Pastor Morrow called Ginny over, making the other two women laugh.
“And so they meet again. Round . . . what round is it now, Bea,” Millie asked sweetly.
“It’s got to be around nine, no, ten. Round 10.”
“Speak loudly so we can hear,” Millie said.
Ginny glared at her friend as she smoothed a hand over her dress. “Your mother would be proud of you.”
Ginny tried not to fidget with her hair, or with the buttons on her shirtwaist. She’d been working with the children all afternoon, and she’d enjoyed every second. They were rambunctious, and definitely a handful. She understood a bit of what Beatrice must go through every day with two little ones. She must be tired every day. But part of that came with the reward of watching the children grow and knowing that they are yours. Ginny could understand a bit of what her father was saying when he said he didn’t want her to be alone. At the end of each day when the merchandise had been sorted and stored, and the daily sales tallied, she was alone. She did not have a husband to cook dinner for, nor children to tend; somehow, cooking for father wasn’t the same. She didn’t know what it was like to hold a drowsy child in her arms and sing him or her to sleep. She imagined it must be wonderful.
The men greeted her politely.
“I see you have company this afternoon,” Rick directed at her with an impish grin. She saw where he was looking, and a laugh escaped her. The scoundrel. The three wise men held court over the festivities on the pastor’s pulpit.
“Oh yes, Mr. Baldwin. I’d like to thank you again for letting Ginny bring it over today. I confess, I’m the keeper of the wise men, but I’ve never participated in the drawing. It was nice of you to think of me.”
Ginny bit back her smile as she saw Phin struggle with words. How was that, for a newspaperman, she thought with delight. On the one hand, he could ruin Ginny’s plan by exposing her to a man whose counsel she most definitely would heed, and on the other, he would be exposing himself as not having been the person worthy of a holy man’s praise.
He caught her watching him, and she read the annoyance in his frown. Rick was watching, too, and he shared in her fun.
“Phin’s just a decent sort of man,” Rick said solemnly.
“Well, again, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to join in the fun as one more of the crowd this year.”
“Have you made your wishes, Pastor Morrow?”
The older man smiled. “I sure have.”
“I wasn’t aware a preacher would have any wishes,” Phin managed.
Pastor Morrow chuckled, rubbed his beard. “Oh sure. I’m a regular person same as you all. If anything, my wishes are vast because I pray for all of you.”
“Make sure you keep a wish open for yourself, Pastor. Indulge,” Ginny said. She hadn’t realized that the one person who was always excluded from a drawing was the organizer himself. He was too kind to take the chance away from somebody else. Despite the madness of the scheme, it had been a good thing to do. Already, so many had been given a chance to participate, and she could feel the excitement in them each time she took the wise men to somebody new.
“Ginny,” the pastor said, “I would appreciate your help in the matter of the program. I know you’re on the planning committee, and if you have time, I’d love it if you could help Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Jensen out with the schedule. Do you have time now to go over it with them?”
She couldn’t say no, could she? Not when she was specifically being asked by a man whom she respected and admired? Pastor Morrow had been a great help and friend around the time of her brother’s death. “It would be my pleasure.” At least Rick would be present. She had always gotten on well with him, and felt as comfortable with him as she did with Millie and her family.
The pastor departed, and she was left with the men. Then Rick surprised her by excusing himself to go speak to the man in charge of music.
She bit her lip as she watched him walk away. She kept her back to Phin as long as she could. This would be the first time she’d seen him since they had spoken in her father’s store. He cleared his throat, and she slowly turned. She took a deep breath. “Very well. Where should I start?”
He didn’t waste any time. “Has anyone ever told you you are a pain?”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s not very gentlemanly of you.”
“I find it hard to be polite to troublesome children.”
“Although I had heard of your reputation as the most gallant of men, I must admit to being disappointed. My father’s horse has better manners.”
“As does mine. Better manners than you, that is.”
“Mr. Baldwin, we can continue this line of conversation, or we can get down to the business at hand. The sooner, the better, I think.”
His eyes narrowed at the boredom in her voice. “You have more important things to do, I take it?”
“Oh, always.”
“Yes, I can see it can be time-consuming to spend your time plotting against me. Between that, and working the shop, it is no wonder you do not have marriage prospects.”
Her mouth widened at the unexpected blow. “Now, wait a minute. That was uncalled for.”
“I suppose I would apologize if it were anybody else. As it is you . . .” His words trailed off.
They stood almost nose to nose, their dislike of one another hiding from them the fact that their interaction was being closely observed by the adults in the room, as well as a confused preacher.
She could have told him he could have avoided all of this if he’d returned the gift as she’d asked. She could have reminded him that the tradition meant more to others than it did to him. She also could have told him of the many people who had benefited and enjoyed having the wise men for a day, how their faces lit up when they saw her come in because they knew she was the envoy. Instead, she raised her chin. She began reciting the order of events for the pageant, thinking that she needed to be out of his presence immediately. “The pageant will begin at six in the evening. It will begin with–”
“Come with me to the office. If I’m going to have your input, I might as well have it in everything from the type to the graphics you would like to include.”
She looked over to her friends and searched out Rick, only to find that he was no longer there. “Will we wait for Rick?”
“No. Like you said, the sooner we finish with this, the better.”
SHE KEPT UP with him as they trekked down the main thoroughfare to the office. Phin tipped his hat to a few men in greeting, and Ginny kept her head down. She wasn’t accustomed to walking beside a man who wasn’t her father. She tended to run quick errands by herself, and those were usually at the neighboring shops. Otherwise, her father did not allow her to travel unescorted.
Phin gently took her elbow and steered her out of the way of an oncoming carriage and away from a cold mud puddle. She turned her head to look at his profile. “Thank you,” she murmured in a quiet voice.
He merely nodded, barely taking notice of her gratitude. His hand left her arm.
He unlocked the office, as no one else was inside, and gestured for her to take a seat. She complied and waited for him to light a fire in the fireplace in the corner.
“Would you like some coffee,” he asked brusquely.
She shook her head.
“I apologize for my comment. Before.”
His back was to her as he leaned over his desk. She could see that his hands were still, which meant he wasn’t searching for anything, and nothing kept him occupied. Surely, he didn’t feel bad?
She’d behaved badly as well, and he was being more than tolerable. “Me too.”
That caught his attention, and he turned around, reclining against his desk. Both his eyebrows rose at her statement. “For what?”
“I didn’t make you say what you were sorry for,” she accused.
“And now that’s a lost opportunity. I, however, have asked.”
The kind feelings created by his apology
were starting to dissolve. She let out a hefty sigh and rolled her eyes. “Very well. I apologize for plotting against you.”
“Well that wasn’t hard,” he said.
“But not,” she said, leaning forward, “for taking the figurine away.”
He let out an exasperated groan. “I don’t want to have this discussion again.”
Nor did she. “Take your pencil out, newspaperman. Let’s begin.”
And so they did, and they set aside their previous relationship of antipathy for one of interviewer and interviewee.
Phin had to admire her for temporarily calling a truce. She was the utmost professional as she enlightened him on the pageant. She was recounting the history of how the bells came to be part of the annual Christmas pageant, and he wrote it down, but he also studied her. He had been wrong to mention her marriage prospects, or lack thereof. She just got under his skin, and he became an irrational being. His mother would balk if she knew how badly he’d treated a woman. “Above it all, Phin, you must always be a gentlemen. You must be respectful and courtly toward every woman, whether she be part of your family or a complete stranger.”
Ginny’s face changed when she became animated, like now, as she smiled, recalling how Mr. Trinkett had been tasked to play Joseph in the play a few years ago and showed up inebriated. Only nobody knew about it until he started speaking words that were not in the script. She painted the story so well, he found himself laughing along with her. Ginny’s cheeks had taken on the glow from the warmth of the fire, and she’d even removed her big coat. Phin couldn’t help but study her tidy, female form. Her hair was left down today though she’d pulled some of it away from her face and fastened it with a pin at the back. Her brown eyes were the color of a good, mature whiskey, and they lit up, he noticed, when she was animated or incensed, and now he’d had a chance to see both sides of her. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but there was a wholesome appeal to her, a simple, clean way about her that was as elegant as the patrician women of his acquaintance back in Boston.
He had to control his eyes, though. She’d already caught him staring at her twice.
GINNY KNEW HOW she was going to have one of her wishes come true. She had not allowed herself to keep the wise men for a day, as it seemed like there was a conflict of interest involved, though she would have loved to place it in her father’s hands. If only he’d be selfish, she thought. She had a list of who would get the wise men, leading up to Christmas, when she would let Phin keep it, as it was only fair for him to have them one day. Maybe the spirit would move him, and he would take advantage of his last chance.
Time was passing her by, and she was only a passive spectator. Although it had hurt to hear it, Phin was right. She was alone, with no prospects, and her conversation with her father had only served to make something very clear. She did not have the kind of life that she wanted. If she wanted to change that, she would have to make an aggressive move. Not for herself; she did not know what she was going to do about Father, or her life, for that matter. But she knew that she could make one dream come true. She would witness extraordinary things. Because she would make them happen.
She knew that many of the people in town had wishes and dreams that were out of reach, but they also had many more that could be accomplished. And why shouldn’t they be? Her plan began as a wispy idea, growing into maturity as she regaled Phin with stories of her town and her people. People who were so very dear to her for the very fact that they were the family that she didn’t have at home. They’d been by her side, helping as much as they could when she’d no longer had a mother or a sister to speak to. They’d been her father when he’d spiraled into despair. They’d been her brother when she needed a friend.
Mrs. Jameson and Mrs. Clancy, along with several of the other married women of Preston, had invited Ginny into their homes with flimsy pretexts, and they taught her how to sew, how to cook a ham, how to darn a sock. They’d fussed over her stitches because she didn’t have someone to fuss over her at home. They’d harangued her over her dress choices and the state of her hair.
In the year following her mother’s death, Mr. Trinkett and Mr. Jameson alternated days to pick her up from her home and walk her to the store to open up for the day. Those were the days before her father and she had relocated to the rooms above the shop, and the company of the men on those dusky mornings had always been welcome. Mr. Jameson’s son had even offered to marry her once, before he’d met Bea. His proposal was a secret that they’d both keep to the end of their days, especially since Ginny was sure he’d only done it out of a misplaced sense of responsibility for her welfare. She was glad she had not accepted, as he and Bea were a perfect match. Rick had been her brother’s friend, and then hers, providing a staunch shoulder to cry on when Monty was no longer there. These people had made her life so much easier, so much richer, and she wanted to repay their kindness.
She didn’t know what had happened to her. Phin Baldwin wasn’t wrong. She was a serious little thing. She had been, anyway. But this idea came from the purest place in her heart, and only a risk-taker could follow through. A serious little thing wouldn’t attempt what she was going to try. But if she was to succeed, she was going to need help. She wouldn’t be able to pull it off by herself. She was going to need an accomplice with resources and access to places that she didn’t have.
Someone like Phin Baldwin. She caught Phin staring again, wondered about it. She was probably talking too much. How was she going to get him to go along with her plan, especially since, up until now, she had considered him her archenemy, as Bea called him, and he had called her a pain to her face?
Allies were made of the strangest people, she thought.
Chapter Six
“WHAT?”
“I need your help in a Christmas project of mine.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What kind of project?”
She rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “Are you any good at granting wishes?”
Phin thought he had been as surprised by Ginny Overton as he was ever likely to be. She had already broken out of the box he’d set for her upon meeting her by stealing the wise men and passing them around to everyone in the community. In the following minutes, he realized she’d gone and done it again. Surprised the words right out of him.
“Let me see if I understand you correctly. You want us to look at everyone’s wishes—everyone you gave the figurine—my figurine,” he couldn’t help but emphasize, “and somehow make it so that these things come true?”
“Yes, you’ve summed it up perfectly.”
He was lost for words. She was out-of-her-mind daft. There was no other way to explain it. And what was worse, she was trying to turn him strange, too. “How exactly do you propose we do that?” Because she had started to smile, he clipped her hopes real quick. “And my asking does not mean I am in any way interested in helping you.”
“I’ve been keeping their wishes.” The look on her face was sheepish, as if she was embarrassed to admit it, and why shouldn’t she be? Not only had she stolen from him, and made it a daily mockery, but now she’d even gone so far as to infringe on the privacy of everyone who had made a wish. He didn’t even want to think about how he would feel if he found out someone had looked in on his uttermost desires. She must have seen the disapproval in his face because her brow furrowed, and she leaned in closer, saying in earnest, “I didn’t take them to be a nosy Parker, I swear. I haven’t looked at any of them.”
She looked down at her hands. “I would never want to intrude on someone’s personal things,” she continued even though she must have heard his snort. “But each day before preparing to get the figurine back to you, I would collect the slips of paper and think, what a shame that their wishes didn’t get a chance to take.”
“I wasn’t aware the wishes had to ripen,” he said drolly. “Besides, how do you know they didn’t take? I thought you believed in them. You’re admitting to me and to yourself
that this colored piece of wood has no more power in it than I have in my little finger.”
She wouldn’t engage in verbal sparring with him and simply raised her voice. “So, I collected the wishes, wrote down whom they belonged to, and tucked them into a page of my journal.”
“You keep a journal?” Now this was interesting.
“All this time has passed, and I have journal pages filled with other people’s wishes. Just talking to you right now, I thought, why not try and make some of them come true?”
“Because it’s not your place. You have no business, and no right, as a matter of fact, to look at someone else’s property.” She didn’t have a right to take other people’s property either, but why beat a dead horse with a stick? What was done was done. It didn’t mean he had to add to it by conspiring with this loon of a woman. “You know, Rick has only nice things to say about you. How you’re a sensible girl, a responsible daughter. He goes on and on about what an exemplary person you are, and I have to admit, I’m stymied.”
She was wary. “Why’s that?”
“Because I wonder if he’s a little slow, or suffers from a mental disorder. Maybe he’s blind. In the time I have known you, I have seen none of these qualities. Clearly, I’m not seeing the person he sees.”
She stood up, deciding she’d had enough. Her chin lifted as she regarded him. “I suppose you haven’t considered the alternative?”
He knew he should rise, since she had. Good manners indicated he must. But he liked bucking courtesies when it came to Miss Ginny Overton. “Which is?”
“That you might be the one suffering from the mental disorder.”
She left him alone in the office, grinning up to high heaven, despite having been insulted.
HE WOULDN’T HELP her, and that was fine. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking anyway, asking someone like him for help. She’d offered him the adventure of helping one’s fellow man, something she intended to do regardless of his refusal. She’d miscalculated by confiding in him, and though their dealings with each other were always civil, at best, she could only hope that he would not inform others of her intentions.
Five Golden Rings: A Christmas Collection Page 16