Page 13 of Christmas By The Book

She smiled slightly, and nodded. “Yeah, it is,” she replied. “It’s too big for just Mia and I, but I can’t... I can’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s where I grew up.”

“I get that,” I murmured. I might have been interested in seeing as much of the country as I possibly could, but I understood the appeal of laying down roots somewhere and calling that your home.

“Was she big on Christmas, your grandma?” I asked, once we had put in our orders—nothing too fancy, pasta and wine, but I was curious to see how this place stacked up to the authentic Italian places on the West Coast.

“I think she just saw it as an excuse to gift everyone in her life books.” She laughed fondly. “But yeah, I guess you could say she was. A lot of the decorations at the store are ones I inherited from her.”

“That’s really sweet,” I replied, and she lifted her gaze to meet mine, tipping her head to the side slightly.

“What about you?” she asked, turning the conversation around on me. “Was your family big on Christmas?”

parted my lips to respond, but before I could, someone approached the table. At first, I thought it was just the waiter with our drinks, but instead, to my surprise, I found a man a little older than us looming over our dinner. He had thinning hair and a knockoff suit, that might have looked expensive if you didn’t know any better, and I would guess that this guy was relying on people not knowing any better in a small town like this.

“Jorja,” he greeted her, planting his hand on the table in front of her. I bristled. What the hell did he think he was doing? Wasn’t it obvious that the two of us were out together? Date or not, we weren’t opening the floor to just anyone.

“What is it?” she asked him, her voice arched with irritation.

He raised his eyebrows at her, giving her a sleazy, patronizing smile.

“Hey, now, careful,” he warned her. “Or I might move up my offer by a few days.”

Her face paled, and I studied her expression, trying to get a feel for what was going on here. They seemed familiar with each other but not friendly. Was he an ex? I looked him up and down. He didn’t seem anywhere close to the kind of guy I would have pictured her with, but maybe her options were limited in this small town.

“What do you mean, move it up?” she demanded. I was totally lost here. No clue what was going on. I listened intently, trying to string together some kind of sense.

“One week, Jorja,” he told her, a warning tone to his voice. “That’s all you’ve got. And then, I want an answer. You understand me?”

She swallowed hard. I could see it, even from the other side of the table. I felt a surge of defensiveness, wanting nothing more than to get to my feet and tell this guy to leave us the hell alone, but I got the feeling he would look for some kind of fight if he could find one. I wasn’t the asshole who caused trouble if I could avoid it, and certainly not when she just seemed to want this encounter to be over.

He straightened up again, and shot a disdainful look at me before he backed off. She seemed to let out a breath as soon as he was gone, closing her eyes for a moment and gathering herself.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she told me, once she finally looked up at me again.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” I assured her. “Who was that guy?”

“Wharton,” she muttered, reaching for the wine as the waiter left it on the table. “If you don’t know about him yet, trust me, you will. He owns pretty much all of Mastin Falls.”

“Owns it?”

“He’s been buying up property all over the place for the last couple of years,” she explained. “And he walks around like he runs the town.”

“What was he talking to you about, though?” I wondered aloud. “Have the two of you worked together or something?”

“Or something,” she sighed. “He... he’s been skulking around the bookstore lately. He wants to buy it from me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “But you’re not going to sell it, right?” I asked. I hated the thought of that little place going to someone like him. Living in big cities the last few years, I had found myself craving those small places, those places with a little more character, that felt as though they filled the world with something unique and special. As soon as I walked into that bookstore, I had felt that, and I would be damned if I let it vanish into the hands of some asshole like that.

“I don’t want to,” she admitted. “But it’s not... I don’t know if I have a choice.”

“What are you talking about?”

As the food arrived, she filled me in on everything that was going on with her, everything that had left her feeling like she didn’t have a say in whether or not she sold the bookstore. This Wharton guy, he was a real piece of work, knowing the hard time she was having and yet using it against her. If he had the money to buy the bookstore, then he had the money to invest in it to help keep it open, but of course, he wasn’t willing to do anything like that. He was just interested in buying up as much of this town as he could, so he could walk around and feel like he was the one calling the shots.

“And now he’s put a deadline on it.” She sighed, as she took another sip of her wine. She had hardly touched her food, as though all of this conversation had made it impossible for her to eat. I couldn’t imagine how much stress she was under, how hard it must have been for her, knowing that she might be losing the one place that kept her connected to her family.

Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not a chance in hell.

“You don’t have to worry about that deadline,” I told her firmly. “We’ll get something figured out by then. Bring in some money, drum up some business—whatever it takes.”