On Monday afternoon, Lauren heard a deep, masculine chuckle and looked over at Fisk from the passenger seat of his truck.
They were headed home from a shopping jaunt that had been surprisingly fun. Now, her hands stilled on the bag of office supplies in her lap. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Sure am. I never saw anyone get so excited about a bunch of file folders and labels.”
“Pens, too. Don’t forget the multicolored felt tips.”
After assessing Fisk’s paperwork situation this morning, she’d decided not to try to put his business online. Too much startup time, and the internet was spotty out where Fisk and Gramps lived. So she’d suggested a trip to the local big-box store for supplies to create a reasonable, paper-based filing system.
She’d expected to go alone, but it turned out he needed some supplies, too. Either that, or he wanted to keep an eye on her business spending.
Living next door to her place of employment was a dream come true. She’d gone back over to Gramps’s place at noon, played with Bonita and fixed lunch for the three of them. Both Gramps and Bonita seemed thrilled to settle down with a heap of picture books after lunch, erasing any guilt Lauren might have felt about heading off for an office-supply-related shopping jaunt for the afternoon.
Maybe this was going to work. Maybe she could parlay the holiday job into something longer-term, something that could provide for Bonita and keep her safe.
“You’re looking at them like you’d look at a chocolate cake.” Fisk was still smiling as he steered around a curve in the mountain road.
“It’s the same way you looked at that wall of sandpaper and nails,” she said. “Stuff was all the same to me, but you must’ve spent half an hour studying it.”
“They’d gotten in a new grade of sandpaper,” Fisk said. “1000-grit, superfine. Who wouldn’t be excited?”
He glanced over, one eyebrow lifted, gray-blue eyes sparkling with laughter.
He looked way, way too appealing.
Abruptly, Fisk returned his attention to the road.
Had he noticed her admiring him? Lauren’s face heated. Time for a change of subject. She focused on the multicolored small discs that were collected in his between-seats console. “Those are pretty. Are they foreign coins?” She knew Fisk had served overseas.
“You don’t know what they are?”
She scooped up a couple of the coins and studied them. She couldn’t find a country name, but there were several lines of text printed tiny on the backs. She held one up to the light, trying to read it.
“It’s the Serenity Prayer,” he said. “They’re AA coins.”
Lauren’s fingers went limp and she dropped both coins, then bent to find them, hoping Fisk wouldn’t see her reaction.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
She’d been right to feel cautious about being drawn to him. She knew, now, why she found him so riveting.
She located the coins and placed them back on the dash. “How long ago did you quit drinking?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded normal. “Is each one for a year?”
Maybe it had been a long time ago. Maybe so far in the past that it barely mattered, and she could still work for him.
He blew out a humorless laugh. “Each one’s for a month,” he said. “I got sober almost one year ago.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders went limp. Forget about anything long-term, work-wise, with an alcoholic. They couldn’t be trusted.
“You seem to have a reaction to that information,” he said, his voice calm. “Care to share what it’s about?”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to reveal anything that would send him looking into her past. “I...well, I have a history.”
“You drink now? Or you drank in the past?” They were reaching the residential area of Holiday Point now, small, neat frame houses with front porches. Most were already decorated for the holiday season.
“No! I don’t drink.” She never had. “I have...a couple of alcoholics in my past, so I know how much damage...” She trailed off and looked over at him, just in time to see a flash of what looked like pain cross his face.
She didn’t want to hurt him. “I know how hard it is to quit,” she amended.
It wasn’t a sufficient explanation. But it would have to do. No way was she sharing the details of her past unhealthy relationships, especially with someone who... She sneaked another glance at him. Really, he was an alcoholic? Why hadn’t Gramps shared that information with her? He knew what she’d been through.
Of course, to develop a drinking problem, Fisk had probably been through a lot, too. Evidence for that was Nemo, panting in the back seat of the truck.
Sympathy for the square-jawed man beside her rose at the same time that her inner warning bell rang.
She did know how hard it was to quit, because she’d talked to a few recovering alcoholics during her journey to heal. She’d watched her father come out of rehab, twice, and start drinking again within the month. Her husband hadn’t admitted he had a drinking problem, but that was denial; she knew he was an alcoholic. She also knew that alcohol wasn’t the reason for what her husband had done and couldn’t justify it.
She was vulnerable to alcoholics. She lacked skill at discerning what a man was like, based on her own feelings. It was a flaw in her makeup. She came by it naturally.
As they passed through Holiday Point, she saw something going on at a big old building that she vaguely remembered from her summers with Gramps. It had once been a small-town department store, if she were remembering right. Now the old store’s sign was gone, but the place was active. People had pulled trucks up to the side door and were carrying big boxes inside. “What’s going on there?” she asked. “Didn’t that store go out of business way back?”
“It’s a vendors’ market now,” he explained. “They do a big business over Christmas. Must be getting the displays ready.”
“Vendors of what?”
“Oh, antique signs, or handmade crafts, or yard decorations. Toys. A little bit of everything.”
“Stop the truck,” she ordered.
He slowed down and looked over at her. “Why?”
“Park it,” she said, gesturing toward one of the diagonal spaces that was still empty. “Come on, I’m your new office manager. You have to do as I say.”
He lifted an eyebrow but followed her request. After he’d turned off the truck, he looked over at her. “What’s this about?”
Why did he have to be so attractive? “You need to be here. Your business needs to be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need to display your merch there. Maybe even set up a workbench and do some simple project as a demonstration, to get people’s attention.”
He laughed a little and shook his head. “You don’t know how bad an idea that would be,” he said. “Besides, I can’t keep up with the orders I have.”
“Only because it’s the holidays, right? You need to prepare for leaner times.”
His expression was still doubtful, and he wasn’t making a move to get out of the truck.
She opened the door, climbed out and looked back at him. “I wasn’t just an office manager,” she said. “I helped with marketing, and I’m good at it. I want to earn my pay and help you improve your business. Come on, let’s talk to the organizers.”
“But you don’t understand—”
He was just being a man. He didn’t want to do it because it hadn’t been his idea. Fine. She’d talk to them herself and get his business on the map of Holiday Point.
Fisk blew out a breath and climbed out of his truck. He let Nemo out, too, and adjusted the dog’s service vest, giving himself a minute to calm down.
This wasn’t a terrible situation, he reminded himself. More like embarrassing.
He caught up with Lauren in the first hallway of the vendors’ market. The smell of Christmas was in the air—a mixture of pine boughs and candles and hot chocolate from the little café.
Lauren stopped in front of a vendor who was adjusting her display of crocheted stuffed animals and place mats and other pretty, colorful items Fisk couldn’t imagine using. Within minutes, Lauren was talking to the woman about sales and the pricing of booths, learning that the most expensive spaces were the ones near the front, where the most people walked by, and near the back, where Santa visits took place.
Santa visits. Fisk’s face heated just thinking about that.
He saw a couple of people he knew from church and was thankful they waved in a friendly way. A couple of other folks turned away or gave him dirty looks, perfectly justified. Not only was he a member of the notorious Wilkins family, but he’d done plenty of individual stupid stunts to earn the disgust of the townspeople.
Lauren was near the back of the building now, talking with James Ferrell, a local dad who ran the vendors’ market. He seemed to have taken a break from pounding nails near the Santa throne. They were nodding, smiling, getting along fine.
And then James spotted Fisk. He stopped talking, and his head tilted to one side. “Fisk. Didn’t expect to see you back here.”
“He’s the carpenter I was telling you about,” she said.
“I see.” The man stood and brushed off his hands on his work pants. “So you want to do what, now?”
Shame rushed in on Fisk. “It’s a bad idea. Lauren. Come on, let’s go.”
“I think a display of an actual woodworker would be fun for the kids, especially while they’re waiting to visit Santa,” she said. “It would really interest the parents, too.”
James looked from Lauren to Fisk and back again. “It does seem like a good idea, but I can’t let this man anywhere near the kids.”
Shock crossed Lauren’s face and she took a big step away from Fisk. “What did you do?” she asked him in a shaky voice.
He swallowed hard. “I was the notorious drunk Santa last year,” he told her, and then turned to James. “I’d like to do something to make up for that. If providing a demonstration for free would help you out, let’s get it scheduled. I can keep well away from the kids, but she’s right, the parents might enjoy it.”
Lauren’s face was white and she wasn’t saying anything. What was that about?
James nodded. “I’d heard you got sober,” he said. “I’d like to give you a chance to make amends, but I’ll have to talk to my board.”
Fisk pulled out a business card and handed it to James. “Give me a call if you want to set something up,” he said. “If you decide against it, no harm, no foul.”
“Sounds good.” James shook Fisk’s hand. “Glad to see you’re getting your life straightened out.”
Fisk thanked the man, turned and started walking toward the exit, studying the half-completed displays around him. This actually wasn’t a bad idea. Lauren was right: he needed to think about his business year-round rather than just panicking about all the Christmas orders.
He looked back to thank her, but she wasn’t there. She must have stopped to talk to someone. She seemed pretty outgoing and social.
When he spotted her, though, she was sitting on a plywood box, staring in his direction, face still white.
He walked back toward her. “Are you okay?” he asked, wondering if she were feeling sick.
She didn’t answer, at least not directly. Instead, she stared at him. “What happened last year? Why can’t you be around kids?”
Again, that hot flash of shame. “Like I said, I arrived with alcohol on my breath.” He paused and then corrected himself. “I was drunk. After a few kids talked to me, the families got wise to it and I was booted out.” He looked at the tile floor. “I’ll just be glad if they let me come back and make it up to them in some way. I wouldn’t expect to work directly with the kids again.”
“You didn’t do anything inappropriate?”
He studied her. “Well, being a drunk Santa is pretty inappropriate, but...” Suddenly he realized what she must be thinking. “I’ve never done anything to hurt kids, Lauren, if that’s what you mean.”
“You realize I’m going to check up on that.”
He spread his hands. “If you need to do that, I understand. You won’t find anything.”
“I hope not.” She rose and stalked toward the door.
Fisk followed, all the good cheer around him unable to lift the dark cloud that was descending.
He knew he’d made a lot of mistakes, and he was committed to staying here in Holiday Point to make things right, or as right as they could be. But the fact that lovely Lauren could suspect him of doing something so horrendous as purposely hurting a child discouraged him. Would he ever get beyond his past mistakes?
He put a hand on Nemo’s shaggy head and tried to ignore the gloom settling around his heart.