Mistletoe on Main Street (series t/k)

by Olivia Miles

  “Your writing career is not going nowhere,” he said firmly.

  She cocked an eyebrow and held his gaze. “Try telling my editor that.” She forced a smile and he frowned.

  “Maybe it’s on hiatus. Maybe you’re refueling your creative energy. Maybe you need to try something different. Mix it up a bit.”

  She tipped her head. “Maybe. I… I have been feeling a bit more relaxed, just being here. I don’t feel the same type of pressure to save my career, or turn it around.”

  “So, you’re really going to focus on Main Street Books then?” he asked, trying to remain calm as he thought of Helen’s empty storefront next door.

  “It depends. I have a plan for it, but I first need to see what evolves.” After a pause, she said, “Only my sisters know the details, but I don’t think I can keep it to myself much longer. If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone?”

  “Of course.”

  She made a face. “Not your mother? Not Mark?”

  Luke made a show of crossing his fingers over his chest. “Cross my heart. Come on, Grace. You know you can trust me.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. A heavy silence fell over the room. Luke drew a deep breath and cut into his dinner.

  After a beat, Grace said, “I mentioned that empty storefront next to the shop.”

  Luke’s heart felt like lead. “Yes?”

  “I really shouldn’t be telling you this. I don’t want to jinx it…” Her eyes were alive and dancing and Luke felt the cold, icy wash of dread coat his stomach.

  “Go on,” he managed, his voice tight.

  “Well, we have to first see about some details, but if we could make it work, we would expand the bookshop and create an adjoining café.” Perhaps noting his wide-eyed horror, she elaborated, “It would be a second location for the Fireside Café. It wouldn’t have the same name, of course, and it would have a limited menu since we wouldn’t be installing a kitchen, but it would be the same quality coffee and pastries.” She grinned. “Secretly, I’ve been thinking that The Annex has a nice ring to it. Can’t you see it, Luke? People could come in to browse, read, have a coffee. It wouldn’t be a dusty old bookshop anymore, it would be a destination.”

  Oh, there she goes. The Grace he knew and loved so well. The Grace who latched onto a dream and followed it through. The Grace whose dreams he had tried to squander once. The Grace whose dreams he was about to crush all over again.

  “Well, you could still turn the bookshop around without the café,” he said mildly.

  She frowned, disappointment shadowing her pretty face. “Oh. I don’t know. Probably not. I mean, I really think it needs a little extra something.”

  “So what do you need to make all this happen?”

  “Well, we first have to see if the space next door is even available, but I’m sure it is. Anna said it’s been empty for years,” she added, and he balled a fist in his lap. “Then it’s really about negotiating a lease and financing the first year or two, especially with the initial renovation from the expansion. Anna’s doing well, so I think she’d be willing to take the risk, and so would a bank, and I have a bit saved up that I’m happy to invest.”

  “And if the space next door isn’t available?” He had to ask. He had to know.

  She shrugged. “Well, then it would be up to me. Anna wouldn’t be involved at that point and I’d be on my own. I’d have to choose between pouring everything I have—which isn’t much—into saving the shop and seeing if it could turn a profit quickly, or…”

  “Or going back to New York,” he finished for her.

  She nodded.

  Luke set down his fork, his appetite lost. She was going to find out sooner or later, and it would be better coming from him. He dragged a hand through his hair and blew out a breath, staring at the table.

  “Grace,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”

  And you aren’t going to like this one bit.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Luke’s face had turned ashen, and his blue eyes darkened to midnight. Grace felt her stomach knot with apprehension. She gripped her fork until her fingers cramped. He had something to tell her, and judging by his ominous tone and the shift in his gaze, it wasn’t going to be good.

  “If I didn’t know better, I might think you were about to deliver some bad news,” she said, forcing a nervous chuckle. She pressed her lips together when she saw the set to his jaw. “What is it you need to tell me, Luke? Is there some problem if I were to stay in Briar Creek?”

  Luke took a sip of his wine. Stalling, buying time—whatever it was, it was becoming increasingly clear that whatever he had to tell her was hard for him. Panic quickened her pulse. Her chest heaved with each breath as she waited for him to finally deliver the blow.

  “That empty storefront you want to lease,” he said, and then paused.

  She leaned forward. “Yes?”

  He met her stare. “It’s already leased.”

  Grace frowned and leaned back in her chair. A strange sense of relief washed over her. For a second there she had been worried he had something personal to tell her—a reason why they couldn’t be together. This information, while disappointing, was something she could deal with, control. She might still be able to find a way to save her father’s business, but if Luke changed his mind about her, she would really be left with nothing.

  “That’s strange. Anna said it’s been empty for years.” She picked up her fork and took another bite of food, contemplating the situation. “How do you know it’s already leased?”

  “It’s been leased for two years,” Luke replied.

  “And empty?” Grace set down her fork. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Probably not,” Luke muttered.

  Grace pinched her lips and stared out the window at the falling snow. Well, if the person leasing it was letting it sit there empty, then they might be willing to let her sublease, or buy them out.

  “Do you know who is leasing the space?”

  Luke nodded. “Me.”

  Grace’s eyes narrowed. “You?”

  Luke lowered his gaze and Grace felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. What the hell was going on here?

  “What for?” she asked.

  “Helen had planned to open a shop there. A clothing store. She designed dresses, skirts, things like that.”

  Grace sighed, realizing that the subject of his deceased wife still stirred difficult feelings in him, even two years after her death. She stared at his face, lined with sadness, and looked down into her lap, feeling like a voyeur, watching him relive a memory she hadn’t been a part of.

  After a moment, she said, “So, she signed a long-term lease then?”

  She chose her words delicately, not wanting to remind him of what he had lost, but selfishly needing some closure to the conversation. She hated to turn this dinner into a business transaction, and she didn’t want to be callous and negotiate a sublease, but she needed that space in order to save Main Street Books.

  To her surprise, Luke shook his head. “No. She signed an annual lease.”

  Confusion knit her brow. “Luke, I don’t understand. Helen’s been—” She stopped herself when she saw the force in his eyes.

  “I’ve been renewing the lease,” he said.

  She gaped at him, the blood coursing through her veins. Helen had died two years ago. He had paid for the rent on that space all this time? She knew how much that kind of space went for—and it wasn’t cheap. Not by Briar Creek standards, at least.

  Luke slid back his chair and walked over to the sink, where he scrubbed at his plate. “I don’t expect you to understand, Grace,” he said, his back to her.

  He was shutting down, pushing her away. Her heart began to twist, the familiar ache she had sworn she would never feel again threatened to break to the surface. Frantically, she searched for the right thing to say—something would make him face her again, come back to her. To the present. To the f
uture. To their future.

  “I understand what it’s like to lose someone you love,” she said slowly. She stared at the v-shaped span of his back, at the hard, chiseled curves of his shoulders that filled his camel sweater. “I know what it’s like to want to hold on to something that you’ve lost.”

  She didn’t know if she was speaking about him or her father, or both, but all she knew was that in this moment, she felt like she was on the verge of losing everything that had ever mattered to her. He knew how much her father’s store had meant to her—it had triggered her love of books, inspired her to become a writer. Surely he wouldn’t take that from her, not when it was all she had left of him.

  Her breath caught in her chest when she realized this was exactly how Luke felt about the empty storefront next door. It was all he had left. Of Helen.

  Grace closed her eyes, recognizing the magnitude of this moment, the hold the past still had on Luke. He wasn’t ready to move on—not with her, not with anyone. He was still married to Helen in his heart, even if he thought their marriage and his feelings for her had ended long before she died.

  “I should go,” she said softly, pushing back her chair.

  Luke had stopped scrubbing the plate but didn’t move from his position. Instead he stood, hands gripping the counter edge on either side of him, head facing the window, his back firmly to her. The message couldn’t have been clearer.

  Say something to stop me, Luke, she silently begged as she inched her way toward the front hall. She paused in the doorway, to watch him, and wait. For a moment he opened his mouth, as if to say something, and her heart lurched with hope. Give me the space, she pleaded. Show me you are ready to move forward.

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” he said, and her chest heaved.

  She stared at him for a long, silent moment. “Me too,” she said bitterly, turning away.

  Tears immediately sprang to her eyes, hot and blinding. She grabbed her coat, not bothering to put it on, and sprinted through the snow to her rental car. She turned the ignition with shaking hands, and then shifted her body to adjust the gears.

  It was then that she saw him. Staring out the window at her, his face was lined, sad, his eyes hollow and dead. It was the face of a man who had lost everything. A man who had nothing left to live for.

  Her hand froze on the gear stick. She could go in there, take him into her arms, and tell him how she felt, how she had cried a thousand tears for him.

  Then she thought of what he had experienced during that time and her resolve strengthened. When she had lain in bed, crying into her pillow until the cotton sheet was soaked through, he had been sharing his life with another woman, building memories with her, laughing at her jokes, going out to dinner, climbing into bed beside her. Taking her hand. He hadn’t come running for her when she needed him the most—and when he finally had… Well, it was too late, wasn’t it?

  Now he was a guilt-ridden man, crippled by the past, unable to move on.

  And if his image taught her anything, it was that she couldn’t live like that anymore. After five long years she was ready to move on, with or without him. He wouldn’t hold her back any longer.

  The bookstore was the only place she could be right now. Curled up in her favorite armchair, Grace stared out the window, looking past the cheerful decorations and onto the quiet street. Evenings were slow in downtown Briar Creek, and most storefronts closed by dinnertime. This was a town where families still ate together, gathered around big farm tables, sharing the events of their day.

  Five years ago, she had shivered at the thought of spending her nights like this, but now she longed for it. She had almost lived the experience tonight, sitting with Luke at his kitchen table in front of the big bay window overlooking the snow-draped winter forest. Once again, their priorities weren’t in line. Maybe they never would be.

  And maybe that was all her fault. Maybe she was still paying the price for walking away all those years ago.

  The street was lit by gas lamps, and from a shadow grew an image, appearing slowly in the frame of the large display window closest to her. Grace gasped as she stared at her mother’s face, but if Kathleen had seen her, she made no show of it. Instead, her focus was centered on the porcelain village scene Grace had set up that morning.

  Grace felt her stomach stir with unease. She didn’t think her mother would be angry that she had snooped through the attic, but she couldn’t be sure. If her mother was determined not to celebrate the holiday this year, there was a small chance she would find Grace’s liberties insensitive. It was the last thing Grace wanted her to think.

  Pulling herself up from the chair, Grace stood and hesitantly smiled at her mother.

  Startled, Kathleen’s eyes widened in surprise. Gingerly, she reached for the handle of the door and let herself inside.

  “Hi, Mom,” Grace said, her tone sounding guilty even to her own ears.

  “Grace.” Kathleen’s voice was laced with astonishment. Her eyes swept the room, finally finding their way back to Grace. She blinked. “What is all this?”

  Grace shifted the weight on her feet and shrugged. “I borrowed some of your decorations,” she said, fingering the garland that swagged from the counter.

  “I can see that!” Kathleen said, but her voice was filled with wonder, not hurt. “I meant the store. What is going on here? Why is it decorated?”

  Grace swallowed, feeling her cheeks flush with heat. She couldn’t stand here and lie to her mother’s face, even if the truth might only set her up for more disappointment. Right now, she had to accept the fact that the expansion was not going to happen, and the reality was that the shop wouldn’t survive as it now stood. She’d seen the account books. Her father had held on to the store because it meant the world to him. But in recent years, sales had plummeted. It needed more than a good dusting to survive another year. As much as Grace hated to admit it, she couldn’t sink what was left of her savings into a lost cause.

  “I was just sprucing the place up a bit.” Grace shrugged. “I wasn’t ready to let go of it yet.”

  Kathleen’s face was pale, her eyes flashing and alert. She put a hand to her heart, shaking her head. “Your father would never let me in here to decorate,” she said. “It’s never looked better, Grace. The decorations. The windows. It looks so organized. So fresh! Did you do all this yourself?”

  Grace nodded. “I’ve been working on it for the past two days.”

  “All this in two days!” Kathleen grinned ruefully. “And here I thought you’d snuck off to town to meet Luke.”

  “You weren’t entirely wrong,” Grace admitted. “I have been seeing a bit of him lately. I saw him again tonight, actually.”

  Kathleen arched an eyebrow. “How did that go?”

  Grace tossed up her hands, her heart feeling heavy. “Luke and I have a lot of issues. Maybe we’re just not meant to be.”

  Kathleen clucked her tongue. “Nonsense. You’re a headstrong girl, Grace, and I’ve always admired that in you, even when I didn’t tell you.”

  Grace blinked. Was this really how her mother felt? She… admired her?

  “No, you never did tell me that, Mom.”

  “I should have told you more often, I know that now. Your father was so encouraging that I felt like I had no choice but to balance you out.” She sighed. “He was always lifting you up, telling you to reach for the stars, and I suppose I was sitting there worried what would happen if you never grasped one.”

  “Is that why you never asked me much about my life in New York?” Grace asked, recalling the twinge of hurt she would feel whenever she called home in those early months, the emptiness she would feel when she hung up the phone. It stung her that her mother never asked about her apartment, her friends, her writing. When Grace offered, Kathleen would mutter something generic and change the topic. It didn’t go unnoticed.

  “I did,” Kathleen insisted, frowning.

  Grace shook her head, forcing a half smile to show it was ancient hist
ory, even though the hurt was still fresh. “Not really.”

  After a pause her mother said, “I’m sorry if you felt that way, Grace. I knew that you had given this all up to go live in some one-room apartment above a convenience store or something. I was worried sick! I couldn’t even think about it, so I guess I chose not to ask too many questions.”

  “It wasn’t a convenience store,” Grace corrected. “My first apartment was above a liquor store.”

  Alarm flashed in Kathleen’s green eyes and she held a hand over her mouth, laughing. “See?” she cried. “This is what I’m talking about!”

  Grace was laughing now too, thinking back on the experience. She really had come far, even if she had only made it full circle in the end. “It’s a good thing you never visited that first apartment,” she admitted. “You would have probably fainted.”

  “Oh, I know I would have!” Kathleen chuckled. “Still, we should have visited more. I never even met Derek…”

  “It was my fault. I was busy. Preoccupied. If I had known then…” A hard lump wedged in her throat. No one could have predicted the heart attack that took her father. She knew it, but she still couldn’t shake the guilt. The last time she had seen her father was nearly a year before his sudden death. “I wish I had come back sooner.”

  “He knew he was never far from your thoughts.”

  Grace walked over and wrapped her arms around her mother. The chill was still stuck to her coat, and when she breathed, she caught a whiff of fresh snow on the cool collar.

  “You and I are more alike than we know, Mom,” she said, pulling back.

  “That’s what your father used to say,” Kathleen smiled, but there was a sadness in her eyes.

  “I know,” Grace said softly. “He used to tell me the same thing.”

  “I suppose that determination is a good quality. Only you would take on an endeavor like this old shop.”

  “Well, I love it. I’d do anything to keep it going.”

  Kathleen’s eyes were sharp when she met her gaze. “What’s that supposed to mean?”