Christmas With Tiffany (3 page)

 
Tiffany needed Bain. She needed him in
the worst way. She needed his comfort, his strength,
his
support, even if only over the telephone. Thank goodness she had his cell phone
number because she would have no idea how to locate a landline number for his
parents.

And so she had called
his cell phone.
Day after day.
Night
after night.
He never answered, and when she left sobbing messages in
his voice mailbox, those were ignored too. Finally, on the day they lowered her
father’s casket into the ground, she let Bain go too. She had to face the fact
that she had lost both of them forever.

She’d accepted her
losses and determined to go on with her life. But college was out of the
question. Even had she been able to afford it, she couldn’t leave her grieving
mother and little sister. Besides, someone in the family needed to earn some
money, and Tiffany had always been attracted to gift shops. She rented a little
place downtown, bought a few supplies, and started trying to build a business. It
had grown slowly at first, and she’d worked night jobs the first couple of
years to help support the family until the shop began to show a profit. But
she’d eventually made it. She’d made it on her own.
All
alone.

Except now Bain was
back.

Damn him! Why had he
returned to Rushville? Why stir up old memories that still had the power to
slash and burn their way into her psyche?

Sighing, she turned into
the driveway and cut her motor. Maybe he wouldn’t come back to the shop. Why
would he? They had no business with each other after all this time.

Besides, she had to stop
thinking about him. She had an open house to get ready for and forty boxes of ornaments
to unpack. She’d have a busy day ahead of her tomorrow, and she flat out
refused to waste any more time obsessing about Bain Lyndhurst.

*
* *

Bain awoke the next
morning in the master bedroom of the VIP suite on the top floor of the Home for
the Holidays Hotel. He would be living here until he had time to find a house,
but that wouldn’t be until sometime after the Christmas and New Year’s rush was
over.

He yawned and stretched,
then climbed out of bed and stepped into the massive master bath where he
turned the shower on. He made a mental note that the water temperature was a
little on the hot side. No sense in scalding a guest and risking a lawsuit.
He’d have Chloe contact maintenance about that.

Thirty minutes later,
freshly bathed, shaved, and dressed in one of his business suits, he made his
way down to the hotel restaurant. He’d ordered room service yesterday and been
satisfied with the service and food. Today he’d make sure the restaurant was
being run properly. As CEO, he tried to be aware of everything that was going
on in the hotel.

The breakfast buffet met
with his approval, and his waitress kept his coffee cup topped off. The room
soon filled up with guests, so he didn’t linger at his table, preferring to let
others have a seat.

He glanced at his watch
as he left the dining room and noted that he had a few minutes to kill before
time for the staff meeting, so he made his way to the front lobby. Fifteen live
Christmas trees were strategically placed around the area, and their fragrance
filled the air, reminding him that when surveyed, most people mentioned the
odor of evergreen as the most authentic smell of Christmas for them.

 
The trees appeared nice and fresh and
their branches were already entwined with twinkling strands of LED lights. Now
if there were just some ornaments to set off the lights.

Thinking of ornaments
reminded him of Tiffany’s shop. He really wanted to finish up early enough
today to make his way back to Rushville. He wasn’t quite sure why he was so
determined to see Tiffany again. After all, she’d made it clear enough when he
left Rushville eight years ago that she was through with him forever.

He supposed he just
needed to see whether the intervening years had been kind to her. He hoped so.
Despite the fact that she’d broken his youthful heart, she was still the only
girl he’d ever loved.

Not that he hadn’t tried
to forget her in those days when he’d first left Rushville with his parents.
But he’d soon realized that their argument had been silly and their breakup
unnecessary. They could have worked something out.

So he’d made every
effort to—

“Good morning, Mr.
Lyndhurst.” Chloe’s cheerful greeting interrupted his musing, and he turned to smile
at her. Her pink cheeks and bright red nose suggested the weather was pretty
frigid this morning.

“Morning,” he responded.
“Cold out?”

“Cold as a
witch’s…eh…yes, cold,”
Chloe
responded, her cheeks
turning a little rosier. “But it feels nice and cozy in here,” she added as she
unlooped
her scarf and started peeling off her coat.
Her sweater today combined patriotism with traditional Christmas symbols. Bain
realized he’d never before seen Santa waving an American flag.

“Well, let’s get
upstairs and get to work,” he said, hoping to herd Chloe out of the lobby
before her Christmas attire drew any more startled stares from the hotel
guests. “And the first thing I want you to do is contact that freight company
about our ornaments. These nearly bare Christmas trees in the lobby are a
disgrace to the company.”

Chapter
Three

By two o’clock that
afternoon, Tiffany and Holly had managed to unpack six of the boxes for a total
of three hundred ornaments. Since Tiffany had ordered only two hundred
ornaments, she tried calling the company. They refused to admit that they’d
made a mistake and refused to take anything back, but they assured her she
would be invoiced only for two hundred ornaments, just as the original order
called for. She tried to persuade the man at the company that they’d made a
mistake, but he became impatient. He informed her that he was extremely busy
and then hung up on her.

Tiffany didn’t know
anything else to do but to keep the ornaments and try to sell as many as
possible in case the company discovered their mistake and then insisted she pay
them.

She’d sent Holly to the
hardware store to buy a couple more artificial Christmas trees. They’d moved
the chair into the storage room, put a tree in its place, and set the second
tree on top of the counter. Naturally a tree on the counter was in the way, but
they’d have to work around it.

Then they’d worked
through lunch hanging ornaments on the trees. As worried as she was, Tiffany
couldn’t help falling in love with those gorgeous white ornaments. They had
looked lovely in the catalog, but once they were lifted out of their boxes, she
found herself exclaiming about each one.

“Look Holly,” she’d say,
holding up one that looked like lace but was actually metal. “And look at this
one.” She was delighted with the sparkly glass balls that reminded her of the
ornaments she’d admired at her grandmother’s house when she was small.

Holly, too, had been
impressed. “Look at this snowman, Sis. It’s a little snow globe. Have you ever
seen anything so cute?”

And so the morning and
early afternoon had flown by. Several customers stopped in that afternoon,
admired the ornaments and made some impulse purchases. The word apparently
began to spread, because Tiffany had more customers that day than she’d had in
the entire previous week.

At five, one of their
neighbors came by and after buying three ornaments, offered to drop Holly off
at home.
Knowing her little sister must be getting tired
,
Tiffany insisted she go
. “You can tell Mom that I’ll try
to close at the regular time so hopefully I won’t be late for supper tonight.”

By a quarter after five,
the last customer was gone and Tiffany was glad. She felt dirty from all the
boxes they’d unpacked, not to mention unkempt. She hadn’t even taken time to
pull a comb through her hair during this hectic day. When the bell above the
door tinkled, she was sweeping up some of the packing material that had fallen
out of the boxes when she and Holly were lifting the ornaments out.

She paused and looked up,
broom in hand. She was behind the counter, so the new Christmas tree blocked
her view, but somehow she knew who it was. She could feel his presence clear
across the room, and it sent pulses of excitement soaring through her.
Joy—the very last thing she should be feeling—bubbled up inside
her, filling her with renewed energy. She leaned her broom against the counter,
smoothed her hair down with both hands, and stepped out from behind the
Christmas tree.

He’d matured, of course.
His shoulders, which were encased in a black leather jacket, were broader than
she remembered, and his hair was now cut in a conventional style rather than
brushing his shoulders as it had in high school. His chin seemed squarer, too,
and bore the beginnings of a dark five-o’clock shadow.

She realized she was
staring, but he also gave the appearance of drinking her in with his eyes. She
wished she could have shown to better advantage on this occasion, the first
time they’d seen each other in eight years. But fate had had other plans.

He spoke first, a simple
“Hello, Tiffany.”

His voice hadn’t
changed, thank God. And it still had the power to melt her bones and heat her
blood. She moistened her lips.

“Hello, Bain.”

They stared a minute
longer. “You look good,” he said after a few seconds.

She resisted an urge to
fiddle with her hair again. “Thanks. Holly told me you’d been by yesterday.”

“She didn’t seem to
remember me, but I knew her immediately.”

“She was only five and a
half when you left, and at that age, she was much more interested in her dolls
than in my boyfriend. I was surprised when she told me you’d come into the
shop. How did you know where to find me?”

“I was driving by and
saw your shop sign. I remembered that you’d always loved the idea of owning a
gift shop, so I took a chance and stopped.”

“But what are you doing
in Rushville?”

He glanced around the
shop. “Since you don’t have any customers at the moment, can you close early?
We could go somewhere, have a cup of coffee, and catch up.”

“I’m afraid not.
Mom’s expecting me for supper.”

“You still live at
home?”

Tiffany wondered if she
had detected a note of disapproval in his tone but decided to let it go. She
merely nodded.

“Can’t you call your mom
and tell her you’ve made other plans? I’ll buy your dinner if you’ll let me.”

Tiffany bit her lip as
she considered his offer. She really
did
want to
know what had brought him back to Rushville. Surely having supper with him
wouldn’t hurt. “Okay, I’ll call home so they won’t worry about me. And I need
to wash up. I’ve been
unpacking boxes
all day and my
hands are filthy. Give me about ten minutes.”

She glanced around the
shop. “I can’t offer you a place to sit down. We got in a big shipment of
Christmas decorations and everything is topsy-turvy right now.”

“No problem. I’ll just
look around the shop while you make your call and freshen up. I’m in need of
some Christmas ornaments, and it looks as though you have some great ones. If I
picked out a few, would you be willing to ring up my order before we leave?”

“Certainly.” Tiffany
didn’t mention that she’d be thrilled to get rid of a few ornaments so she and
Holly could unpack more tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes later,
she had almost finished boxing up the last of the thirty-five ornaments Bain
had selected. “You must have an exceptionally large tree to decorate,” she
commented.

A smile seemed to tug at
his lips. “You could say that. In fact, I might be back for more ornaments if I
won’t run you short for your open house on the fifteenth.”

Tiffany looked up from
her chore. “How do you know about my open house?”

“Eh, maybe because you
have a huge poster in
your
front window advertising
your open house on the fifteenth?”

Tiffany felt a blush
warming her face. “Of course. Sorry! But no, you won’t run me short if you need
more ornaments. I have more than enough for the open house.”

“Great. In that case, I
may very well be back.” He smiled as Tiffany pushed the box across the counter
to him. “My car’s out front. I’ll just stow this in the trunk and we’ll walk
across the street to the Timmons Café if that’s agreeable with you. On the
other hand, you probably eat there all the time. I could always drive somewhere
else if there’s a restaurant you’d prefer.”