Page 1 of Grinch Girl

Chapter One

Oh crap. Thisguy again.

Smoothing the front of my waitressing apron over my jeans, I grabbed the coffeepot from the burner and reluctantly made my way to the two-top the hostess just sat in my section.

The ruddy-faced, bleary-eyed occupant of the table was blabbing loudly into his cell phone, dropping very loud F-bombs in spite of the fact that a family with two toddlers was sitting right next to him.

Apparently, this dude was just as annoying at the breakfast table as he’d been last night pounding vodka shots in the resort bar.

The Grand Vienna Resort was a few towns over from mine, about a forty-minute drive. It was a huge place that drew in tourists year-round because of their convention center, spa, manmade ski hill, stables, and indoor water park. I didn’t work here year-round, but turning down holiday tips wasn’t something I could afford to do, so I picked up the phone when they called yesterday. Over the past several years, it had become something of a sad Thanksgiving-week tradition.

Gritting my teeth, I approached his table to offer him coffee. Last night he’d tried everything he could think of to lure me back to his hotel room—including throwing a wad of cash on the bar—as though sex could be ordered just like the multiple baskets of hot wings he’d eaten.

Ugh, why had I taken the morning shift too? The quarterly meeting of my town’s Small Business Association wasn’t until two p.m., and I didn’t need to open the shop until four. I had noGeek Squad appointments lined up today, and since I’d worked a shift until close last night, I should have just stayed home this morning. I should have taken advantage of a perfectly rare little window of time in which I could have lounged in bed, watching TV and drinking my own coffee.

He didn’t even look up at me. He just waved his fingers toward his empty coffee cup and said, “Bring me a Bloody Mary too.”

Into the phone, he chortled gleefully, “You know it, baby. Hair of the dog! Yeah, I’ll be back in the city in a few hours. Gonna pop in the office this afternoon, but I’ll meet you out around six, yeah? Awesome.” Pause. “Yeah, it was all right. Conference was worthwhile, made some good contacts.”

He lowered his voice, but since I wasstill standing right there, it was easy to hear the sly lie through curved lips. “Banged a hot townie chick last night.”

I snorted and spoke loudly enough that whoever was on the other end of his call could hear me clearly. “No, you tried to bang a hot townie chick last night. Before you got escorted back to your room on account of being a drunken a—” I caught the eye of the cherubic toddler at the next table “—a-hole.”

The jerk sputtered into his phone, and the toddler said, “Mommy, what’s an a-hole?”

I strode back to the kitchen, hiding a smile at the tiny bit of chaos I’d caused. I wouldn’t get in trouble with anyone else working. Wisconsin winters were long, and this one was just starting. Most of us were always a few bucks short of rent, despite constantly scrounging.

You took your fun where you found it.

Luckily, my shift ended ten minutes later. I threw on my beat-up leather jacket, thick gray scarf, and sunglasses. My spirits lifted a bit in the fresh air on the ten-minute walk to the staff parking lot.

I started my ancient truck and headed home. Avoiding the main intersections of Vienna, I drove around the big lake.

The fall foliage season was well and truly behind us. Most of the big trees were completely stripped, soaring starkly naked to the gray sky. Big patches of farmland looked flat and brown, everything already harvested.

But then you’d turn a corner and the bright blue of the lake through the bare trees could take your breath away. Even from me, who’d lived here my entire life.

Of course, everything would look much prettier once it snowed. The thick white carpet made the farmland look cozy and blanketed. The snow clinging to the trees fattened them up and made everything shimmer.

And in my town, Falworth, the one farthest from the lake, the smallest in the area with its population dwindling every year, the coverage of snow made it look a hell of a lot less poor.

My car circled the Falworth town center. A handful of small businesses squatted around “the square”—an empty lot the size of half a football field. In the middle, a dirty, broken sign readHappy Holidays. No enterprising person had thrown up the message this week to anticipate Thanksgiving, however. It had been up since last year at this time, all through spring and summer and fall. The second Y was crooked and about to fall off.

The town’s Christmas Village would be set up here. There was a rusted gazebo and stage in the center of the square, which had hosted live music, dances, and even pageants, longer ago in the past. There was a separate rectangular area that typically became a skating rink. At least it used to—I hadn’t so much as walked through the square during the holiday season last year, not even when Greta had teasingly offered to win me a teddy bear from one of the carnival games. “Grinch!” she’d accused affectionately.

As always, my chest tightened. Greta, the fiery, fierce grandmother I’d never had, more mother to me than my own, cherished and beloved friend. She’d been gone two months, and although she’d been sick for almost a year prior to her passing, I still couldn’t wrap my head or heart around it.

I parked my car at the edge of the square and hiked to the diner, the one place in this desolate center of town that was always bustling. Carol could be a little talkative for my taste, but she made outstanding coffee, and she kept the prices low. The flocks of summer tourists kept her flush year-round, but she always said the diner was really for the locals.

Carol had been Greta’s closest friend. On mornings when I could barely breathe because of missing her so much, I didn’t want to talk. I just liked to sit in the diner and know that Carol felt the same way.

The coffee was black and strong and filled to the brim of the heavy mug.

Carol dropped the laminated menu that I knew by heart on the table in front of me and raised a pointed eyebrow. “Temp is in the low forties today and getting colder tomorrow. Might want to put on one of your warmer coats, Jane.”

I stared at her, expressionless, over the rim of my coffee mug until she shrugged and walked away. Of all the things I loathed about small towns—and this one in particular—comments like Carol’s were the worst. The fact that everyone knew the minutiae of each other’s lives drove me bananas. Some days I longed to live among strangers and the unknown so strongly that minor exchanges like this could turn my mood sour all day. Which was saying something because I was not exactly a perky ray of sunshine to begin with.

Yeah, I did own a warmer coat. Two actually. Not that I cared to explain myself, but I had a very particular system with my coats. The Wisconsin winter lasted for forever. Let’s sayyou counted forty degrees Fahrenheit as winter-ish weather. In Wisconsin, the temp could dip into the forties in friggin’ October and still occasionally be down in the forties in April.

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