by Dunn, Sharon
Tasha went through the rest of her mail. She opened her bank statement. She sure wasn’t getting rich, but at least most of her debt was paid off.
“Long time, no see, stranger.”
Tasha looked up into Grace’s bright face.
“Grace.” Tasha gave her a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t come by. I was just afraid I would run into—”
“I understand. So how are things for you? We are knee-deep in the dirt trying to get things planted.” Grace held up her hands, revealing dirty fingernails. “I needed a breather. I was seeing seed packets in my sleep. Gary’s watching the kids, so I can shop by myself.”
“Thanks for stopping by.”
Grace grinned. The smile took up most of her face, and there was a glint in her eyes. “I know something you don’t know.”
“What?”
“I’m not telling. It’s a secret.”
“Grace, have you been taking lessons from your kids?”
She twisted her fingers over her lips as though she were locking them. “I’m not telling.”
“Come on. What is it? You found a cheap fabric supplier?”
“No. Better than that.”
“You know of a millionaire who wants to buy all my dolls?”
Grace shook her head. “You’ll figure it out.”
Tasha sighed dramatically. “Whatever.”
Grace walked across the street to a quilting booth.
By noon, the crowd thinned a bit. Eli and Andrea brought their chairs and sack lunches over to Tasha’s booth.
“We should have done more fairies.” Eli munched on a ham sandwich.
“You never know how the market is going to shift.” Andrea popped a grape into her mouth.
“One day roosters and cows are the in thing, and the next thing you know fairies are all the rage,” Tasha joked, and bit into a chocolate-chip cookie her mother had made.
Eli looked out at the crowd. “You can’t follow trends just to make money. Got to do what you love.”
“That’s truer than you know, Eli.” A tone of seriousness entered Tasha’s voice.
Eli offered Tasha a grandfatherly smile and patted her back.
After lunch, the crowd increased. As she closed up her lunch box, she had the odd feeling that someone was staring at her. She opened her eyes and gazed out into the crowd.
The people in front of her milled around, none of them looking her way. Slowly the crowd dispersed. She noticed his tennis shoes first. Her eyes wandered up from the jeans to the button-down red-plaid shirt, to the brown hair. And then she gazed into his rich brown eyes.
“Philip,” she whispered.
He strode toward her, and her heartbeat quickened. Like warm ripples of electricity, she felt a wild excitement when he smiled. An excitement she’d managed to keep at bay for months. She was fine. She could keep it under control as long as she didn’t see him. Her jaw tightened as her hand balled into a fist. And now he’d come back to torture her—to remind her of how much she cared about him and how impractical a relationship would be.
She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t come one step closer.”
Philip planted his feet. “What?”
“I don’t care how gorgeous you are. I’m not going to be your part-time girlfriend, available to you for holidays and vacations and left behind when you just fly off to the big city. I thought we had an understanding.”
He grinned. “You think I’m gorgeous.”
“Philip, you’re not hearing me. Don’t tease me with your presence. It’s not nice.”
His cheeks grew red. “You think I’m gorgeous.”
“Yes, and kind and gentle and intelligent, but none of that matters.”
He took a step toward her.
She took a step back. “I said stop it. This is nervy, Philip.”
He glanced sideways and gazed at her Dr. Phil doll.
Her cheeks warmed as she gathered the doll up and placed it on the counter behind her. “I needed to get over you somehow.” A tangle of conflicting emotions wrestled inside her. She wanted to fall into his arms, to be close to him. At the same time, she felt a tightening in her stomach, a rising anger. How could he be this cruel? What could he offer her—an afternoon together?
He gathered her into his arms so quickly, she didn’t have time to resist. He spun her around one hundred and eighty degrees and pointed to the old hotel where the construction workers were.
“You see that building over there? That is where Dr. Phil will be telling all the neighborhood children to open wide.”
Hope fluttered through Tasha like a million butterflies. “But your practice in Denver...?” Could what he was saying really be true?
“The missionary trip fell through for the other doctor. It made me realize that taking on other people’s workloads was my final coping mechanism for my grief. I needed to stop burying myself in my job. I wasn’t spending enough time with Mary. And—” he drew her closer “—I was too far away from the woman I love.”
“Oh, Philip,” Tasha gushed. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he swung her around.
“It’s less money. But I’ll have more time with Mary and with you.” He kissed her. “I hear the fishing’s not bad around here.”
She traced the outline of his lips with her finger. “The sledding is pretty good, too.”
“And I hear the snowball fights are something else.”
She gazed adoringly at her life-size Dr. Phil as he held her. The prospect of spending winters and springs and summers with Philip and Mary stretched out before her. She looked forward to many more Christmases together. The season would always be a reminder of how her wish had been granted so abundantly that Christmas.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460341315
Tasha’s Christmas Wish
Copyright © 2014 by Sharon Dunn
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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