by Melissa West
He drew a shallow breath and released, that ache in his chest building and making it hard to breathe fully. “You know that Zac, Charlie, and I signed the contract with Franny to buy half of her building, right?”
“I do,” Dad said. “Go on.”
“Well, in the contract, it states that Merrily had to hit a certain sales quota for December in order to keep the other half of the business. If they did it, then they’d keep their half and we’d keep ours. We never really worked through what that would mean, because none of us honestly thought it would happen.”
“And what happens if Merrily didn’t hit its numbers?”
“They sell the other half to us at half its value.”
His father’s eyes widened, clear disappointment on his face. “Those terms seem a bit unfair.”
“Yeah. Well, it gets worse. Merrily is three thousand short of hitting the quota needed to keep their half of the business. Kylie asked for an extra week to hit the goal.”
“And you told her no.”
Brady’s glanced up from where he’d been staring at the table, too ashamed to meet his father’s eyes. “How did you know?”
“Because you’ve been trying to prove that you are family-first since my heart attack. But that was years ago, son. You can’t spend the rest of your life saying you were sorry. I was never upset at you.”
“You should have been.”
He laughed. “If a near life-threatening experience teaches you anything, it’s that the trivial things don’t matter and holding grudges are a waste of energy.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact that Zac and Charlie are expecting me to maintain the terms of the contract and to move forward with the investor.”
“What do you think?”
Brady leaned back in his chair and stared up at the stars above. The sounds of night surrounded them, quiet except for the wind in the trees. “I think I’m choosing between my family and…the love of my life.”
His dad laughed again, this time harder.
“What?”
“Son, there is no choice there.”
“I know, family is—”
“You choose the love of your life.”
Brady’s gaze snapped back to his dad. “What?”
“You choose the love of your life,” his dad said leaning forward again. “Look, I know we’ve taught y’all that family comes first, but you have to understand, for us, that’s this family. Mom, you kids. That’s my family, and I put you above anyone else. You can’t have that version of family if you don’t put that love of your life above everything else. If you can’t make her your center and build your life around what you have together. That is living. And that is exactly what Zac and Charlie and Kate have all done. Why not you?”
“But the contract says that Merrily had to hit three thousand more in sales, and they only have two more days. They won’t sell three thousand in two days.”
A glint sparked in his dad’s eyes. “Unless you help them.”
Brady’s face scrunched in confusion, and then realization overcame him. “Unless I help them.”
His father checked his watch. “They have a website, right?”
Brady nodded. “Yeah, yeah they do.” He pushed to standing and started for the door.
“Where you going?”
He smiled. “To do some shopping.”
Chapter 23
Kylie stretched a slice of thick tape across the bottom of the corrugated box, then another on the ends. She flipped the box right and opened up the top, then layered in bubble wrap. Then she passed the box over to Ally, who filled the box and then passed it to Franny.
Thankfully, Franny had been right about having heartburn two nights ago, so she was able to come back home. Still, it had taken a lot for Kylie to agree to let her come close up the shop. A part of her wanted to push Franny on it, sacrifice the hurt of seeing her baby close by staying at home. But Franny told her that she opened the shop on its first day. It didn’t seem right for anyone else to close it.
And so, with heavy hearts she, Franny, and Ally met at the shop to box up the last of the online orders before they started the difficult task of cleaning out the shop for good.
“Have you noticed an uptick of orders this week?” Ally asked as she filled the box with the next order, double checked the packing slip, then passed it off to Franny.
Kylie lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. “Maybe. I haven’t been paying that much attention. Online orders were never enough of our business for it to make a difference.”
“Expensive stuff, too,” Ally said, ignoring Kylie’s negative mood. She and Franny had been doing that a lot this week. “I mean, who honestly buys a two-hundred-dollar porcelain Santa?”
Kylie reached for the order. “Apparently, Apple Bigton.”
“Apple Bigton?” Ally said, laughing. “The last one was Pear Bigton.”
“No,” Kylie said, covering her mouth to hide her grin. “Sisters? Surely, parents don’t name their kids such atrocious names, right?”
“Clearly, they do. And it doesn’t stop there. Check this out.” Ally passed her latest order over to Kylie. “Clementine.”
“Bigton? Let me see that.”
Sure enough, the name Clementine Bigton, followed by a P.O. box number. The P.O. box was different from the other two, but all of the orders listed Williamstown, Kentucky, as the city and state. Williamstown was a small town not fifteen minutes away, and though Kylie hadn’t been there often, she thought she would remember a family of sisters with fruit names.
“Do you know them, Fran?” Ally asked.
Franny shook her head. “Honey, I can barely remember you two.”
The women all laughed and went back to their work, but Kylie couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something.
“Wow, this order is for nearly six hundred dollars. Are these sisters starting their own holiday shop and buying up your stuff to do it?”
The thought rubbed Kylie the wrong way. “No, I’m sure they’re just fans of Christmas collectibles.” She taped another box and passed it to Ally.
“Right. Do you see this stack of boxes?”
Kylie glanced over at the shipping table that Brady had allowed them to use for packing. It was covered in packages. “All of them are for the sisters?”
“All except two, which are going to…” She checked the list. “Green Farmer.”
“You’re joking,” Kylie deadpanned. “That is not the name.”
“It is. See for yourself.” Once again, she handed the list over to Kylie, who scanned down to see the names.
Apple Bigton
Pear Bigton
Clementine Bigton
Green Farmer
“Do you have a list of yesterday’s shipments?” she asked Ally.
“Yeah, right here.” Ally walked around to her desk, opened a drawer, and returned with a stapled report.
Kylie read the names on the list, each one causing her anger to spark more and more. In addition to the names from today, there were three others.
Summer Farmer
Mr. Bate Casting
Mrs. Cot Abigun
All of the addresses listed a P.O. box in Williamstown. Maybe Ally was onto something after all.
“Is there a way to get more information on who manages a P.O. box?” she asked the other two women, who merely shook their heads. “But surely someone at the post office would remember the person, right? Think of your P.O. box, Franny. Everyone at the post office knows you. Maybe someone there would remember the person.”
“People, you mean,” Ally said. “There’s like seven people here.”
Kylie’s face pulled into a knowing smile. “Or there’s just one person, pretending to be seven, so she can use our stuff to start her own business.”
&nbs
p; “Well, even if that were the case, what does it matter? We can’t hit our goal.” Ally dropped another shipment into its box, a somber expression on her face.
“But what if we could hit our goal?”
Kylie and Ally spun around to find Franny staring down at her phone.
“What do you mean?” Kylie asked.
“Look at this,” Franny said, passing her phone to Kylie. “It’s an email from our accountant with an updated monthly sales total for December. We’re at $16,500. We’re only five hundred dollars from the goal now.”
“It can’t be. I checked that number just three days ago and we were still more than two thousand off. There’s barely been anyone in the store since Christmas. So how…” She spun around to look at the pile of packages on the shipping table.
“I told you we’ve been slammed online. I knew I didn’t have all these stupid cuts on my hands for nothing.” Ally held up her palms to show several cuts from packaging up the shipments. “Someone’s become a fan of our site!”
“I don’t know,” Kylie said, eyeing the list of names again. “Something’s fishy here.”
“Maybe it’s Mr. Lg Fish,” Ally said giggling.
“See, that has to be a fake name, right? No one is named Mr. Lg Fish. Or Mr. Green Farmer. I mean, seriously. Those are not real names.”
Ally cocked her head. “I don’t know. Celebrities name their kids all kinds of weird crap.”
“Yeah and how many celebrities do you see running around Crestler’s Key? Or Williamstown, for that matter. Is there even a stoplight there?”
“No clue,” Ally said. “But how would you find out? It’s a P.O. box. You can’t just Google Maps this person.”
“No,” Kylie said, grabbing her purse. “But I can drive over there and ask the post office staff if they know any of the names.”
“You aren’t serious.” Ally set down the box she was packing.
Franny walked around to where Kylie stood and took her hand. “Sweetie, I think it’s time you let this place go.” The sadness in her voice cemented Kylie’s resolve all the more.
“I will if it comes to that. I promise. But we are five hundred dollars away from keeping the store running. Don’t you at least want to know how that happened?”
A ping came from the laptop on Ally’s desk, and she walked over, clicked a few things, then peered back over at Kylie and Franny with new excitement. “Scratch that. We just hit our goal.”
“What? No way.” Kylie’s heartbeat picked up, new energy swirling around in her chest.
“We just received another order for just over five hundred dollars.”
Kylie’s eyebrows pulled together. “Let me see that.” She wandered over to the laptop and opened the order. It was for a full Christmas village, complete with people and a running train. Franny said they’d had the village for years, no one willing to buy the whole thing, and Franny couldn’t imagine selling it piece by piece. Someone had bought it. Someone named…
“You have got to be freaking kidding me.”
“What is it?” Ally asked. “Fake order?”
“You tell me.” Kylie pointed at the name Mr. S. Diving. “S. Diving. Seriously? That is not a person’s name.”
“Hold on a second,” Franny said walking over to join the other two women. “S. Diving? Like scuba diving?”
Ally clicked the other again and scrolled down. “There isn’t a first name listed anywhere on the order. Only the ‘S.’”
“And what were the other names again?” Franny asked. Kylie handed her godmother the two reports and watched as a slow smile spread across Franny’s face. “I’ll be damned.”
“What?” Ally and Kylie asked together.
“I think I know who your buyer is, and I agree that it’s one person. But not a woman.”
“A man? But who—”
Kylie scrolled to the bottom of the order again.
S. Diver
Green Farmer
Summer Farmer
Lg. Fish
Cot. Abigun
Apple Bigton
Pear Bigton
Clementine Bigton
Apples, pears, clementines—all fruit grown at…
“Oh my God,” Ally said.
“I think I know where you need to go,” Franny added, her face beaming with joy.
Kylie took the report from Franny and raced for the door. “Already there. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck!” they called.
Chapter 24
Kylie rushed up Brady’s front steps and slammed to a halt. What was she doing there? What was her plan? She couldn’t exactly knock on his door and order him to confess everything. He’d look at her like she was insane. And then, what if she was wrong? There could be a Mr. Green Farmer out there in the world, even in Williamstown, where he lived with his wife, who loved Christmas stuff, so he ordered things from Merrily to surprise her. And maybe her name was Summer Farmer, which made perfect sense, come to think of it. Green and Summer Farmer.
Lord. She covered her face with her hands and laughed. There was so not a Green and Summer Farmer! But that didn’t mean that Brady was involved with this—
“Ky?”
Crap! And now in her mind’s crazy psychobabble she’d missed him opening the door.
Slowly, Kylie peeled away her hands from her face and stared up at Brady Littleton. Today he wore jeans and a basic white tee, and damn if it wasn’t the best thing she’d ever seen on a man. She stared at him, curious how to have this conversation, when his eyebrows lifted and he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Great, actually. You?”
He peered around, like he was searching for something behind her, then looked back at her. “Fine.”
“Good.” She nodded along with the word like a complete freaking moron. Speak, woman, speak!
“So…”
“So.” She smiled this time. Just ask him. Ask!
“Was there something that you—”
“Are you Green Farmer?”
Brady’s head cocked, his eyebrows threading together. “Come again?”
And now was the time that a sane woman would take a step back, laugh off the intrusion, and run for her car, but see, the problem with that plan was that Kylie was tired of running. She wanted to stand still, fearless and free, and there was no getting to fearless and free without taking some risks from time to time.
So, with that new confidence, she pressed on, this time slower so he could hear her clearly. “I asked if you were Green Farmer. Or maybe Cot Abigun? Or Apple Bigton?”
He scrubbed a hand over her jaw and stared at her. “Big ton?”
Kylie waved her hands in a circular, hurry-up-and-get-this fashion. “You know, Bigton. Like Littleton, but instead of little you insert big. Bigton.”
Brady tucked his hands into his pockets. His stare was still in place, but it had morphed from surprise at seeing her to confusion to now something that resembled pity. Oh God, she was wrong. He wasn’t Green Farmer, and she’d come all the way out here, prepared to throw her heart on the line, and he wasn’t any of those people. This was all just a giant misunderstanding.
“Right. I must be confused. I’m sorry I bothered you.” She took a step back and dropped her head.
“Kylie, are you okay?”
Without looking back at him, she shook her head. “No…I’m not.” She started around the sidewalk, her pride a ghost of what it’d once been, when she heard the mailman’s truck driving up Brady’s driveway. The mailman parked behind Kylie’s car, stepped out, grabbed two large boxes, and made his way over to the front porch.
Kylie squinted at the boxes as he neared, until she caught the side of the box, and the swirly, happy logo that she would recognize anywhere.
Merrily Christmas.
Spinning on he
r heels, she rushed up the steps and pushed past Brady, ignoring his calls and questions of where she was going. She couldn’t answer him, could scarcely think. All she could do was focus on the task before her.
Kylie scanned his foyer, then his office, then his dining room, all to come up empty. They had to be here somewhere, but where? She walked around his kitchen, with no signs of boxes, then went back to his bedroom. Again, nothing.
“Ky, what are you—”
“Shh. They’re somewhere. I just need to think …” She snapped her fingers, the memory of Brady talking about his finished basement coming back to her, and how he didn’t have anything to put down there.
Rounding out of his master bedroom, she grabbed the door to his basement and swung it open, Brady on her heels.
“What are you doing? Don’t go down there—It’s not clean—finished, I mean. Don’t—”
Kylie jumped down the final two steps and flicked on the lights, only to stumble back, her heart in her throat as she took in the open common room and package after package after package. There were too many to count, too many to process, each unopened, but she didn’t need to know what was inside. The Merrily logo stared back at her from all the boxes, a confirmation of what she’d suspected back at the shop and what she should have known about Brady all along.
Tears spilled down her cheeks as she turned around, and for the first time in her life, she was at a loss for words.
“Now, listen, I know how this looks,” Brady said. “I just wanted to…” He threw a hand out toward the packages and then shook his head slowly.
Kylie started for him, each step like coming closer to home. “You’re Green Farmer.”
Brady ran his thumb over her cheek to catch a fallen tear. “I’m Green Farmer.”
“But why?”
“Because I love you. Always have, always will.”
And that did it. Kylie surged forward, her arms wrapping around his neck as her lips came up to meet his. She kissed him for the days they’d spent apart this week and all the days they’d spent apart before, when they were still trying to find their way back to one another. Finally, she pulled back and looked him in the eye and said the words she’d longed to say for too long: “I love you, too. So much.”