Chapter 1
“I’m back!” Joanne Truman called from the back room of the Christmas shop. She closed the outside door behind her, pausing at the sight of Christmas in motion. Hundreds of dazzling lights twinkled in schemes from cool blues and silvers to warm cardinal, burgundy, and gold. There were trees dripping in silver icicles, trees decorated with miniature toys, trees decorated with gingerbread people. Carols were playing and the air was scented with cinnamon and spice. Surrounded by two girls she loved and radiant trees and ornaments that made the shop resemble the inside of a jewelry box, she soaked up the lights and the joy.
A handful of customers browsed in the store, one of the few places in town open this late. Jo could tell that the customers—an elderly couple and a group of women in ski parkas—were visitors in Woodstock. She pretty much knew everyone from these parts.
“Deck the halls with balls of holly,” five-year-old Ava sang.
Jo grinned, loving the chipmunk quality of her daughter’s voice.
“Follow lama la, la, la, la, la ...” Ava stared intently through the long strands of her gold bangs as she straightened the gold threads of the wooden ornaments she was hanging on a low rack.
Toting a plastic bin from the back room, Jo paused by her daughter. “Honey, that’s
boughs
of holly.”
Ava frowned up at her. “Holly doesn’t bow.”
“It’s different, like a tree bough.”
“Balls sounds better. See what I did, Mommy?”
“Good job. Looks like you need a haircut, lovey.”
“Nope.” She held up a carousel horse and hung it on the peg with the others. Since the shop’s opening last year, Ava had enjoyed helping out, and Jo was glad to have her daughter close for the portion of the day she spent here.
Jo brushed Ava’s bangs back and headed to the front of the store, smiling as Ava crooned along with the music.
“Opening this shop was the best idea I ever had.” Jo plunked the plastic bin on the glass countertop beside her cousin Molly.
“Mm-hmm.” Molly didn’t look up from the register tape and calculator as she tallied the day’s sales. “But as I remember it, Cousins’ Christmas Shop was my idea.”
“It was your idea to pack everything we own and head west till we ran out of highway,” Jo pointed out, untangling the hooks of three snowman ornaments dripping with white glitter.
“Ay-yuh. I remember now. You’re the homebody who refuses to leave this cursed place.”
“That’s right. This is my home. And now it’s Ava’s home, too.”
“We’ll see about that. Once I finish nursing school and get a real paying job in Manchester or Boston, you’ll be calling me and begging me to get you out of Dodge.”
“Nope. We’ve got roots here. We’re staying put.” Jo balled up her jacket and stuffed it under the register. She’d run across the street to help out at Woodstock Station, the restaurant inside the inn, for the dinner rush. Waitressing wasn’t one of her regular gigs, but as her dad managed the place, she was willing and able to help out in a pinch.
“So, what did I miss?”
Molly bit her lip as her fingers tapped the calculator pads. “Earl came over, busting his buttons with delight. He’s gotten loads of comments about those two trees we did for him.” Earl Camden, owner of the Woodstock Inn, had paid them generously to decorate trees for the library and the lobby of the inn. “He was so impressed, he ordered two more for the Riverside and Cascade House.”
“Yes!” Jo slapped her cousin five. “God bless that man.”
“This town would be lost without Earl and the inn.” Molly’s brown eyes were sincere behind her black-framed glasses. “I hate the name ‘Black Friday,’ but I’m sure glad that Christmas shopping season has started. Do you know we sold five decorated trees today?”
“Really?” That alone would make this season profitable for them. “Well, Merry Christmas to us,” Jo said as the brass horns sounded the intro to “What Child Is This?”
“Dave needs to deliver three of them. Two to the condos by Loon, and one to Pete’s Pizza in Lincoln. The other two Earl is going to pick up himself.”
“Fantastic.” Hands on her hips, Jo walked through the rows of decorated trees, pointing to the ones marked with SOLD tags, which would need to be replaced.
“I see we have some decorating in our future. I wonder what time Target opens ...”
“Psst!” Molly put up a hand to stop her. “Don’t give away our trade secrets. Besides, it’s Black Friday. The big stores are probably open twenty-four-seven from now till Christmas.”
As if on cue, the bells on the door jingled and a woman in an elegant velvet-trimmed cap appeared. She waved in a boy who looked to be around Ava’s age, maybe a year or two older.
“Now stay close to Mommy,” she warned him.
The boy proceeded to turn away and disappear behind a tree decorated with Victorian fans and glittering ornaments in silver and lavender.
“Jason ...” She fetched him from the aisle and pulled him toward the front of the store. “Stay here, where I can see you.” She turned to the counter. “Sorry.”
“No worries,” Molly insisted. “They’ve all got minds of their own.”
Jason meandered to the streetfront window, where ornaments, Christmas clocks, and novelties sat on staggered levels of gold, satiny cloth. Jo and Molly had built the display from a tablecloth with old books propped underneath, and, although the materials were cheap, Jo thought the final product, accented with red and gold ribbon and red balls suspended from fishing line, looked rich and quite grand.
“Look, Mom. A snow globe.”
Joanne looked up from the bin of tangled ornaments to watch the little boy reach into the shop’s window for the display item.
Everyone loved the snow globe.
Large enough to contain a person’s dreams, yet small enough to hold in your hands, the globe looked down on the main street of Woodstock, New Hampshire, where the gabled Woodstock Inn sat next to the old firehouse that had been converted into an annex of rooms for the inn. Across the street, one of the shops had been carefully labeled COUSINS’ to match the shop where Joanne and Molly sold Christmas novelties all year round. Behind the storefronts arose a tiny version of the White Mountains, white peaks speckled with green trees.
“Lovely,” the woman said, leaning over her son. “But you have to hold it still a second and let the snow settle. See? There’s the inn where we’re staying. And this is the shop we’re in now.”
“Cool.” The boy’s mouth ruffled in a pout as he stared at the globe, then began shaking it again.
“Jason, what did I say? You need to put it down.” Tension tugged down the woman’s voice, but her son turned away from her, hogging the globe.
Joanne was about to intervene when her daughter stepped out from behind the candy cane tree.
“Hey, that’s not a toy.” Though she was only five and thin as a string of licorice, Ava the disciplinarian could pack a wallop.
“I know.” The boy looked down at her defiantly, but he held the globe securely now.
“I’ll take that.” The woman swept the snow globe out of his hands.
“Can we get it, Mom? Please?”
The woman tilted the globe so that the white snowflakes danced to the side. “I suppose so.” She put it on the counter without checking the price. Which always floored Jo. Didn’t she care whether it was a value or an extravagance? It was like shopping with a blindfold on.
“We can get the snow globe if you promise not to touch anything else in the store,” the kid’s mother said.
“That sounds like a tall order.” Jo came around the counter and crouched to be on the little boy’s level. “You may be interested in some of our toy ornaments. Do you like cars?”
He nodded eagerly.
Ava threw up her arms dramatically. “I’ll show him where they are! Come on.” And the two kids headed toward the back wall.
The woman turned to Jo. “Toys are just what he needs right now. We’ve been sitting on the interstate forever, and he’s not too happy about having to leave home this weekend.”
“It’s hard for kids,” Jo said as she went back to her bin of sorting. “Are you visiting family here?”
“Oh, no. My husband is here on business, and we decided to make it a family trip since it is Thanksgiving weekend.” Even under the hat, which was too frou-frou for Jo’s tastes, the woman radiated beauty, with eyes that sparkled like sapphires, and porcelain white skin.
“Well, I hope he enjoys his weekend in Woodstock.” Molly glanced up from her notepad. “If we get some more snow, that’ll be fun for the kid.”
“Can I help you find something?” Jo asked.
“No, thanks. I think I’ll just browse ... and I want to check out your toy ornaments myself. Last year Jason and his dad pulverized a few of our glass ornaments with the Nerf gun he got for Christmas.”
“Our toy ornaments are kid-proof,” Molly said as the woman headed toward the back of the store. The older couple brought a basket of items to the counter for Jo to ring up.
“Have a Merry Christmas,” Jo said as the couple left with their purchases.
The door bells were still jingling when Molly tapped Jo’s shoulder and pointed to a number on her notepad, circled three times. “Would you look at that? Better than I thought.”
Jo’s heart leaped at the number. They had never had a thousand-dollar day, let alone two thousand.
“Are you sure?”
Molly nodded. “I’m telling you, it was a stroke of brilliance to start selling entire decorated trees.”
“Wow ...” They could pay their rent on the shop for the next three months and still have money left for groceries and gas, rent and heat.
“I might just up and quit my job on the mountain.” In the past two weeks, Joanne had been working nights at the ski resort, cleaning floors and bathrooms in the off-hours after the resort closed. Though she didn’t mind the work, the job made her miss Ava’s bedtime, which broke her heart.
“Go for it. If things keep up, I’ll have enough to take a full course load next semester. I’ll be Meredith Grey before you know it.”
“Isn’t she a doctor?” Jo asked.
“Whatever.” Molly pumped her fists in slow motion, dancing behind the counter to “Jingle Bell Rock.”
“Next year, this time, you’ll be coming to Boston to visit me in my new life.”
“A very short visit. I hate to be away from Woodstock at Christmas,” Jo said.
“But you’d come to see me, your BFF.”
It was true. In their tight-knit family, she and Molly had been best friends since their mothers threw them into the same playpen in diaper days. Molly’s desire to leave Woodstock was a thorn in Jo’s side. Almost finished getting her nursing license, Molly was eager to get out of Woodstock and put down roots in a place where one job would pay the rent.
Jo was sometimes amazed at what opposites they were, since she couldn’t imagine living anywhere but here. Of course, as a single parent, she needed to live near her family, and you couldn’t get much closer than the apartment across the lane from your parents’ house. The setup in the old carriage house was good for child care and easy on the budget—not so good for actually moving on with life. She never thought that when she turned twenty-five, her mum would still be doing her laundry. Correction—her laundry
and
her kid’s, too.
“You work hard all day,” her mother always said. “I’m happy to help out where I can.” When it came to Ava, Mum and Dad were great. But sometimes Jo felt like her best wasn’t good enough. Could you ever spend enough time with your kid?
“Hello?” Molly snapped her fingers in front of Jo’s face. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“I was just thinking of how much Ava and I will miss you when you’re down in Boston next year, drinking wicked strong candy cane cosmos.”
“What? You think I’m a party animal?” Molly snatched a fuzzy mouse with a Santa cap from the bin and launched it at her cousin.
Laughing, Jo caught the little mouse and was about to wing it back when the elegant woman appeared amid the lit trees.
“Need some help?” Molly asked.
The woman reached into her Coach bag and removed a slender card case. “It’s so hard to choose. I think we’re probably just better off taking the whole tree—the one with the Matchbox cars on it. We’re renting the Cascade House for the next few months, and it could use some decorating. Do you know it?”
“Sure.” Jo shrugged. Everyone in these parts knew the Cascade House. Built as a millionaire’s mansion in the early 1900s, it had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast by the Seidel family. “But don’t Teddy and Laura have their own tree?”
She waved the question off. “You can never have enough Christmas, right? The sign says you make deliveries?”
“Sure thing.” Jo took the woman’s credit card, which read
Clarice Diamond,
and tallied up her purchases. The total was another substantial sale, which increased even more when Ms. Diamond said she would toss in another hundred dollars to have the tree delivered tonight. Clarice Diamond said the lodge they were renting was dark and dreary, and it would help brighten the place up.