Page 69 of The Christmas Fix
Cat wasn’t interested in what couldn’t be done. She only had time for solutions. And walking this frozen mud pit had given her one hell of an idea for a solution. She just needed a welder and several extra thousand dollars in the budget.
She flexed her fingers in her fleece lined gloves. Winter had moved in and decided to never leave Merry from the feel of the wind as it bit through her layers.
“Okay, Lorenzo,” she sighed, already mentally calculating how to bring her new vision to life. “Don’t worry about this for now. What I do want to focus on is the river wall and the swale for drainage.”
They walked and talked, Lorenzo filling her in on their progress so far. That was one lucky thing about this damn hurricane and its timing. Cat had her pick of landscaping crews since it was between the demands of summer and the winter holiday decorating season. In less than a month, they’d cleared all the debris from the park and begun re-laying sidewalks that had met with unfortunate flood damage. Tons of mulch had already been distributed, and if they had to plant fake poinsettias and Christmas trees in the gutted flowerbeds, so be it.
Visitors to this year’s Christmas Festival would be getting an eyeful of freaking Christmas spirit if it killed her.
Lorenzo wrapped up his report, and Cat nodded with satisfaction. “You guys are killing it. Keep it up. I’ll make sure you get the new shooting schedule for the weekend.”
“Appreciate it,” Lorenzo nodded, his hands shoved in the pockets of his coveralls. He was a Mainer by birth, so twenty degrees felt balmy to him.
“Might as well take your guys home. Enjoy some family time,” she said, glancing at her watch. It was already three in the afternoon. Any other year, and she would have been holding her hands over her stomach and whining about how she shouldn’t have hit the stuffing so hard.
But not this year. Her mother was “throwing together” a Thanksgiving meal in the rental house. It wouldn’t be the same. Not without Nonni and everyone crowding around the dining table as they had for generations. But it was what they had to do if they wanted Merry to have the merriest Christmas to date.
Dinner at seven.
That would give her enough time for a quick shower and a chance to peruse the latest entries into the school location contest. Lorinda’s idea for the location contest had gone better than expected. Apparently, a trade school for women was big news. Cat had taken time out of her schedule two days ago to video chat with the hosts of a New York morning show about the initiative. In those forty-eight hours since, traffic to the website Henry had set up exploded. She even had a few applications for the school’s location already as well as dozens of information requests by potential students.
Cat flexed her fingers in her pockets as she headed back toward the street where her truck was parked. She could feel the momentum building. There was a point in every project where the flow seemed to take over. But she felt like Merry and the school were warring for her attention, and she wasn’t sure which one needed to take precedence.
If she were being honest with herself, Cat knew she was spreading herself too thin. She needed a little time off to recuperate, get her head on straight, and come back at both projects full steam. An outsider would suggest that she delegate. But when she was the one with the vision, it was too time-consuming trying to transfer that vision to someone else.
She hauled herself behind the wheel and cranked the heat. A little vacation would be nice. She closed her eyes and leaned against the head rest. Maybe a nice tropical island. White sand beaches. A hammock. A pink umbrella in her drink.
The knock on her window scared the hell out of her.
Drake was grinning at her. “Naptime?” he asked when she rolled down the window.
“Har. As if we have time.”
“Just wrapped shooting at Mrs. Pringle’s.” Paige had assigned Drake to Mrs. Pringle’s because the woman absolutely adored handsome men. Cat had seen some of the footage with the duo’s banter and agreed it had been a solid gold decision.
“How’s it coming?”
“Got the occupancy permit ten minutes ago,” Drake grinned.
“Awesome,” Cat sighed. They’d shoot a reveal at Mrs. Pringle’s and one at the diner this week. Despite the mountain of work yet to be done, they were on schedule. “Are you coming to dinner tonight?” she asked.
Drake’s family lived in sunny southern California, and due to the shooting schedule, he wasn’t able to join them this year.
He bobbed his head, grinned. “That was the plan. But something came up.”
“What came up?” If Paige or Jayla had tried to sneak in an extra scene to film on Thanks-fucking-giving Day, Cat was going to murder someone.
“I don’t know exactly what it is, but you and I have been invited to the fire station.”
“The fire station?” Cat repeated. She scrubbed a hand over her face. God, she was tired. She wanted a shower, a nap, and coffee, and then an entire vat of gravy. But if Merry’s firefighters wanted her there, she would be. Part of the success of her shows was that Cat made sure those towns knew they were important to her. She wasn’t just in town to smile for the cameras and then hide in her trailer. She had their backs. She wanted good things for them. That’s why people talked to her, opened up, shared things they wouldn’t necessarily share. It made for good TV and good karma.
“Okay. To the fire station. Want a ride?”
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Cat frowned at the cars lining the street outside Merry’s brick fire station. Half of the building was the oversized garage for the two trucks and ambulance that served the community. The other half was a two-story structure that housed the fire hall where community breakfasts and food drives were held. It was the heart of the community.
Cat wondered if they should add a food drive to the show.Maybe for the Christmas Eve park reveal? Merry giving back, paying it forward.
