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“I remember. Bailey said something about that at the garage yesterday.”
“Yup. It’s what I do. I make ice cream. I’m going to have my own shop one day, too. So, come on. Take it. Try some and you’ll see.”
It wasn’t as if he could say no. Just in case, Gloria widened her eyes, blinking slowly so that he couldn’t resist her baby blues. Franklin was obviously a bit of a grump, that much was sure, but he seemed to be a nice guy. No way he could resist.
He didn’t. Sure, he couldn’t hide his scowl, but he reached out, taking the bowl from her hands. He was gentle, easing the heavy glass container out of her grip. And if his rough, calloused hands accidentally bumped into hers? Gloria didn’t mind. She just hoped that, if the big mechanic caught her involuntary shiver at his accidental touch, he put it down to the cold and not her undeniable attraction to him.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” he said in that deep voice of his.
She shivered again.
This time, Franklin noticed.
“Ah, jeez. Look at me, leaving you out here to freeze. Come on in. I’ve got the fire going.”
He didn’t have to ask her twice. Since wrangling an invitation inside was exactly what Gloria had been after, she thanked him quickly, then moved past his bulk to slip inside before he thought better of it.
The inside of Franklin’s cabin was almost the exact opposite of Great Aunt Patti’s cabin. The first thing she noticed was the massive fire roaring in Franklin’s grate. The sight made her already nervous stomach lurch, and she moved away, glancing around the rest of his place.
There was a couch, a table, some chairs. No afghans. No television. And, she had to admit, not much color at all.
“It’s so… brown.”
He shrugged. “I like brown.”
He sure did. The couch was brown. The carpet was brown. The wooden table was stained brown, as were the chairs. On the walls—which were a tan color, so, you know, almost brown—he had a bronzed cross and a single photo framed.
It had to be his family, she decided. An older, tanned man with hair as dark as Bailey’s, a Franklin who was a couple of years younger than he was now, a Bailey in the middle of her awkward stages, and a pretty woman with fair skin and light blonde hair.
Other than those two things, there wasn’t a single decoration, tchotchke, knickknack set out in the whole front room. She wondered why, then figured he probably spent most of his time at work. When she owned her ice cream shop, she already planned on all but living there and, she remembered, his shop had been way more crowded than his home.
At least he had a pumpkin out at his garage.
Speaking of holiday decor—
“For the inside, sure. But what about the outside?” she asked after she finished taking in the sights of his bare cabin. “Are you going to decorate the front of your cabin like the rest of Hamlet?”
It was an honest question. During her travels over the last week, whether she was heading down to the coffeehouse for a pick-me-up and some company, or because she wanted to grab something from one of the big stores outside of Hamlet, she noticed something even more unusual about the unusual town.
Starting the day after Thanksgiving, every house in Hamlet that she passed was decorated for Christmas. And not just a string of lights here, or a blow-up Santa Claus wafting in the chilly breeze.
Nope. Not in Hamlet.
Each house was illuminated with the same bright white lights. If there was a tree on the property, that one had green lights. Electricity poles were wrapped in reflecting red ribbons. The front doors were covered in wrapping paper. There, there was a little variety. Gloria saw at least four different prints in use, but that was all.
She had to admit, it was kind of like Stepford, only Christmas-style.
When she mentioned it to Addy, the coffeehouse owner seemed confused. Turned out that, every Christmas, the whole town got together to plan the scheme and, by December 1st at the latest, everyone was expected to decorate as a community-wide event.
Franklin’s head jerked toward her. The scowl was back.
From the look on his face, Gloria was beginning to think everyone meant everyone except for Franklin Carter.
“We don’t do decorations on the mountains,” he said firmly. “That’s a gulleyside thing.”
Despite Sadie’s quick explanation that morning at the coffeehouse, it took a while before Gloria understood the strange way the townsfolk thought of Hamlet. The small town was completely shut off from the rest of the world by it’s two natural borders: the mountains toward the back and the big, deep pit that welcomed visitors toward the entrance into Hamlet. The locals called it a gulley—whatever that meant—so, obviously, the part of town was gulleyside.
Gloria and Franklin’s homes were considered part of the mountainside of town. Tucked in the mountains, past the woods and the dirt paths winding up through the trees, their part of Hamlet was a world away from the rest of the town.
