You don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you, but talk to someone you do trust, and let me know what you decide.”

Maybe she could breathe deeply again without him in her house. He picked up his cup and headed toward the sink, but she took it from him. Washing her dishes was absolutely beyond the scope of his job description.

* * *

“YOU’VE BEEN HERE three weeks, Jason. You know people actually choose Bliss as a place to have fun?”

Jason looked over his coffee cup at Lyle. “When there’s snow on the slopes, I assume?”

“They’re making snow right now. You could take a car up the mountain and ski back down.” Lyle waited until Jason put his cup down, and refilled it.

“Thanks. I don’t think so.”

“Afraid one of the hundreds of people who’ve paraded through your office at the bank will follow you up there and shove you off? I heard what happened the day before Thanksgiving.”

“That was different. Paige lost his retirement fund.”

“He took funds from a lot of people. You can’t make it right for everyone.”

Jason pushed his chair back. “People tell you things, Lyle.”