Christmas With Tiffany (2 page)

 
Bain reached for the phone sitting atop
his gleaming mahogany desk,
then
paused, his hand
hovering over the receiver. He had the phone number for Tiffany’s Gift Shop.
He’d gotten it from that cute redhead who was obviously little Holly Elwood
almost grown up. He’d have recognized Tiffany’s baby sister even if she hadn’t
been in Tiffany’s shop. Both had those amazingly green eyes and strawberry
blonde hair. His heart gave a funny little flip when he remembered just how
much he’d once loved running his fingers through Tiffany’s long hair. He really
wanted to give her a call and see how she was doing after all these years but
he couldn’t help wondering if she would object to hearing from him. After all,
their breakup hadn’t been exactly cordial.

But blast it
all,
he wanted to hear her voice again. Memories of their
high school passion had inundated him when he first climbed out of his rental car
in Crow’s Creek.
 
No matter how much
the place had changed, the air felt the same as it had back in the days when he
used to drive Tiffany up here for a dinner away from prying eyes in Rushville.
And the smell was the same—that combination of earth and pine that
suggested the nearby mountains had imbued the air around them with their
essence.

Darn, but he was
becoming sentimental. That wasn’t like him. He’d trained himself to be
practical, pragmatic,
a
realist. That’s what he needed
to be in the business world, and that’s what he had become.

But he still wanted to
talk to Tiffany.

He picked up the
receiver.

A tap sounded on his
heavy wooden door just before someone pushed it open. His secretary stuck her
head in. “Got a minute, boss?”

“Sure, Chloe. Come on
in.” He pulled his hand away from the telephone.

His secretary was a
native of Crow’s Creek who had been hired along with most of the other staff
prior to the hotel’s opening. She had an associate’s degree from a nearby
college, was married, and had two children. Other than the fact that she always
came to work dressed in Christmas-themed clothing, Bain was well satisfied with
her and her work. “What can I do for you?”

“I have the agenda for
tomorrow’s staff meeting. Do you want to review it before I run off copies?”

“Yes, just leave it, and
I’ll look it over. Did you get an email from reservations showing what our
occupancy rate looks like for the balance of the month?”

 
“I did. I forwarded it to you. I’m happy
to say that we’re full up until after January 3. If anybody else showed up,
we’d have to stick them in a broom closet.” She grinned.

“Great. And what about
the decorations? I was told before I got here that new ornaments were on order,
and it’s past time we got everything taken care of along those lines.”

Chloe’s grin faded.
“Well, as you know, we maintain a Christmas theme all year long.”

Bain sensed immediately
that something was going unsaid here. “I’m hardly likely to forget that, Chloe,
but according to the records, we had ordered hundreds of new ornaments for the
live trees in the lobby. Any word on those?”

Color rose in Chloe’s
cheeks until they were almost as red as the collar on the Christmas-themed
sweater she wore today. “They’re lost.”

“Lost?” Bain said. “Lost
where?”

“We don’t know where
they are. That’s why they’re lost.”

Bain pulled in a deep
breath. “I mean
,
did the delivery company lose them?
Did the manufacturer lose our order? Did the HHH buyer even place the order?”

“Oh, they were ordered,”
Chloe assured him, nodding her head so vigorously that the tiny bells on her
earrings jingled. “And the manufacturer swears they got the order and shipped
them.”

“So the delivery company
doesn’t know where our shipment is?” Bain asked.

Chloe nodded again. Jingle.
Jingle. “That’s correct. They put a tracer on the order but so far, no luck.”

“Does the delivery
company realize that if we don’t get these ornaments in time for Christmas,
we’ll have no use for them at all?”

“Yes, sir.” Chloe
gulped,
then
started pulling at a loose thread on her
sweater. Fearing she might unravel Frosty altogether, Bain hurried to reassure
her. “Don’t worry about it, Chloe. We’ll cope. There must be dozens of shops in
Crow’s Creek where we can buy ornaments for the live trees. And I assume the
strings of LED lights arrived.”

Chloe heaved a sigh.
“Yes, sir.”

“Then stay on the
trucking company’s case, but tell the decorating crew to proceed with hanging
the lights. I’ll find some ornaments to fill in just in case the ones we
ordered aren’t located.”

“Yes, sir.” Chloe nodded.
Jingle, jingle,
jingle
. “Let me know if you need any
help finding ornaments.”

“Thanks anyway, Chloe,
but I think I know where to look.”

After Chloe shut the
door behind her, Bain smiled to himself. When he was in Tiffany’s shop earlier
that day, he’d noticed a couple of small trees decorated with some very
attractive ornaments. There were nowhere near enough of them to take care of
the live trees in the hotel’s lobby, but at least it gave him a good excuse to
return to the shop.

He glanced at his watch.
Almost five o’clock and the sign on Tiffany’s Gift Shop door said she closed at
six. He wouldn’t have time to make it today but tomorrow for sure he’d carve
out a couple of hours to visit Tiffany and maybe buy some ornaments for their
trees.

Chapter
Two

“Forty boxes?” Tiffany
generally didn’t scream at people, particularly delivery people, but obviously
the freight company had made a huge mistake. “I can’t take delivery of forty
boxes. I didn’t order that many ornaments.”

She wrapped her arms
around her torso. She’d stepped out on the sidewalk when Merle Crabtree, the
deliveryman, tapped on her shop door and then motioned for her to come outside.
The sun had set and the cold was downright bone chilling.

Merle shrugged. “I know
it’s a lot, but every box has your name on it. I
double
checked
. I’ll bet most of the boxes are filled with those packing
peanuts. They’re all stamped FRAGILE.”

Tiffany bit her lip. He
could have a point, but only if the company had packed five ornaments per box.
“No, I think there’s been a mistake.”

Merle sighed. He looked
tired and frazzled, and Tiffany felt sorry for him. She knew this was a
stressful time of year for him, but she didn’t have room in her store for forty
boxes.

“Where do want them?” Merle
asked.

“Can I refuse them?”

“Look, Tiffany, I’ve got
two dozen more deliveries to make this evening and it looks like snow. If the
roads get bad, I’ll never finish and I could lose my job.”

Tiffany rubbed her
forehead. She felt a headache coming on. “Well, I guess I could make space in
the storeroom. Are the boxes heavy?”

He hefted one. “Nope.
Maybe a couple of pounds.
I’d bet my last dollar that most
of this is peanuts.”

“Okay then.” Tiffany
opened the shop door. “Just set them inside wherever you can. I’ll get Holly to
come help me carry them to the storeroom tomorrow.”

Fifteen minutes later,
she closed the door behind Merle, then turned and stared at her usually neat
shop. Boxes were stacked in every aisle, behind the counter, and on the chair
intended for tired husbands. She couldn’t believe this had happened. She’d been
looking forward to receiving the ornaments, but she’d expected only a couple of
boxes, maybe four at the most. Not forty, for heaven’s sake.

Well, there was no use
worrying about it this evening. She was tired and she wanted to get home before
her mom began to worry about her. If Holly
was
free
tomorrow, she’d help out. She’d said she would.

Tiffany lowered the
thermostat, unplugged the fountain, and checked to make sure no candles were
left burning. Finally she slipped into her jacket and let herself out the back
door into the alley where she kept her car parked. She was glad for a change
that she had a twenty-minute drive ahead of her. She used her drive time to
think, and tonight she had a lot to think about, not the least of which was the
reappearance of Bain Lyndhurst.

She started the car and
pulled out onto Main Street, then turned right toward the outskirts of town and
the house where she still lived. She’d lived there—along with her stay-at-home
mom, coal-mining father, and baby sister—when she first met Bain. He’d been
sophisticated, intelligent and outgoing. She’d been painfully shy, a skinny
bookworm with a quiet disposition, but like most of the other girls in school,
she’d developed an instant crush on the new boy in town.

She’d never understood
why he singled her out. She’d made no effort to attract his attention. In fact,
she rarely came to anyone’s attention unless one of her classmates needed help
with an algebra problem or an essay for English.

But Bain had seemed
attracted to her almost immediately. He went out of his way to speak to her
every morning, and when they ended up in the same history class, he sat in the
desk directly across the aisle so they could talk for a few minutes before
class started. Then he’d walk with her to the cafeteria and they’d have lunch
together. She was in love with him before the first six-week grading period was
over.

They were juniors before
her parents would allow her to go out on a date with him, but that didn’t
matter because everyone in school knew they were a couple. Bain had his own car
by this time, and he’d take her home in the afternoons, park in front of her
house, and they’d talk for hours about their dreams for the future.

They would marry, of
course, when they graduated, and then they’d go away to college somewhere.
Bain, who’d once lived in California, wanted to go to Stanford, but Tiffany
preferred somewhere closer so she could visit her family more often. They
settled on North Carolina and decided to apply to colleges both there and in
Tennessee.

In retrospect, Tiffany
was surprised her heart had not simply jumped out of her chest and her body
melted like an icicle tossed into a fire. She had been that much in love with
Bain.

And he had been wild for
her too. They’d gone everywhere together, shared every agony of youth and every
triumph, participated in the same activities, and laughed at the same silly
jokes. They had been almost inseparable, and they had been deliriously happy.

Then had come the day
Tiffany’s dad didn’t go to work. His stomach was killing him, he said, and her
mom had insisted he go to the doctor even though they really couldn’t afford
it. Tiffany could tell her mom was worried, but thank goodness the doctor had
said it was nothing to worry about. An ulcer. Her dad was to quit drinking
coffee and start taking some medicine the doctor prescribed. Life seemed to
return to normal.

Except then it was
Bain’s dad who disrupted their carefully laid plans for the future. He received
a coveted transfer to California, and Bain was thrilled. Without telling
Tiffany, he’d applied to Stanford and had been accepted.

But she shouldn’t feel
badly, he assured her. They would get married and move to California and then
see about getting her into college. Sure, it would be expensive, but his folks
would help them, maybe even pay her college tuition.

Tiffany still recalled
her exact words to Bain that afternoon when he shared the news with her: “When
did you decide that Stanford was more important to you than I am?”

He’d been insulted, then
furious when she wouldn’t say she’d leave her family and go to the other side
of the country with him. “When did you decide that your family is more
important to you than I am?” he’d asked, mimicking her question about Stanford.

Their breakup was, she
figured in retrospect, just as painful and infuriating and exasperating as
every teenage couple’s breakup. She’d wanted to die, especially when she
discovered he’d left town without bothering to say goodbye. She’d cried herself
to sleep every night and awakened every morning with swollen eyes and a
sickening sense of loss that settled in her stomach like a lead fist. She
stumbled through the days, her mind absorbed with her own misery, barely aware
that her father’s condition was not improving.

Then, two months after
Bain left, her father’s diagnosis changed. Stomach cancer. Stage IV. He had six
weeks to live if he was lucky.