Page 69 of The Christmas Blueprint

The mayor liked to look like the good guy, but he didn’t want to suffer to actually be one.

It wasn’t as if the mayor’s plan didn’t have merit. Creating more housing for Bear Creek would bring more people to the town, and they would shop and eat, but would they do that locally? The longer he worked with Sophia and listened to her dreams for Bear Creek, the more he found himself seeing the town through her eyes—the history, charm, community, independent businesses.

Sophia had finished her instructions and now circulated among the tables, laughing and chatting with participants and offering tips.

“I love the live music. It’s a nice touch,” he said when he joined her. He had to fight his impulse to lace his fingers with hers. “But I’m realizing we don’t have a Christmas tree in here.”

“Zhang says that we can go choose one from his property, but I’ve just been so busy. But we will have a wreath.” She smirked at him. “Or two, if you’d get busy and stop wandering around, sipping coffee, andpretendingto be busy.”

“I am busy,” he said. “Admiring you.”

“Right.” She laughed.

“Sophia,” he said, but stopped. The words just seemed too big. Too scary. Too real. And he wasn’t even sure he’d have a job when Jeffrey Bane saw what was happening.

A year.

The time now felt like a yoke rather than a comfort.

She waited. The silence stretched like taffy made in a shop in Cannon Beach.

“What you’ve started here, what you want to do—” He broke off. It wasn’t what he’d wanted to say, but it was true. “I’m impressed, Soph.”

“We’ve worked together,” she said. “You too have done so much, and we have barely scratched the surface.”

“I never imagined…” he said impulsively, but then Sophia’s mother and friends called her over to their table. She touched his hand with her fingertips and mouthed “sorry.” She left him standing in the center of the activity but not engaged in any of it.

My usual.

He planned but didn’t participate. But maybe he could change. It was almost a new year. It was a new job in an old town that felt new. Killian felt nearly buoyant with hope. Lakshmi was winding down her set. She invited Harlow up to the stage to sing with her, and Killian scrambled for his phone to video the event.

The barista steamed milk in accompaniment, and the conversations among the class participants muted. Lakshmi, still playing, stepped a little off center so Harlow could have the microphone.

Killian looked around the room. So much history. So much future waiting to unfold. This was his hometown. Zhang approached him, wanting to discuss a few things about the building. After Harlow’s first song, Killian grabbed his laptop and a rough set of blueprints that he’d been working on. He and Zhang walked around the building and up to the loft. Then they went outside to the patio to discuss how they could visually connect the two sites and whether they should.

“I like how innovative your plans are,” Zhang said. “And how flexible you’ve made the space.”

“A lot of the ideas were sparked by Sophia.”

“Maybe you can team up again for the rest of the complex,” Zhang said after a beat.

Killian felt a leap of excitement.

“Although such an extensive project will take far more than a year,” Zhang said carefully.

“Riley putting you up to this?”

“I love her,” he admitted. “And she wants her brother close, but I looked up your portfolio of work online and like your ideas that I’ve seen here, and I’d like to talk to you more. If I didn’t think you had the chops, I wouldn’t consider hiring you.”

They set up a meeting time next week at the site, and then Killian and Zhang returned to the Mill Market. His gaze immediately found Sophia, who was still talking to her mom and her friends.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the fizz of excitement. Was it only about the opportunity to work on a massive project as the chief architect, or was this more about Sophia—finally getting a chance with her?

And then like a villain in a melodrama, Jeffrey Bane walked into the building flanked by three of the planning commissioners who had ignored his earlier invitation.

“Cue the music of doom,” he said softly, heading over to greet them.

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