Fly Me to the Moon

by Mindy Klasky

  She was a fool not to. She sold candlesticks, lots of them—fancy brass ones appropriate for any formal table, cute clay ones with elves and angels, glass ones with reindeer painted on their sides. They were scattered through the store, brightening half a dozen displays.

  But Lexi had never been able to bring herself to add candles to her inventory. She knew her decision was idiotic. If the store caught fire, artificial Christmas trees would burn just as well as candles, maybe even better. But it felt dangerous to have wicks lying around. Like she was inviting disaster.

  Mrs. Dawson’s disappointment was clear. “I guess I’ll head over to the American Dollar, then.”

  Lexi bristled. The last thing she wanted was to drive a customer toward her competition. Especially the controversial new dollar store that had opened at the end of Main Street. If Mrs. Dawson got used to shopping there, she might never set foot in The Christmas Cat again.

  “Let’s see,” Lexi said, pulling out her laptop. “If you can wait a few days, I’m sure I can order them from one of my suppliers.” She typed in a few keywords and pulled up a catalog page. “What color did you want?”

  “I was thinking four red, four green, and four gold.”

  “Perfect,” Lexi said, typing in the order. “Oh. Wait. They’re on backorder.” She tried another supplier, only to find the same delay. A third yielded no better news. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The earliest I can get them is December 20.”

  Lexi could see Mrs. Dawson was torn. She would have been herself. It was one thing to support downtown merchants; it was another to wait weeks for something she wanted today. But Mrs. Dawson said, “Well, we’ll just have to make do. As long as I have them by Christmas Day… The candleholder I want them for is one of my favorites. It was a gift from…”

  She trailed off, and Lexi understood. She said gently, “This first Christmas without Jon must be especially difficult.”

  Mrs. Dawson flashed her a grateful smile. “Most people won’t even say his name. They think mentioning Jon will make us sad. Sadder, that is.”

  It was the same for Lexi, with her scars. People never talked about the fire. So she raised her voice just a little, making sure Finn could hear her in the back room. “They’re unveiling a plaque at the Fête, aren’t they?”

  Mrs. Dawson nodded. “It will go up at the school, by the football field. Jon loved those games so much.”

  They talked about the football team, then, about how close the boys had come to taking the state championship this year, about how excited the entire town had been. While they chatted, Lexi placed the order for candles, printing out a record. She wrote “December 20” at the top of the page in bright red ink and handed over the paper. Mrs. Dawson thanked her and left the store, setting the bell jangling above the door.

  Lexi told herself she wasn’t allowed to cross to the back room. She had to wait for Finn to come to her. She had to let him say something about Mrs. Dawson, about Jon.

  About that kiss.

  She busied herself straightening the tissue paper beneath the counter. She tapped the gift bags into order as well. She scowled at the Orchard Diner coffee, still sitting on the counter, and she eased the cup of disgusting black muck into the trashcan under the counter. She’d have to find a way to get back at Anne.

  “Hey,” she finally called out, unable to take the tension any longer. “Coward!”

  He appeared in the doorway so quickly, she knew he had to have been lurking just out of sight. “Those are fighting words.”

  She wrangled a grin as she imagined exactly what form their “fight” might take. “I’m only trying to help you,” she said, with mock breeziness. “But if you don’t want to know which piece Susan Dawson was looking at in Harmony Town…”

  He took a step closer. “You’ll what?”

  His growl set up a tremor beneath her Christmas Cat skirt. For the first time in…forever…she reconsidered the uniform she’d chosen for this job. Maybe she should start wearing her crimson sweater dress instead, the one that hit her mid-thigh. Higher actually, if she added her wide leather belt, the one that showed off her waist and what passed for her décolletage. And she was pretty sure she wanted to add that belt.

  “I’ll keep the information to myself,” she said tartly. “I’ll wait and tell Dave Dawson when he rushes in two days before Christmas, looking for a last-minute present the way he has the past three years.”

  “Then I have to convince you to share your secret with me?”

  Her happy grin matched his dangerous one. “Something like that.”

  He started to reach for her hair again, for the curl she hadn’t quite managed to pin up. But before he could close the distance between them, the shop door opened and a pair of tourists walked in. As Finn sank back a polite distance, Lexi called out a cheerful greeting.

  Finn was just near enough to mutter, “Dinner tonight? In exchange for the info?”

  “I don’t know if I can trust you,” she said softly. “You might skip town after I tell you which figurine to buy.”

  His eyes clouded dangerously. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “How can I be sure?”

  “I made a promise. I don’t break my promises.”

  They weren’t talking about Holiday Town figurines any more. They weren’t even talking about Finn working off his debt. But Lexi nodded and said, “Tonight. At Benedetti’s. It’s one block over, at Oak and Fourth.”

  “Benedetti’s,” he said. “Seven o’clock?”

  “Seven o’clock,” she agreed.

  “So what figurine was she looking at?”

  “I think I’ll wait and tell you later. After dinner.” And just like that, she’d made a promise of her own.

  “Fine.” He shrugged like he didn’t care.

  “Fine,” she said. But she realized she wasn’t one hundred percent certain what she’d agreed to. And the possibilities were so distracting she nearly forgot to smile when her newest customers approached the register, purchases in hand.

  Seven o’clock had never seemed so far away. And it didn’t help that she heard Finn chuckle as he stalked into the back room.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lexi smiled as Mona Benedetti escorted her to the leather-backed booth. The woman automatically scooped up the wax-dripped Chianti bottle on the table, blowing out the candle before Lexi could react to the flame. It was great to be a regular.

  Mona slapped a heavy leather-bound menu onto the red-checked tablecloth. “Here you go,” she said. “My good-for-nothing husband didn’t bother making any specials.”

  Lexi placed her hand on the table. “This will be perfect, Mona. But I’m meeting a friend, so I’ll need another menu.”

  “A friend?” Mona’s painted-on eyebrows rose in surprise. “Would that be the young man you have working in the back room at the Cat?”

  Of course Mona knew about Finn. Everyone in Harmony Springs probably knew about him by now. “Tom Finnegan,” Lexi said, yielding to the inevitable.

  Mona’s lips pursed, forcing a little more of her bright red lipstick into the tiny lines above her lips. “Too bad this isn’t a Saturday. I could fix you some nice light dishes. Nothing to tire you out too much, make you too full to—”

  Lexi interrupted before she could hear the obvious end-point of Mona’s matchmaking. “I’m sure we’ll be just fine, with whatever Gio cooks.”

  Mona harrumphed, but she headed back to the host station at the front of the restaurant. Like all the furniture in Benedetti’s, the table was carved out of wood, staid and somber with its gigantic reservation book. Lexi couldn’t remember the last time every seat in the place was taken.

  She ran a hand through her hair, wondering if she should have put it up for the evening. But she was tired of wearing her hair like some Victorian matron, tired of dressing like one, too. She’d hurried home after closing up the Cat, rushing through a shower and a quick blow-dry, making faces at herself in the mirror as she added fresh makeup. She’d only t
ried on seven outfits before settling on one: a long-sleeved teal silk blouse that crossed over her breasts, tucking into black pants that fastened with a hidden side zipper.

  Restless, she reached into her over-size handbag and took out a wrapped gift. She’d taken extra care with the Holiday Town candy shop, using wrapping paper instead of a brightly colored bag, tying a bow with festoons of curling ribbon. She put the present on the table opposite her, turning it to find the best angle.

  The front door opened, and Lexi caught her breath. Finn stepped into the restaurant, blinking in the dim light. As Mona surged forward, Lexi felt her spine sink into the leather back of the booth. Her lungs refused to draw a complete breath.

  She’d only seen Finn in jeans at the shop, well-worn denim that fit him like the proverbial glove. The button-fly Levi’s had seemed appropriate, exactly what a man like Thomas Finn Finnegan should wear.

  Until she saw him now.

  He wore charcoal slacks, clearly cut for a suit. He hadn’t bothered with the jacket, though. With a tie, either. Instead, the neck of his shirt was open, crisp white cotton flashing against his dark throat. He hadn’t shaved, and from the shock of his hair, it looked like the wind had picked up since she’d come in.

  His eyes darted around the restaurant, ticking off the shadowed alcove of the bar, the hall that led back to the restrooms, the double doors that swung open to the kitchen. He paused when he got to the coatrack, crowded with winter weather gear, but he dismissed the chaotic jumble after a piercing stare.

  Only then did he turn his attention to Mona’s broad smile. The hostess, a traitor to her husband slaving away in the kitchen, patted her titian hair and led the way across the dining room. Lexi had never seen the older woman’s hips sway quite so much in the black double-knit dress she always wore to greet Benedetti’s customers.

  Mona batted her false eyelashes at Finn as she said, “And here’s the lovely Lexi. I’ll bring you some focaccia. Not the garlic bread tonight.”

  Lexi felt her cheeks color. “Thanks, Mona,” she squeaked. She clutched at her water glass, nearly choking on an ice cube as she swallowed half the contents.

  Finn’s blue eyes were steady as he watched her return the glass to its damp circle on the tablecloth. The corners of his lips turned up as Mona disappeared through the double doors, her voice already cresting into a protest as Gio did something wrong in the kitchen. He nodded toward the gift-wrapped present. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “It’s for Susan Dawson. The Harmony Town candy shop.”

  “Aha,” he said, as if some great mystery had been solved. He reached for his wallet but she waved him off.

  “I’ll add it to your tab,” she said.

  They both laughed, like he didn’t owe her five thousand dollars. He shifted the box onto the seat next to him.

  “So,” he said. “Mona. As in Mona’s Trattoria, next door?”

  Lexi nodded, but realized she had to answer. “Mona and Gio Benedetti have been married for thirty-five years, but they’ve never been able to agree on what a restaurant should be. Gio wanted an old-fashioned place.” Lexi gestured toward the checked tablecloth and the heavy menus. “Lasagna and manicotti, veal piccata and chicken cacciatore. Mona wanted small plates, even before they were popular. Little appetizers and fancy cocktails.”

  “So they opened up competing restaurants?”

  Lexi shook her head. “They don’t compete. Not exactly. Benedetti’s is open on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. And Mona’s is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. They trade off cooking and greeting customers. There’s only one kitchen—it opens into both places.”

  Finn had a dimple, a tiny curve on his left cheek. “And what happens on Mondays?”

  “Both places are closed. It gives Mona and Gio a break. And the rest of us, too. Their sniping can be a bit much.”

  Sniping. She shouldn’t have used the word. Not when he’d come from a place where there were real snipers, where bullets ended disputes instead of stupendous shouts of rapid-fire Italian.

  Finn had to feel the air freeze between them. He could probably hear her heart pounding as she tried to figure out what to say, how to make it right. “I’m sorry—” she started, but before she could complete her apology, he’d wrestled open the menu.

  “So?” he asked. “What’s good here?”

  Grateful, Lexi forced herself to smile. “Everything, really. Just don’t plan on eating a lot of vegetables. Gio’s not really a vegetable sort of cook.”

  “Great. Because I’m not really a vegetable sort of eater.”

  Lexi gave him a chance to study the menu, watching as he flipped the heavy parchment pages. She knew the listing by heart, from anchovies to zabaglione and everything in between. Before Lexi needed to excavate a conversational topic, Mona came back with a basket of bread as large as her head. She deposited it on the table and fished a battered notepad from her apron. “What can I get you?”

  Lexi ordered the scampi, meekly accepting the side of angel-hair that Mona insisted she needed. When Finn hesitated a split second, he was assigned the bistecca, very, very rare, with gremolata on top and a side of the same pasta. Mona tilted her head to one side and said, “A bottle of Chianti.”

  Before Mona could march their order into the kitchen, Finn said, “And a Jack Daniels to start, on the rocks. Actually, make it a double.”

  Mona frowned, but Lexi was pretty sure she didn’t actually disapprove of the alcohol. She was just going to complain about Gio lacking the necessary bitters to make a decent Old-Fashioned. The vermouth, too. Eager to cut off the familiar tirade, Lexi said, “And I’ll have a rum and Coke.”

  What she really wanted was a chocotini. But Benedetti’s wasn’t the place for that. She’d have to wait till tomorrow night, when Mona’s was open for business.

  At least Mona brought the cocktails quickly. And they lubricated a painfully stilted conversation. Finn’s walk over to the restaurant had been fine. Lexi’s afternoon at the store had been fine. Finn had gone for a run up in the National Forest and it had been…fine.

  By the time their food came, the roof of Lexi’s mouth was tingling. She’d skipped lunch, and she was trying not to eat her way through the entire bread basket. Mona must have poured the liquor into her Coke with a heavy hand. Finn’s double looked suspiciously closer to a triple. At least.

  Mona brought the assigned Chianti along with their meals. As she pulled the cork, she clicked her tongue in exasperation. “Gio doesn’t have any clean wine glasses. He says you can use these.” She reached behind her and took water glasses from a nearby table. She poured for both of them, barely heeding Lexi’s limiting hand gesture.

  Finn sawed into his steak, nodding approval at the cool red center. Lexi took a bite of shrimp, savoring the butter and lemon melting across her tongue. A bite of cayenne was layered deep within the rich sauce—but not a hint of garlic. Lexi’s eyes narrowed as she watched Mona innocently stack menus at the front of the restaurant.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Finn said. And all of a sudden, Lexi realized that the interfering waitress might have the right idea after all. Because the jumpstart of her heart told her she was actually very interested in hearing whatever Finn had been thinking about. She made an inquiring noise and took a sip of wine.

  “About that back room. It’ll be easy enough to build a platform and throw together some storage shelves. But that’s not the best thing to do with the space.”

  Finn’s face had been turned toward his plate while he spoke, as if his slab of beef was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. But he glanced up at Lexi, just for a second when he finished, his eyes flashing beneath his lashes. That look, quick as it was, told her more than fifteen minutes of talk. He cared what she thought about his ideas. He wanted her to be happy with what he was about to suggest.

  She balanced her knife on the edge of her plate. “What did you have in mind?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he set dow
n his own fork. When he looked at her, his eyes flared with an intensity that surprised her. He leaned forward, just a little and said, “This part of the country is loaded with history. Civil War battles were fought all through the Shenandoah Valley. You’ve already got books about them, and those boxes of tin soldiers. You could build scale maps of the battlefields, set up miniatures to illustrate what happened during the war. It would bring in customers year-round, and a lot of those people would want to buy souvenirs, books about the area.”

  It was a good idea. A great idea. It would take care of the better part of Chris’s stock and turn the back room into a cost center. But… “I don’t know nearly enough military history to do all that,” she said.

  “I do,” Finn said, and his intensity shot an arrow straight to the center of her girl parts.

  “Go on,” she said, trying to ignore the sudden heat sparked by his words.

  “I’ve mapped out battles before, when I was a kid. You’ve already got the plywood back there, to use as a base. The display doesn’t have to be detailed, not at first. You can add to it over time, after the maps start bringing in customers.”

  “So you’d write up instructions on how to set it up?”

  “I’d do it myself.”

  It scared her, how much she wanted to say yes. So it only seemed reasonable to apply some brakes. “I don’t know…”

  “We could start small. Do Cedar Creek, the last battle fought out here.”

  She’d taken field trips to the battlefield as a kid. Everyone in Harmony Springs had. Those trips had whetted her brother’s appetite; they were why Chris had bought Civil War books in the first place. He’d be proud if she used his stock to set up the back room. He might even feel better about the mess he’d made of the bookstore, about his failure in business. “How long would it take to set up?”

  It wasn’t until Finn grinned that she realized she’d already decided to agree. “A month,” he said. “That’s what I owe you, right? And I’ve got to be honest. Putting up those shelves your brother was making wouldn’t take much more than a day. If you don’t say yes to the Cedar Creek idea, you’ll have to figure out some other way to get your money’s worth from me.”