After the turmoil of the day, I invited Morgan over for dinner and some girl time. Not only was I sad and disappointed that Adam was selling Silver Bells, but our conversation left me doubting that he was completely certain about his decision. The guilty feelings he had inside him could not be allowing him to think with a clear head. There had also been a little nostalgia in the way he’d talked about Christmas Mountain before he moved to New York.
Okay, yes, I was being a bit pushy about not selling the business, especially considering I was the employee and not the boss. But if Adam sold the place and regretted it then I knew I would kick myself for not helping him be sure he was making the right choice—for him, and for his dad. Mr. Kline had been a wonderful boss and I wanted to do right by him.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and went into the kitchen to check the pot roast I had made for dinner. I’d opened a bottle of Bordeaux and the wine was breathing on the table. I grabbed a couple of glasses from the cupboard, grimacing as I noticed the thin layer of dust on the stems. I wasn’t given to drinking alone so the glassware only made an appearance when I had guests over. Nine times out of ten my friends and I would go out to eat at Sleigh Café, or The Chop House on nicer occasions. Thus, my wine glasses didn’t get used often. I had just finished washing and drying the wine glasses when there was a knock on the door.
“Hi!” I opened the door and gave my friend a big hug, holding her a little longer than usual. “It’s been a day. Glad you could come.”
“Glad you invited me,” she said, slipping out of her winter jacket and hanging it up on the rack by the front door. “Where’s Ruby?”
I’d also invited Morgan’s roommate, Ruby, whose parents owned the Sugar Plum Inn. We’d all been friends since grade school. “Ruby had a crisis at work.”
“More drama at Divine Doggie Spa and Training? Why am I not surprised?”
I laughed. “There’s a problem with a King Charles Spaniel’s outfit for the doggie parade this year. It’s one canine crisis after another there.”
“I can relate,” Morgan said, then shook her head. “Not to dog owner troubles, but I’ve been rushed off my feet with all of the women in Christmas Mountain wanting their hair and nails done for the holiday season.”
“Your business is doing so well,” I said, feeling a pang that the quirky Kline business wasn’t doing so well financially.
“Definitely can’t complain. Tourism here is doing slightly better than last year, but nothing to cheer about so I’m lucky.”
“Well deserving of your talent, too.” I poured wine into both glasses, and then handed one to Morgan. “Dinner won’t be long, just waiting for the veggies to cook. Come sit down.”
Morgan sat opposite me on the couch, taking a sip of wine and then setting her glass down on the coffee table. She held her hands out to the fire appreciatively. “You’ve lit the fire. . . What’s up?”
I smiled. Morgan knew me too well, her words reminding me that I rarely light the fire, opting for the simpler radiators in the apartment instead. As much as I adored the glow and crackle of a real fire, it was far quicker, not to mention easier, to flick a switch for almost instant heat. But I needed the comfort of the real thing after the day I’d had.
“Let me dish up our plates and I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”
As we ate, I told Morgan about the tour, and Adam’s plan to still sell Silver Bells. She dropped in groans and sighs at all the right intervals, even though she was a shrewd businesswoman and knew that Adam’s plans made sense financially, at least for him.
“So, I guess the eyelash extensions didn’t convince him to keep Silver Bells and stay in Christmas Mountain, huh?”
“Not even close.” I shook my head, giving a small smile at her joke. “Seriously, Morgan, I can’t bear the thought of old Mr. Kline’s dream being torn down and turned into a day spa. You can find at least one of those in every resort, but you’ll never find another Silver Bells. I mean, where else can you take a sleigh ride through Santa’s Grotto and the entire elf village hidden away in the forest?”
Her eyes crinkled. “The North Pole?”
“Exactly!” I placed my glass down a little too hard as I emphasized my point, which slopped wine over the side onto the table. I wiped up the burgundy pool, before licking my finger. “That’s exactly what makes Silver Bells so special. It’s as close as you can get to the real deal, and there’s no other place like it. It would be a crime to destroy it.”
Morgan set her knife and fork down on her plate, and pushed it away from her as she settled her elbows on the table. “My mother would kill me for sitting like this. Don’t put your elbows on the table Morgan, it’s not ladylike, she’d say.”
It always made me laugh when Morgan mimicked her mom. I liked Mrs. Reed, but she was what my own mother would call society—her way of saying they had money, which of course they did, given that they owned Reed Bank.
“Okay, so Adam wants to sell and you don’t want him to sell, right?” Morgan picked up the bottle of wine and held it out in front of me to ask if I wanted more. I nodded and she poured another splash into each of our glasses before grinning.
“Morgan Reed, I know that smile. You’re hatching a plan.”
She set the bottle down and leaned toward me. “Maybe you could make sure he can’t sell it. Like, sew raw fish into the hem of the curtains or something.”
“We have wooden blinds.” I wrinkled my nose, another one of Morgan’s mom’s pet hates: Wrinkles give you lines, dear, she’d say to me. “Plus, why would I bring fish into the equation?”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Well, would you buy a store that smelled like rotting pond life? I know I wouldn’t.” She sat back in her chair, her pear-green eyes twinkling with mischief as she watched me over the rim of her glass. “Stick a fish in the blinds. Make Silver Bells un-buyable.”
I picked up my glass and stood. “Let’s go outside, it’s starting to snow.”
Morgan grabbed a couple of blankets off the couch and followed me out onto my porch, before handing one to me and wrapping the other around her shoulders. “I was joking about the fish. Well, kind of. But seriously, Faith, there are things you could do to mess with his plans. At the very least it’ll buy you time to convince Adam of Silver Bells’ charm.”
I sat on one of the rocking chairs, which my grandmother had left me, a throwback to my childhood when she’d pull me onto her lap and read me stories before bed. “Okay, so scrap the fish thing, but what else could we do?”
Morgan tapped her cheek for a minute. “You could buy stink bombs from old Mr. Hardy’s store, and set them off in the store?”
“Or I could fill the potential buyers’ city slicker shoes with reindeer poop while they’re trudging around outside in snow boots?” I suggested, getting into this.
Morgan slapped the arm of the other rocker as she warmed to her subject. “I know, I know . . . you could get them to stay overnight and then creep into their room since you have a master key. You could wear a white sheet and scare them away, telling them the whole site is haunted by the Kline ancestors, who vowed to torment anyone who threatened to destroy the place.”
“Like this?” I pulled the blanket over my head, spread out my arms, and got up, looming over Morgan’s chair and letting out ghostly wails as I did so.
She shrieked. “Yeah, but lose the multi-colored throw, Faith. There’s nothing scary about a rainbow ghost!” Morgan stood, and draped her blanket over the chair she had just vacated. “You’ll think of something, Faith, you always do.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I’ve got an early start tomorrow, so I should go. My mom is coming in to get her hair done.” She gave a mock shock face, and then turned to leave. “See you soon.”
As I heard the front door of her SUV close, I smiled as I thought about the evening. Morgan and her silly sabotage plans. What was she thinking? Too funny. But as I leaned on the porch railing, looking out at the snowy scene I loved so much, a plan formed in my mind. Putting off potential buyers might not be such a farfetched idea after all.
It wasn’t like I had any other strategies up my parka and desperate times called for anything-that-could-possibly work. Right? I had an idea or two percolating, but I’d have to ask for help from a certain someone. With that settled, I went inside to make a phone call.