December 1: The Bet

"It's the bank," your father says.

He says it to the stepladder, mostly. You're both standing under the Lenox Star after closing, looking at the crack like it might heal if you stare hard enough.

"The bank."

"The loan. From when your mom was sick. It's being... restructured. I didn't want you worrying."

"Dad. I do the books."

"You do the shop books. This is the other thing." He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "It's handled, kid. I promise you it's handled."

Calvin Weatherby has never been able to lie. When you were nine he tried to tell you the tooth fairy was real and started crying halfway through. He isn't crying now, but he won't look at you, and he goes upstairs at seven-thirty without dinner.

You stand alone in the shop with the cracked star and ten thousand ornaments, and you think: Not yet.

Josie Sato is pulling the last tray of something out of her oven when you come through the bakery's back door. She is twenty-nine, has a glossy black bob, flour on one cheekbone at all times and absolutely no internal monologue.

"So," she says, before you've closed the door. "Room four."

"What?"

"The cologne ad. He's in room four at the inn. Tamsen at the front desk told Pam who told me. He tipped the bellhop forty dollars and asked where to get a decent coffee and Tamsen sent him here, and he came in, Ava." She puts the tray down and fans herself with an oven mitt. "He came in. I gave him a free croissant. I'd have given him the bakery."

"He wants to tear down my shop."

"I'd have given him the bakery and then poisoned the croissant," Josie amends. "Obviously. Team Weatherby. But you saw him, right? The jaw? I didn't know they made jaws like that outside Massachusetts."

"He's from Massachusetts."

"That explains it." She slides a cinnamon knot across the counter at you. "What happened to the star? Dewey texted me a crying face."

You tell her. The crack. Your father on the stairs. She doesn't know.

Josie stops chewing. "Okay," she says, carefully. "That's less fun."

"He said it's the bank."

"Your dad says a lot of things. He told me my lemon bars were 'fine.'"

"He thinks I can't handle it." You tear the cinnamon knot in half. "Whatever it is. And this guy walks in on the same day, like he knows something I don't."

"Then ask him," Josie says. "Not your dad. Him."

Tilda is in the glass annex behind the shop when you go to say goodnight, sitting on her stool with a cup of tea beside the cold furnace. Eighty-seven years old, five feet nothing, a white braid down her back and forearms like a sailor. She looks at you over her bifocals.

"Dewey says a handsome man broke my star."

"The wind broke your star."

"The wind had help." She sips. "What did he want?"

"The building."

Tilda snorts. "Everybody wants the building. Developers have been wanting the building since 1971. Your grandfather used to say a shop is only a building until somebody loves it. After that it's very hard to knock down." She pats your hand with her calloused one. "So make him love it, sweetheart. Or make him go away. Either one. I'm too old to break in a new star."

The Eastbrook Inn sits across the green, white with green shutters and a porch lined with lanterns. The snow has picked up. It squeaks under your boots, and your breath smokes, and you have absolutely no plan.

Tamsen at the front desk takes one look at your face and points at the little bar off the lobby without being asked.

He's there. Of course he's there. Coat off, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a laptop open beside a glass of something amber he isn't drinking. He's frowning at a spreadsheet. The fire behind him makes him look like an expensive painting of a man frowning at a spreadsheet. Two women at the next table are pretending not to stare and failing.

He sees you and closes the laptop. Doesn't stand, exactly. Unfolds.

"Ms. Weatherby."

"How do you know my name?"

"It's on the website. 'Meet the family.' There's a picture of you holding a glass reindeer." The dimple. "You look less murderous in it."

"Sit down, Mr. Jennings."

He sits. You don't.

"Here's the thing," you say. "You've looked at my building on a spreadsheet. You've looked at the square footage and the view of the green. You haven't looked at it. You haven't seen what it is."

"I've seen what it is." Something careful in his voice. "It's a beautiful shop that, I'd guess, is losing money every month."

That hits harder than it should, because it's true. You keep going anyway.

"So here's my offer. You want an answer by Christmas Eve? Fine. Twenty-four days. You work the shop. With me. Every day of Advent, open to close, behind the counter, in an apron. You meet the people who come in, you learn the traditions, you see what you'd be knocking down. And if on Christmas Eve you still want to tear it down..." Your throat goes tight. You push through. "Then I'll sign."

The two women at the next table have stopped pretending.

Chase Jennings looks at you for a long moment. The fire pops. You wait for the laugh, the polite no, the I have meetings in Boston.

"Deal," he says.

You blink. "What?"

"Deal. Twenty-four days. What time do I start?"

"That's it? You don't want to negotiate?"

"You made a good offer." He's watching you very steadily, and that strange look is back, the one from under the star. "I'd be a fool to counter."

"You have a job."

"I have a laptop and a phone and a very patient assistant." He holds out his hand across the table. "Open to close. Apron included. And on Christmas Eve, you get an answer."

It's too easy. Everything about this man is too easy, the smile, the jaw, the yes. You know a closer when you see one. You've watched your father get talked into a forty-year lease on a credit card machine.

But you shake his hand, because you made the offer, and because his hand is warm, and because some stubborn part of you wants to watch Chase Jennings of Oakhurst Development wrap a nutcracker.

"Nine o'clock," you say. "Don't be late."

"I'm never late, Ava."

You walk home across the green with your heart going like you ran. You lie awake listening to the snow and to your father pacing upstairs, and you don't fall asleep until after two.

At 6:02 in the morning your phone lights up on the nightstand.

Unknown number. One text.

23.