Christmas With Tiffany (5 page)

After waking from the
dream, she’d found it impossible to go back to sleep, so she’d crawled out of
bed and slipped to the kitchen to make herself a cup of hot tea. By the time
her mother got up, Tiffany was dressed and had breakfast on the table. After
eating and checking on Holly, she left for work. Without Holly available to
help, she knew she needed to get in early and get busy dealing with those
Christmas ornaments.

Boxes
and boxes of Christmas ornaments.

The first thing she did
after starting a pot of coffee was to call the ornament manufacturer again,
hoping that by this time, someone had discovered the error and was ready to arrange
for some of those boxes to be picked up. She reached a different person this time
and had high hopes she might get a more informed response. However, the woman
merely put her on hold for ten minutes and then came back to say that their
records showed Tiffany had placed the order and there was no way she could
return Christmas ornaments because they were considered seasonal merchandise.
In addition, the woman said that Tiffany should have received a bill already
but if she hadn’t, she would soon.

Tiffany’s head began to
ache. If she didn’t sell most of those ornaments, she’d be in serious financial
trouble. If the manufacturer did in fact try to bill her, she feared the
invoice would be for more than her entire shop was worth.

Of course she had a copy
of the order she’d placed for two hundred ornaments, and she’d try to use that
to make the company take back any she couldn’t sell of the two thousand they’d sent
her. Unfortunately, if the company didn’t cooperate, she didn’t have the funds
to fight them in court.

Sighing, she poured a
cup of coffee and put a Christmas CD on to play, one of her favorites featuring
old-fashioned songs. The opening notes of
Walking in a Winter
Wonderland
had just sounded when someone pecked on the front door.
Tiffany hadn’t yet turned the sign over from CLOSED to OPEN so she was a bit
surprised. Maybe, if she was lucky, it was a customer eager to buy some
ornaments.

When she peered out
through the front window, she saw a freight truck parked outside. “Thank
goodness,” she murmured. “Maybe the company has sent a pick-up order for all
these boxes.”

Smiling, she opened the
door. “Good morning, Merle. You’re out and about early.”

“Hi, Miss Elwood. Yep,
I’ve got lots of deliveries to make today so I was glad to see your lights on.
I’ve got your packages for you.”

Tiffany’s stomach did a
quick flip. “What packages?” she asked, dreading to hear the response.

He motioned toward four
boxes stacked beside the front door. “You must have a really big open house
planned this year.”

Tiffany clutched the
doorframe. “I can’t believe this, Merle. I didn’t order all of these ornaments.
There’s been a huge mistake.”

Merle frowned. “Well,
Miss Elwood, your name is on here so I have to leave them. I’ve got lots of
packages to deliver today.”
 
With
that, he gave a jaunty wave and hopped back onto his truck and pulled away from
the curb.

Tiffany fought back
tears. What on earth was she going to do with that first order if she couldn’t
convince the manufacturer to take them back? The shop was so crowded
already,
she didn’t have room for these four new boxes,
which no doubt contained the two hundred ornaments she’d ordered to begin with.

Sighing, she picked up
the boxes one by one and moved them just inside the front door. Then she
started trying to reach someone with the manufacturer again.

*
* *

Bain ran his fingers
through his recently combed hair. “This is ridiculous, Chloe. Get that idiotic
company on the phone. I want to talk to them. They’ve billed us and now I want
to know where our blasted ornaments are. We were told to expect them last week,
and we’ve got fifteen live trees in the lobby that are bare except for some LED
lights.”

“Only fourteen trees are
bare now, boss. I gave that box of ornaments you brought in last night to the
decorating crew, and they’ve got that tree in the window looking absolutely
amazing. Could we get some more of those ornaments?”

“Probably, but not
enough, and besides, those are twice as expensive as the wholesale price we
were supposed to get from the manufacturer.
 
Get that company on the phone.”

“Sure, boss. I’ll have
the president of the company on the phone for you within the next ten minutes.”

Twelve minutes later,
Bain slammed down the phone. “The blasted president is out of town and
everybody else I talked to is… is… Dammit, I can’t say what I want to say.”

Chloe nodded. At least
today her earrings didn’t jingle. Bain supposed he should be thankful for small
blessings.

“The decorators called
up here while you were on the phone, boss. They want to know if you can get
some more of those decorations like you brought in yesterday. That big party’s
scheduled for tonight in the Nicholas Room, and the hostess particularly
requested a couple of live trees. The decorators have checked all the local
shops but can’t find anything nearly as elegant as those you found.”

Bain ran his fingers
through his hair again. “I don’t know whether I can get enough for two trees or
not, but I’ll try. Cancel my meetings for the rest of the morning. I’ll see
what I can do.”

Twenty minutes later
Bain was in his car headed back to Rushville. This unanticipated trip was frustrating
in more ways than one. He couldn’t really afford the time, but more
importantly, he hadn’t planned on seeing Tiffany again. He had never been a man
who pushed his attentions on women, and he wasn’t about to begin now. But
Tiffany wouldn’t necessarily know that. She might think he was making up
excuses to see her.

At ten minutes after
nine, he stood on the sidewalk outside Tiffany’s Gift Shop staring at the
poster announcing her open house, which was scheduled to take place in less
than two weeks. The last thing he wanted was to deplete her stock before her
open house. He had a feeling that Tiffany depended on that open house for a
good portion of her annual profits.

But the party scheduled
for the Nicholas Room tonight was important to the Home for the Holidays Hotel.
One of the premiere families of Crow’s Creek had rented their facilities and
was depending on the HHH to have everything just right. He set his teeth,
turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

The shop was empty
except for Tiffany, who was bent over, seemingly about to lift a large box off
the floor near the entrance. She glanced up when the bell over her door rang,
and her eyes widened. He couldn’t tell whether she was upset to see him again
or just startled. In either case, she dropped the box back onto the floor and
straightened.

“Let me help you with
that.” Bain stooped and picked up the box. “Where do you want it?”

“You don’t have to do
that,” Tiffany responded. “Besides, you’ll get your coat dirty.”

The box wasn’t all that
heavy, but Tiffany’s objections just made him that much more determined to help
her. “Where do you want it?” he repeated in a tone that generally had his
subordinates hopping.

“Oh, all right. You
always were stubborn. I was taking it to the storeroom. Follow me.”

Stalking ahead of him, she
led him to the back of the store and into the room hidden behind a screen.
Boxes were stacked in neat rows almost to the ceiling from back to front. She’d
left a narrow walkway between rows, and he had to turn sideways to squeeze through.

“Just put it on top of
that stack,” Tiffany instructed, pointing.

Bain set the box into
place and paused to look around. “Good grief, Tiffany. Are all of these boxes
filled with Christmas ornaments?”

She sighed and nodded.

“Is your open house really
that popular?”

She sighed again. “I
sincerely hope so.” She turned and motioned back toward the front of the store.
“Thanks for your help. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“That would be great,
but only after I move the rest of those boxes.”

Tiffany offered no
objection this time, and he made three more trips to the front of the shop and
then back to the storeroom. He hadn’t planned on being away from the hotel this
long, but the exhaustion lurking in Tiffany’s eyes brought out his protective
tendencies.

“Don’t you have any help
today?” he asked after depositing the last box on top of a stack and joining
Tiffany at the counter.

“Holly might be in
later. She had a stomach bug last night and was too weak to get out of bed this
morning.” She poured coffee into a mug. “Do you still take your coffee black?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s
no place to sit right now.”

“No problem.” Bain
figured he should get down to business. “You’re probably wondering why I came
back this morning.”

“Actually, I’m just glad
you did. I wanted to apologize for leaving so abruptly last night. I…” She
paused to moisten her lips. “I discovered that seeing you again brought some
old feelings to the surface, feelings I thought I’d buried a long time ago. I
wasn’t dealing with them very well.”

Bain took a sip of
coffee to give himself a second to think. Tiffany gave the impression of being
upset, but she was the one who’d dumped him. He gazed into his coffee another
second before trying to answer. “I suppose we both should expect to have some
residual feelings left over from that period of time. We were pretty much into
each other. And I always felt bad about the way we broke up. If you’d gotten in
touch with me, I would have said so back then. I’d made up my mind to forget
Stanford and go to college with you wherever you wanted. But I guess you were
angrier than I realized.”

Tiffany stood frowning
at him, her mouth agape, until he decided she was at a loss for words. “Look, I
apologize. I didn’t mean to start delegating blame. We were both young and
probably too much in love for our own good.”

Tiffany continued to
frown although she looked more confused than angry. “What do you mean, if I’d
gotten in touch with you? I called you over and over, left dozens of messages
in your voice mail, and you never responded.”

“You called? I never got
any messages from you. You must have been calling the wrong number.”

“I wasn’t calling the
wrong number, Bain. I’d been calling you on that number for two years. You
always got my messages then.”

“You were calling my
cell? The
cell phone
I had when I lived here?”

“Of course. That’s the
only number I ever had for you. What? Why are you looking so strange?”

“That company was
regional. By the time we drove to
Saint
Louis, I
couldn’t get a signal so I changed companies immediately. I called your house
half a dozen times. I always missed you, but your Dad swore he would give you
my new number.”

“You talked to my
father?”

“Yes, at least six
times. Did he not give you my messages?”

Tiffany shook her head
and her eyes filled with tears. “He probably didn’t remember. The pain meds
were strong by that time and he stayed confused a lot.”

“Wow! His ulcer must
have been a bad one for him to be on pain meds that strong.”

Tiffany stared at him
with a look of bemusement in her eyes. “You don’t know,” she said at last.

“Know what?” Bain could
already tell just by the look in her eyes that he wasn’t going to like her
answer.

“Dad didn’t have an
ulcer. He had stomach cancer. He died three months after you left.”

The instant awareness of
what Tiffany had endured all those years ago sent Bain’s heart racing. He
recalled how much she’d loved her dad. “Ah,
Tif
, I’m
so sorry.” He hurriedly set his mug on the counter and pulled her into his
arms.
 
And when he did, the years
fell away. He knew he still loved her but this wasn’t the time to say so. Maybe
he would never find the right time to say so, but he planned to try.

She wrapped her arms
around his waist and laid her head against his chest. “I didn’t know you’d
called,” she murmured. “If I’d known—”

The jingle of the bell
over the door sounded. Tiffany pulled back and looked toward the front of the
store. “It’s Mrs. Mace,” she whispered. “She comes in at least twice a week,
browses forever and never buys anything.”