Rachel came out the front door, carrying an air pump and a blow-up Frosty the Snowman. “That’s Andi for you, always worrying about everyone’s safety.”
“You have to admit, I’m not nearly as OCD as I used to be.” Andi smiled to herself. “Especially now that I’m married to Jake.”
“Yeah, Jake has had a calming effect on you,” Kim replied. “Except for the past week or two. Are you fighting?”
Andi jerked her head backward. “Of course not. We’ve just been busy. First we had Rachel’s birthday and then Thanksgiving. Now we’re decorating for Christmas, and I still need to shop—”
Both Andi and the “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” carol playing on Kim’s portable radio were disrupted by the rattling, tinkering sound of the Cupcake Mobile turning the corner. The 1933 antique bread-loaf-shaped truck parked next to the curb, and Mike Palmer climbed out, followed by Nathaniel Sjölander.
“They got the tree!” Kim climbed down the ladder and hurried to Nathaniel’s side. “Smells fresh.”
“We cut it down less than fifteen minutes ago. The best tree in my nursery,” Nathaniel said as he helped Mike carry the blue spruce toward the front door.
“Sjölander’s is the best.” Kim’s heart swelled as she thought of all the wonderful flowers she’d received over the past year as a result of dating the owner. “Your brother didn’t mind running the business and tending to the gardens while we were off on our adventures?”
Nathaniel slid her a quick glance. “Well, no, but Fredrik’s glad we’re back.”
Kim was glad, too. Her dream of having her passport filled with stamps was great, but she’d missed her friends and family—and being a regular part of the cupcake shop.
She never thought she’d say this, but this year she looked forward to spending the holidays . . . at home.
“OW!” MAX HOLLOWAY raised the hem of the white, floor-length tablecloth and stuck his head out. “You kicked me!”
A young girl with blond hair and enormous blue eyes peered down at him. “What are you doing under the table?”
“None of your business.”
“You need a haircut.”
Max swiped a long strand of his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. “That’s none of your business either.”
“How old are you?”
Max scowled, wishing he’d kept his location a secret. “Twelve. And I don’t talk to little kids.”
“I’m not little,” the girl shot back. “I go to school all day now. I’m in the first grade.”
“You are, too, little,” he argued. “Go away.”
She lifted her chin. “This is my snack spot.”
Max glanced at the brown paper lunch bag in her hands and thought he could smell peanut butter. “What kind of snacks do you have?”
The girl raised the bag out of his reach. “What’s your name?”
He could also smell some kind of fruit candy, and his mouth started to water. Maybe he could convince her to give him some. If he was nice.
“Max.” He glanced around the interior of the shop to make sure no one else had spotted him. “My name is Max.”
“I used to have a dog named Max. He’s gone now. I’m Mia.” The first-grader opened the bag and dug in. “Do you want some crackers?”
Max snatched the peanut butter sandwich crackers from her hands. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Why are you hiding?”
Max ripped open the plastic wrapper holding his treat. “I’m not hiding, I just want to be alone.”
“I hid from my mom once, but she found me. Where’s your mom?”
Max shoved the crackers into his mouth, wishing Mia would stop asking him so many questions. “I don’t have a mom.”
“What about a dad?”
Now she was bothering him. “I don’t have a dad.”
Mia leaned her head closer. “Who packs your lunchbox for school?”
“I have foster parents,” Max said, motioning toward the brown bag for another treat. “But they don’t care about me.”
Mia waved an open bag of Gummy Bears in front of his face. “Why not?”
Max tried to reach for the candy, but Mia pulled it away and giggled. Frustrated, he replied, “They just don’t.”
Her eyes widened. “Were you bad?”
“No! I’m just not—theirs. All they care about is the money they get for giving me a place to stay. They fight all the time. I think they’re going to get a divorce.”
“My mom got a divorce,” she said and handed him the fruit-scented Gummy Bears. “Then she married Jake. Now he’s my dad.”
Mia pointed to the front of the cupcake counter, where a woman in an apron waved a wooden spoon at a guy with a newspaper tucked under the arm of his blue sport jacket. “There they are.”
Max watched the couple as they drew toward each other for a hug. “Do you ever see your real dad?”
Mia frowned, as if confused. “I was like you. I didn’t have a real dad until Jake.”
“Do you like him?”
She laughed. “Of course. Jake’s fun.”
Fun? Yeah, right. Not possible. He’d never known any parent to be fun. But what did Mia know? She was just a child. He’d even bet his At Athens Alone drumstick the girl still believed in Santa Claus.
“HOW IS MY lovely wife today?” Jake asked, taking the wooden spoon from her hand and setting it on the counter.
“Mrs. Hartman is busy,” Andi said, and tried to turn away from him.
It didn’t work. Jake stretched his arms around her from behind and covered her eyes with his hands. “I have a surprise for you. In the kitchen. Just walk forward, and I’ll guide you.”
Okay, she did love surprises—as long as they were good. She heard the double doors open and then Jake’s voice telling their three college-age employee’s to man the front of the shop for a few minutes. Their footsteps shuffled past her as Jake’s strong arms led her a few more feet. Then they came to a stop, and a mixture of cream cheese frosting and pine assaulted her nose.
“Okay, open them.”
Andi opened her eyes and looked up. A sprig of mistletoe hung from the ceiling overhead. “Mistletoe Magic?”
Jake kissed her, and images of the first time she met him floated in her mind. She’d run all over town searching for a cupcake for Kim’s birthday when she found one in Jake’s possession at the Captain’s Port. However, convincing him to let her have it wasn’t “a piece of cake.” She’d thought she might have to shanghai him to get her hands on the treat.
The Captain’s Port was famous for the trapdoor through which drunken customers in the past had often been shanghaied into becoming crew members at sea. For a brief moment, she had entertained the notion of shoving Jake down the hatch and refusing to let him out until he said the cupcake was hers. But in the end she hadn’t had to use such drastic means. He’d agreed to split the cupcake with her. And thus began their romance.
Jake pulled his mouth away and kissed her on the end of her nose. “I’m sorry, Andi. I’m a better writer than I am a speaker, and I shouldn’t have worded the news about my job offer in D.C. that way. Nothing is set in stone. You know I won’t take the job if you don’t want me to.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Andi admitted. “The way I’ve been avoiding you is unfair. I’ve only been thinking of myself. And I don’t want anything to ruin our first Christmas together.”
Jake kissed her again. “I don’t either. Have you told Rachel and Kim?”
Andi shook her head. “Not until we make a final decision. But, Jake, can’t we wait until after Christmas?”
“Of course,” Jake agreed. “If we decide to move, we don’t want to upset Rachel before her wedding, or upset Kim and the girls. I hadn’t thought about Mia’s and Taylor’s reactions.”
Andi walked over to the cupcake tray rack and brought Jake one of her newest creations. “I baked these this morning.”
Jake took a bite of the red velvet cupcake set in the candy cane-printed wrapper
, iced with white icing and topped with a Hershey’s kiss and a green sprig of mint candy. “Mistletoe Magic cupcakes?”
Andi smiled. “You gave me the idea. Everyone says they ‘taste as good as a kiss.’ ”
Jake pulled her against him with his free arm. “Close. But I still think a real kiss from you is better.”
He drew his mouth toward her again, and Andi melted into him, glad Jake brought her into the privacy of the kitchen.
“I love you, Jake.”
“I love you, too, Andi.”
“I won’t let anything ruin this Christmas,” she promised.
“I won’t either,” Jake vowed. “Let’s make this the best Christmas we’ve ever had.”
Andi gave him a big smile. “Sounds like a plan.”
THE NEXT MORNING when Andi got out of her car, she noticed that the snowman Rachel had inflated outside the shop the day before lay in a heap on the ground. Maybe it had a leak?
But as she drew closer, she also saw that the beautiful wreath with pinecones and shiny gold balls that Nathaniel had put on the front door was also missing.
Worse, Rachel stood in front of the Creative Cupcakes window tossing her head like a red bull. Kim, the least likely one to show emotion, waved her clenched fists in the air.
“What’s wrong?” Andi asked, quickening her pace as she made her way to them.
“Creative Cupcakes has been vandalized!” Rachel exclaimed.
Andi gasped. “What!”
Rachel and Kim stepped away from the window, and instead of Kim’s pretty paintings, a new image decorated the glass.
A big, hairy, green, sharp-toothed Grinch.
Chapter Three
* * *
He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.
—Roy L. Smith
ANDI STARED AT the green monster, wishing it were a weekday when Mia and Taylor were in school, but being a Saturday, they were right behind her.
“Grinch!” Taylor cried. “I’m scared of the Grinch!”
Taylor hugged Andi’s legs, almost tripping her. But Mia drew closer to the storefront wreckage.
“The Grinch hurt Frosty,” Mia said, pointing to the pile of white vinyl.
Andi glanced at the doorknob, where a long string of jingle bells had dangled, and the top of the window, where they had strung Christmas lights. What did the thief do with them?
“If I catch whoever did this,” Andi growled, “I’m going to wring his little neck.”
“Not if I get to him first,” Kim said. “He painted over everything I did yesterday.”
Rachel pursed her lips. “You have to admit the vandal is a pretty good artist. Although whoever did this got his Christmas stories crossed.”
“What do you mean?” Mia asked, coming over to investigate.
“See the words painted beneath the face of the Grinch?” Rachel explained, tapping her fingernails against the glass. “ ‘Bah humbug’ is a famous saying from A Christmas Carol, you know, the story about Scrooge.”
Kim bent toward the Grinch and looked more closely. “Looks like he started to use spray paint but then switched over to brushes.”
Andi went and stood next to her and studied the artwork. “Why would he do that?”
“He’s angry,” Kim assured her, “but notice the intricate brushstroke design, the detail he put into the facial expression? I think deep down inside, he’s also an artist who cares about his work.”
Andi frowned. “At least he cares about something.”
“So there’s still hope for him?” Mia asked, turning to face her.
Andi nodded. “There’s always hope.”
WHEN OFFICER IAN Lockwell arrived at the shop, he helped Andi review the security camera footage shot the night before. Unfortunately the lens faced into the shop and not toward the outside.
“I don’t understand,” Andi grumbled. “Why would anyone do this?”
Mia stopped taping red and green strips of paper into a chain to answer her. “Because his heart is too small.”
Rachel laughed. “Yes, in the story the Grinch needed a bigger heart.”
Andi pulled out a new three-ring binder decorated with flying reindeer—which Mia had picked out—and spread it open on the front counter.
“Our new Cupcake Diary,” she announced.
On page 1 she had recorded the recipe for Mistletoe Magic cupcakes. Taking a pen, she wrote on page 2, How to catch a Grinch.
“A trap?” Rachel suggested.
“Another security camera?” Kim offered.
Mia shook her blond braids back and forth. “Love. Didn’t you see the cartoon on TV? You have to catch the Grinch with love.”
Ian chuckled. “How do you do that?”
“I’m going to make him a present,” Mia declared.
Andi exchanged smiles with Rachel and Kim as Mia took out her crayons and began to color a picture.
“I’m going to make a present for Max, too,” Mia added.
“Who’s Max?” Andi inquired.
“He’s the boy under the table.”
Andi glanced at Taylor. “Did you see a boy?”
Taylor shook her head, and Andi bit her lip.
After her divorce, Mia had been upset and developed an imaginary friend to help her deal with her emotions. Was this Mia’s way of covering her fear of the vandalism?
Mia’s eighteen-year-old babysitter, Heather, who doubled as one of their employees, walked through the front door. “Sorry I’m late for work. Traffic was terrible. Everyone’s Christmas shopping.”
Guy Armstrong, the white-ponytailed tattoo artist from the building next door, entered the shop behind her. “Carolers are strolling the streets singing and carrying on about glad tidings of joy and whatever. I’ll be glad when the whole holiday season is behind us.”
“What’s the matter, Guy?” Kim teased. “Don’t you like Christmas?”
“No, I don’t. It’s all a bunch of commercial nonsense, everyone spending all their hard-earned money on gifts they don’t even need. And there’s no sense putting up a tree and making a fuss when I’m all alone.”
Mia’s mouth popped open. “Guy, are you the Grinch?”
Guy laughed. “No, and I’m not Santa Claus either.”
Mia made a face. “I know that. Of course you aren’t Santa. You’re silly, Guy.”
“So now I’m a silly guy?” he joked.
“No,” Andi told him, as she took one of her newest baked treats out of the glass display case and handed it to him. “You’re just in desperate need of a Mistletoe Magic cupcake. And we’re in desperate need of another set of eyes on our shop at night.”
“Sure,” Guy agreed. “What am I looking for?”
Andi smiled. “Anyone who wants to steal Christmas.”
RACHEL DIDN’T REALIZE Mike had come up behind her in the kitchen until he pulled the long scroll of yellow notepaper out of her hands.
“Are you making a list and checking it twice?” he teased.
“You aren’t supposed to see!” she squealed as she tried to get the paper back.
“Why not?” Mike grinned. “There shouldn’t be anything for me on there since we agreed not to get each other Christmas gifts this year, right?”
Rachel hesitated. “A fun gift under five dollars wouldn’t count, would it?”
Mike frowned. “Rachel—”
“Okay, okay, no gifts,” she agreed. “There’s no extra money anyway. Mike, I think we’ve made a mistake. We should never have decided to get married on Christmas Eve.”
A look of uncertainty flashed across his face. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“Not about marrying you,” Rachel amended. “But about the date. I didn’t realize we’d have to budget money for the wedding and Christmas at the same time.”
“We could elope.”
“Mike, I’m serious.”
“So am I. If we skip out of town, you won’t have to worry about your crazy cousin Stacey rui
ning the wedding.”
“Good point,” she said and grinned. “But my mother spent countless hours sewing my wedding dress, not to mention the dresses of my bridesmaids, and she wants the whole town to see. Besides, that doesn’t solve our dilemma over Christmas gifts. What are we going to get Grandpa Lewy?”
“Easy. All he ever wants is cupcakes.”
“We can’t give everyone cupcakes for Christmas.”
“Why not?”
Rachel laughed. “All right. Cupcakes it is.”
Mike pulled her into his arms, glanced up at the mistletoe hanging above them, and gave her a warm kiss. “Selling ‘Cupcakes’ to that businessman would be the only other way to pay for everything on your list.”
“If it were up to me,” Rachel whispered, her eyes on the double doors of the kitchen, “I’d take the money and run.”
“You would?” Mike asked, surprised. “I would, too.”
“You think we should accept the offer?”
“Yeah, but it’s not my business, so I wasn’t going to say anything.”
Rachel winced. “But how do I tell Andi?”
“You could stick a note into the Cupcake Diary,” Mike suggested.
“Andi would kill me. She’s got her heart set on keeping Creative Cupcakes, and together, she and Jake own half the shop’s business shares.”
“One-fourth of one-point-two million is three hundred thousand.” Mike gave her a mischievous grin. “With my salary and the extra money, we could move to Hollywood, closer to the studios I work for, and you wouldn’t have to work at all.”
“What would I do?” She pursed her lips as she considered. “Get my nails done? Shop for new furniture? Audition for a TV commercial?”
“We could start a family.” Mike brushed the side of her face with his finger. “Wouldn’t you like to be a mom?”
“I—I don’t know. I’d like to concentrate on the wedding first. You know, make sure I don’t trip down the aisle in my high heels and fall flat on my face.”
“If you trip, I’ll catch you,” Mike promised. “You know I will always be there for you.”
Even if she didn’t want kids right away? She loved Mia and had recently gotten to know Taylor, but she’d never done much babysitting. And changing dirty diapers was not her idea of fun.
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