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“What?” Mia asked. “He made a mistake and wanted to make it right. It was the responsible thing to do.”
“Oh, I’ll bet he wanted to make it right all right,” Margaret murmured over the brim of her mug.
Mia sighed. She should have known these ladies wouldn’t let her skip talking about her weekend with Alex, especially after Nosey Nelly who lived next door had likely been giving them all the play-by-play.
“Replacing my tree was very kind of him. Now, can we get back to discussing the real reason I asked you all here?”
“Are you going to see him again?”
Leave it to Aunt Faye to ask the one question she couldn’t dodge.
“Maybe.” Mia eyed the group, each now wearing silly grins. “There, happy now?”
“Not until he comes riding in on his noble steed to carry you off,” Margaret said. “Figuratively, of course. I don’t want you moving away and let some young yahoo move in next door.”
Mia looked to the ceiling, silently pleading for strength from above. “No one’s moving, and no noble steeds are headed this way. Now, next order of business: we need a new fundraiser idea for our bookstore event in two weeks.”
“What’s wrong with the ornament idea?” Barbara asked, frowning.
“Books-A-Plenty stole Mom’s idea,” said Brooklyn. “And is doing it on the Same. Day. As. Ours.”
Gasps rang out.
“Can they do that?” Robyn asked. “Steal your idea?”
“They can do whatever they want,” Mia said. “There’s no law against poaching someone else’s good idea, underhanded as it may feel. But since we’ve done the same thing the past five years, I suppose now is as good a time as any to try something new.”
“But everyone loves decorating their own ornaments,” Gina said. “Young and old.”
“I know, and I hate the idea of changing, but unless we go and rob South Bend of their stash so they can’t do the event, we’ve got to come up with something else that can still bring people to the bookstore and be family-friendly.”
“You know my vote,” Margaret said. “I’ll drive the getaway vehicle.”
Del gave her a fist bump.
“No stealing,” Mia warned.
“Spoiled sport,” Margaret grumbled.
“What about cookie decorating?” Barbara asked. “We could bake a couple hundred sugar cookies, freeze them until the day of the event, and then let families buy and decorate as many as they want.”
Mia shook her head. “The elementary school’s already doing that event the Friday before.”
“How about an all-male revue?” Margaret asked. “Maybe your new man could be the feature act.”
This time it was Robyn who leaned forward to share a fist bump with her.
Brooklyn frowned and leaned closer to her aunt. “What’s an all-male revue?”
Del whispered the answer, and Brooklyn made a face. “Eww, you want that at our bookstore?”
“Absolutely not,” Mia said.
Del laughed. “Fine. What about wreath decorating? We could probably even cut some small branches for kids to decorate.”
“I’m voting no on that idea. We’d have sap and pine needles everywhere,” Aunt Faye said. “We need something less messy. If only we could do story time and sell a few hundred gallons of hot chocolate.”
“Or host another talent show,” Del said.
