Page 64 of The Christmas Blueprint

“I’ll take that as a compliment, and she’d probably wash out your mouth with some of my locally hand-crafted fragrant herbal soaps if you called her that, because she always wanted us to call her Gemma.”

“My mom was crazy—loca.” She smiled.

“She was smart and fun, and I’m happy to have a little of her mojo,” Sophia teased.

She saw Killian and David exit the coffee shop holding a tray of drinks, and David holding another couple of cups. Killian really was the epitome of a man—the way he looked, the way he moved, the way he stepped up for friends and family. She wished…no. She would just enjoy the time they had together.

“I hope to see you and at least a couple of your Bunko-playing friends at my wreath-making class.” She dragged her attention back to her mother.

“Of course,” her mom said. “I’ve been bragging to everyone, and we booked a table for our group of six. I thought if I didn’t come, you wouldn’t make me a wreath this year.”

Six. She hadn’t even looked at any new sign-ups. Good thing her panicked text to Maeve True, one of the “granddaughters” Elaine had adopted twenty-five years ago, had been answered affirmatively once Sophia had learned from Elaine that after years of working in New York, Maeve had arrived back home for an ‘extended visit.’ Elaine had made Maeve’s appearance sound mysterious, but Sophia had been too relieved to hear that Maeve had agreed to gather some greenery from the forested area on their farm and help out at the class tomorrow to question the good fortune and extreme potential change of life plans.

“You thought right,” she said. “And now I have to get back to work.” She eyed her two customers, who were looking at some hand-tooled leather belts a local former rodeo cowboy made along with exorbitantly expensive custom-ordered leather boots that were oh so worth it.

But instead, her attention snagged on Killian as he walked into the door.

Her mom was right to worry.

But Sophia was tired of playing it safe.

*

“This is areally great thing you are doing for Bear Creek’s downtown, Killian,” Elaine True said as she and her granddaughter, Maeve, hung up one of her paintings on one of the movable ‘walls,’ in the Mill Market. Killian had been at the hardware and feed store yesterday looking for supplies to add some visual interest to the building space since he didn’t have time to construct anything. He and Sophia had brainstormed many ideas, but until vendors actually rented space, he hadn’t known what, if anything, he should design or have constructed.

Sophia’s ‘we need it to feel authentic and organic but be flexible’ had echoed in his head all week, and he’d wandered around the mostly empty garden center of Rogue Valley Tools and Feed in a daze until he’d stopped by a pallet of garden fencing out back. The six-foot by ten-foot panels had been a galvanized metal grid framed by unfinished wood. They brightened up the space, and made it seem less cavernous for the open house and wreath-making class tomorrow.

“I haven’t done anything yet.” Killian pushed another table into place and locked the casters.

“You’re doing it right now,” Elaine said in her usual acerbic style as she looked around.

Riley and her crew had strung party lights between the beams over the past couple of days to brighten up the building. At his own expense, Killian had rented a small stage, and after reaching out to a couple of local churches and schools, he’d secured a few children’s choirs who would sing some Christmas carols at the open house after the wreath-making class. That would at least bring in some families to hear their kids sing.

Sophia had arranged for a local musician, home from college, to play some jazz standards on her upright bass and sing during the class. Lakshmi had already come by with a friend, and they’d set up two borrowed birch tree lights from Riley and a screen behind her and a themed PowerPoint that incorporated the history of the mill and the town. She still had the file saved from a project she’d done as a high school junior in her economics class where she’d examined the impact the closing of the mill had had on the town economically and socially and culturally.

Even without the sound, the video was powerful, but Lakshmi had edited in present-day pictures of the town decorated for Christmas “so that it’s not depressing and has some holiday cheer.” Lakshmi smiled at him, white ball on her Santa hat bobbing. With her red sequined dress and sparkling Doc Marten boots, she was pretty festive, but he’d added a couple more space heaters, worried the musician would be hypothermic in that outfit.

I’m acting like a dad to everyone under twenty now.

Harlow was buzzing with excitement talking to Lakshmi, who showed her her bass and how to make the music. Only double her age and Harlow would be like Lakshmi, with her own interests and life possibly far from home. For the first time, Killian realized how much Hunter had missed.

And Killian would miss everything if he didn’t stop chasing some nebulous sense of accomplishment and make a stand somewhere. Build a life.

He looked around what they’d achieved in a week and a half. Could he make his life and his career in Bear Creek? Would that feel like a failure? Would Sophia be able to see him as a man, not Enrique’s friend?

He needed space and time to think. He and Sophia were flying by the seat of their jeans, scrambling for ideas and to book a few things all in one week during one of the busiest times of the year. Luckily, Southern Oregon was fairly rural and winter was the calm before the storm in the agricultural industries—animals weren’t birthing, vines were dormant and not yet needing to be pruned, and most fields were fallow.

He’d worked late each night, Harlow happily helping until she’d sleepily climb back into the Airstream and fall asleep on the back bed, leaving him to squeeze his large frame on the small couch. He felt guilty, as Harlow didn’t have the stability Hunter had wanted, some nights sleeping in the trailer, others at Riley’s, but she seemed happy and he’d been able to finish six of the tables with David and a couple of his construction friends’ help and attached casters to all the legs.

Sophia had secured a latte cart so that guests could order hot chocolates or holiday coffee drinks along with handmade chocolates from a vendor.

“It looks incredible,” Maeve True said, jumping down off the stepladder she’d been using to hang a few of her grandmother’s rooster paintings and stepping back to take in the room as a whole. She’d arrived home only yesterday, and her grandmother had immediately drafted her into community service. “Those moving panels were a stroke of genius,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this, but yet it’s so basic, I probably have walked by garden or chicken coop fencing like this a million times.”

“Me too. I went to the Rogue Valley Feed and Tool store feeling like I’d bitten off way more than I could chew and then there was just the huge stack of these panels getting snowed on in the outside storage yard with the livestock feeders.”

“Another stroke of genius,” Elaine said. “These make great planters, and with the locking casters on everything, you have total flexibility of style. You can switch out the plantings for the season or for a new look, and in this valley, the feed store is never going to be out of them so the business tenants can decorate their spaces how they want, but there’s still a continuity of theme.”

Maeve pushed her short dark bob out of her face.

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