Christmas in Harmony Harbor

by Debbie Mason

  “Lad, come here for a sec, would you?” Seamus didn’t wait for Caine to respond, tugging him by the arm out of earshot. She didn’t need to be able to hear him to know Seamus was doing his best to convince his nephew to take the bet.

  Evie glanced at the crowd from under her lashes and wondered how she’d face her friends and customers after tonight. They probably thought she’d lost her mind. Her mother certainly would, especially if she found out Evie had refused Caine’s latest offer.

  At that moment, the man in question threw up his hands as though admitting defeat and walked back to her. Evie’s heart began to race. From behind him, Seamus gave her a grin and a thumbs-up. She thought she might faint from relief.

  And maybe because she’d closed her eyes and rested her head against the bulldozer, Caine actually thought she’d fainted because he yelled while coming to kneel at her side, “Get the bloody paramedics over here now.”

  “I’m fine,” Evie said, hugging his coat tight.

  “You are stubborn, contrary, impulsive, and foolish, but the one thing you are not, Ms. Christmas, is fine. Now give me the key.”

  “I can’t. I lost it.”

  He held back a sigh and called for a pair of bolt cutters, then said to her, “Give me my coat so I can get a look at the chain.”

  “Not until you tell me we have a bet.”

  “You do realize that I could take my coat from you if I wanted to?”

  “Yes, but you won’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because while you are arrogant, controlling, bullheaded, and cynical, you are also a gentleman, Mr. Elliot.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Is that so?”

  “It is.” She withdrew her chained hand from under his coat. “Do we have a bet?” she asked, the metal links rattling as she offered him her hand.

  * * *

  “Yes. We have a bet, Ms. Christmas,” he said, enfolding her hand in his. His was cold, hers was colder. The tips of her fingers were turning blue. He didn’t know who he was angrier at, himself or her. “There were easier ways to get my attention, you know. Like a phone.”

  “Would that have worked?” she asked as he clasped her hand with both of his, lowering his mouth to warm her fingers with his breath.

  “No.” He lifted his gaze to hers as he continued to blow on her hand.

  She smiled at his admission. He tried to think of something to make her stop, but that would mean putting the look back in her eyes that he’d seen when he’d first arrived. So he glanced over his shoulder to break a connection he didn’t want to acknowledge or feel.

  It would only make it worse when he won her silly bet. And he would win. After all, how hard could it be to fulfill three wishes from an angel tree? He’d have his assistant at his Boston office do the shopping. A mother of three, she’d know better than him what the children wanted.

  His hope was to have his angel-tree assignment over and done with before his grandmother caught wind of what was going on. She wouldn’t be suspicious if he was in Harmony Harbor for a day or two. She’d basically told him to drop everything in order to focus on Greystone Manor.

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave, he thought when Marco and Liam Gallagher walked their way. Liam was a firefighter as well as Marco’s best friend.

  Liam nodded at him, then knelt beside Evangeline. “How are you doing, Evie? Paramedics had another call. We’re both certified, Elliot,” he said to Caine, answering the question he’d been about to ask. He’d also answered another one.

  Liam knew who he was, knew he was the CEO of the company who for the past few years had been making a play for Greystone Manor. If not for last summer, when Caine had put up the ransom money for Liam’s wife and children, the other man’s reception might have been chillier. Caine’s friendship with the woman walking over to join them probably helped too.

  “Are we all good here?” Theia asked.

  “Wonderful,” Ms. Christmas said, and despite her lips turning blue, she gave Theia a smile that suggested the owner of Holiday House believed she would win their bet handily.

  Which made Caine wonder if maybe, just maybe, he should have done his due diligence the same as he would have for any deal. He brushed the thought aside. Evangeline owned a Christmas store. She wasn’t some Fortune 500 executive with years of negotiating experience or a master manipulator like his grandmother. He had nothing to worry about, nothing at all.

  “Really? Well, that’s, ah, awesome.” Theia gave him a go, you look, which was better than the looks she’d been giving him over the last couple of hours.

  “Yes, Mr. Elliot and I have a bet,” Evangeline said, and then proceeded to share with them exactly what their deal entailed while Marco attempted to break the chain with the bolt cutters.

  Caine should have had her sign a confidentiality agreement, he thought when the two men and Theia started to laugh.

  “I’m sure it won’t be as easy as it sounds,” he said, feeling a little sorry for Evangeline.

  Liam, Marco, and Theia laughed harder, and Ms. Christmas didn’t look like the three of them making fun of her idea to save Holiday House was bothering her in the least. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, she was holding back her own laughter.

  He turned to look at his uncle, who was rocking back and forth on his boots, hands in his pockets, whistling “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” while keeping his gaze averted from Caine.

  “Obviously I’m missing something. Would one of you care to enlighten me?” He motioned for Marco to hand him the bolt cutters after the firefighter’s second failed attempt.

  “Evie’s angel tree is famous for bringing the true meaning of the holidays to both giver and receiver,” Liam told him.

  Other than sounding a bit twee, Caine didn’t understand why they’d been laughing. Unless they’d guessed at his feelings toward the holidays. “Well, then, it looks like I’ll get in the holiday spirit early. The stores must be decorated by now, right? Carols playing on the sound systems,” he said as he opened the bolt cutters to fit them around the chain. At Evangeline’s nervous glance, he added, “Don’t worry. I have plenty of experience.”

  “Uh, Caine, you do know that the wishes on the angel tree aren’t something money can buy, right?” Theia asked.

  “What?” His grip on the cutters slipped, and Evangeline gave a panicked yip as the blade slid toward her hand. “Sorry.” He corrected his grip and snapped the thick chain in half. Then, handing the bolt cutters back to Marco, he reached out to help Evangeline to her feet. “Now, perhaps someone would care to explain this to me: What exactly is an angel-tree wish?”

  “Babe, why don’t you tell Caine about the angel wish you have to fulfill?” Marco suggested with a grin.

  “I, um, got Marco’s grandmother. Rosa DiRossi,” Theia said.

  “And…” Caine motioned for her to continue.

  “I have to help her bake her Christmas cookies this year.”

  Okay, that didn’t sound so bad. Except. “You don’t bake,” he said to Theia.

  “She will after her weekend baking sessions with Rosa.”

  “You have to do this for more than one day?” Caine said.

  “She’ll be baking right up until the twenty-third, won’t you, babe?” Marco grinned as he slid an arm around Theia’s shoulder. “They have to make two hundred and fifty dozen. Rosa’s big on tradition. She has a dozen kinds of cookies she makes every year, and she has a lot of people on her Christmas list.”

  “What’s your angel-tree wish?” Caine asked Marco, thinking it was just Theia’s bad luck she got a difficult one.

  “One per family. Theia took care of ours this year. Liam got one though. Tell him about Mrs. Whittaker’s wish, bro.”

  Liam sighed. “I have to decorate Mrs. Whittaker’s house with her.”

  Since Caine figured that would take a couple of hours at most, he considered offering to take Mrs. Whittaker’s wish as one of his, until Marco said, “Yeah, Mrs. Whittaker
is big into crafts. She has a list as long as my arm of decorations she and Liam are going to make, doesn’t she, bro?”

  Caine looked at Evangeline, who avoided his gaze. She waved to the thinning crowd. They’d begun to disperse moments after he’d cut the chain. “Thanks for all the support, guys,” she called to her fans, and then handed him his coat. “Thank you. I think I’ll just go in now and warm up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You will indeed. Ms. Christmas,” he called as she turned to walk away with Theia. “You should probably know that I have yet to lose a bet.”

  “You’ve never made one with me, Mr. Elliot.”

  Chapter Seven

  Colleen had waited all night for Theia to return to her room, but she’d arrived home only twenty minutes ago. And while she didn’t begrudge her great-granddaughter spending time with her fiancé…

  “You’re as bad as Jasper,” Colleen said as Theia now frantically searched the tower room for Colleen’s memoir. “Love hijacked your good sense. You left the book in plain sight, and Clio’s a nosy one, not to mention a bookworm who loves old things. She couldn’t resist taking a peek while she cleaned the room.”

  And a peek was all it took to pique the child’s interest. The calculating smile that had come over Clio’s face when she was only a few pages into The Secret Keeper of Harmony Harbor made Colleen nervous. “It could have been far worse though. Caine could have been the one to abscond with my book, and then we’d be in a right mess,” Colleen said to Theia, who didn’t give any indication she could hear her.

  Colleen lay down beside her on the floor as Theia searched under the bed for the book. “You’ll not find it there,” she yelled in her great-granddaughter’s ear. “Clio’s got the book in her room.”

  Theia jerked, banging her head on the bedframe. “Really? You couldn’t do your woo-woo thing when I was upright and away from hard objects? Your timing sucks, GG,” she said, rubbing the back of her head.

  “Ah, T, there’s no one here but me?”

  Colleen and Theia yelped in unison, both hitting their heads on the bedframe, only Colleen’s passed through it. She turned her head to see Caine coming out of the closet to crouch near the bed.

  “You knowing how to move unseen about the manor worries me, my boy. It makes me wonder what else you know about our secret passageways and hidey-holes,” Colleen murmured as the lad helped a grumbling Theia from under the bed. “My, but you’re a handsome devil though. You take after your grandfather, my son Ronan, you know. His eyes were the same vivid blue as yours, and in his youth his hair was the same raven’s-wing black.”

  She moved closer to study him, this man who was one of hers. “Your intelligence shines from your eyes. You’re smart like him. Too smart for your own good at times, I’d wager. He was the same. Charming when you want to be, no doubt. Just like Ronan. That boy of mine turned the ladies’ heads, let me tell you. He caused Patrick and me many a sleepless night wondering if he’d ever settle down. He loved Kitty but chafed at the idea of being tied down. I’m sorry your grandmother got caught up in all that, my boy. Sorry I found out about your da too late. He’d been long since gone when I learned of his existence. The private investigator I hired said it was like you’d ceased to exist after his death. He’d surmised that you had died too.”

  “Where is it? And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Theia said to Caine as she brushed the dust from her white shirt and blue jeans.

  “It’s not the lad. It’s Clio. She was too busy snooping about to get her housekeeping duties done,” Colleen said, at the moment wishing Theia would let it go. The less Caine knew about Colleen’s missing memoir the better.

  “What I’d really like to know is who you were talking to. Who’s…? Wait a sec. GG stands for great-grandmother, doesn’t it?” He started to laugh. “You can’t be serious. You were talking to Colleen Gallagher? Your dead great-grandmother.”

  “I know who she is, and she’s also your great-grandmother. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what she was trying to tell me.”

  “No, lass.” Colleen leaned into Theia to once again yell in her ear. “Clio. I was saying Clio, not Caine.”

  Theia rubbed her ear. “Okay, I hear you.”

  “Sit down, T. Sit down right now,” Caine said, looking worried. “I’m not fooling around. This could be serious.”

  “No coulds about it. It’s big-time serious. Colleen’s memoir is missing, and there are things in The Secret Keeper of Harmony Harbor that could be dangerous if they got out.”

  “Now you’ve gone and done it. He’ll be after it for sure,” Colleen groused.

  “I don’t care about the book. I care about you. How long have you been hearing voices?” He lightly pushed Theia onto the bed and then sat beside her.

  “I’m not losing my mind, Caine. I don’t hear her all the time. Just once in a while, and only in this room.”

  “You know how crazy that sounds, right?”

  “Of course I do, but you know me. I’m not given to crazy. The twins, my nephews, they can both see her and hear her.”

  “Then you should all be checked out. Immediately. This isn’t something to be made light of. Old homes are nothing more than mold’s petri dish.”

  Colleen frowned at the lad, wondering what he was so worked up about.

  “Have you been dizzy, having headaches? This is important,” he said when Theia stared at him. “If you won’t do anything about it, I will.” He pulled out his phone and punched in a number.

  “Caine, what are you—” Theia began.

  He held up a finger. “Caine Elliot here. I want a crew at Greystone Manor today. No, next week isn’t good enough. I want a team here within the hour. Cost doesn’t matter. Good. I want a full report before the end of the week. This week, yes. Black mold. All right. Thanks.”

  “I don’t understand. What are you doing?” Theia asked.

  But right then it made a sad sort of sense to Colleen. Killian, Caine’s father and her grandson, had died of complications from lung disease. According to the medical records the private investigator had found, the true culprit in Killian’s death was long-term exposure to black mold.

  “I’m having a crew come in to check air quality and to inspect the manor from top to bottom for mold. And I’m taking you to the clinic. They can do a simple blood test. It shouldn’t take longer than—”

  “Okay. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with you, but I’m not sick. I’ve never felt better. And you can’t just have a bunch of people come in here looking for mold. It’s a hotel, Caine. You can’t…Wait a minute. Is this part of a plan to bankrupt the manor so you can swoop in and get it on the cheap?”

  “No, and I’m shocked and a little hurt you would suggest such a thing. I’m just trying to keep you safe. Please, let me do this.”

  “It’s not up to me. It’s up to Kitty, Jasper, and Sophie, the manager.”

  “Fine. I’ll take care of it.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.”

  “Right, because you have someone on the inside to do your bidding. You didn’t think I knew that, did you? You forget who you’re dealing with. I figured out Jasper was your informant last summer.”

  If Colleen’s heart were still beating, it would have stopped. Jasper had turned against her? Against them? She felt faint and walked to the bed to sit down. Her mind not working as it should, she sat on Caine and went through him to the mattress.

  He shuddered and looked around. She moved to sit beside him. Caine frowned and patted where she sat. The furrow in his brow deepening, he stood up, turning to the bed with his hands on his hips.

  “You sense me here, don’t you, laddie?” She would have taken some pleasure in that had she not suffered a blow to end all blows.

  “Why are you looking at the bed like that?” Theia asked.

  “I…” He lifted his hand to shove his fingers through his dark hair. “No reason. N
ow are you going to tell me why you summoned me to the manor this morning?”

  “The book.” Theia got up and walked to the desk. “Colleen’s memoir was right here when we left last night. I showed it to you, remember? The Secret Keeper of Harmony Harbor. It’s a brown, leather-bound book.”

  “Are you sure it’s missing?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve searched everywhere. And don’t freak out on me again, but I’m pretty sure Colleen was trying to tell me you have it.”

  Colleen was too heartbroken by Jasper’s defection to get up once more to yell Clio’s name in Theia’s ear.

  “I wish I did have it, but I don’t. If you’d stop and think about it for a minute, you’d remember that I was headed for the door when you went for your coat, and I was halfway down the stairs when you closed the door behind you.”

  Theia clutched her bottom lip between her teeth while looking up at the ceiling. “You’re right. It happened just like you said.” She cocked her head. “Hey, why didn’t you freak out this time when I said Colleen was trying to tell me you have the book?”

  “Because he might not hear me, but he knows I’m here. Don’t you, lad? Now the question is, will you share that with your best friend?”

  “You told me not to freak out.”

  Theia raised her eyebrows at him.

  “All right. I felt something odd when I was sitting on the bed. Like a presence. And the temperature dropped about ten degrees. You felt it too, didn’t you?”

  Despite being disheartened about Jasper and the part Caine had played in his defection, Colleen was pleased the lad hadn’t lied to Theia. In her book, it spoke well of him, especially because men typically had a more difficult time believing in something they couldn’t see or at the very least admitting to it.

  “I honestly didn’t notice. I guess I’m just so used to it now.”

  He looked back at the bed. “Does she visit you often?”

  “I’m not sure she ever leaves. Why don’t we ask her?”

  “Okay, you’ve had your fun now. I’ll just—”