She touched a blue stone on the driver’s window.
“We couldn’t figure out how to leave the windows open without the entire thing coming down.” Joe stood nearby, looking haggard and shaggy and oh, so kissable. “I figured you wouldn’t be happy with a convertible. I hoped that you wouldn’t be upset with us creating a platform for the real art. Your art. It was Sam’s idea that the mermaids have a playground.”
She was thrilled with what they’d done. All it needed was the magic of a few mermaids to make it come alive. “How did you collect enough rocks? I’d estimated it’d take me more than two months.”
“Agnes organized the troops. We had twenty people collecting rocks every day, seven days straight. Will was my best worker. Turns out his nerdy mind comes in handy in the field.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Well.” Joe took a step closer. “The town council came the day after the FBI left. They offered their help. I don’t think they expected I’d ask them to help you.” There was a bit of wonder in his voice, as if he hadn’t expected anyone in town to help him period. “I spent several sleepless nights after I sent you away. I didn’t want to be the guy who stole your creativity.”
He’d stolen something else altogether.
Joe took another step closer and laced his fingers with those of her right hand. “I lost it when I found the stolen cars because I knew everything came down to how my uncle reacted. Would he try to frame me? Would he send someone to take back the things he’d stolen? Nate and I suspect he stole that BMW and the Volkswagen. I couldn’t let you take even one piece of it.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Turns out, I wasn’t very passionate about that gate. I sent back my advance and recommended someone else.”
He laced his fingers through those on her left. “I hurt you. And I had to do something to earn your forgiveness.”
Brit didn’t dare move. Not her fingers. Not her toes.
“I have no right to ask, but I hope you can forgive me.” His words were deep and low and meant only for her. “I can’t stand the idea of a life without you. Somehow, beneath all the anger and hurt when I first got here, my heart knew—” there was wonder in his gaze “—I fell in love with you.”
Silence pressed her ears. Or maybe it was the weight of a wallflower flowing out into the universe, because Joe had fallen in love with the ugly duckling.
“Brit?”
It was the first time he’d called her by her nickname. Her chest was swelling with the fullness of her heart, and then she saw the rust and rock he’d brought to this strip of land, recognized the potential for more beauty still. Something flowing, something lovely, made of metal and worked with love. Mermaids. The mermaids Sam wanted. Her mermaids.
And then she was crying and his arms were around her and he was whispering the same thing over and over again.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”
When the burst of emotion had been released, Brit led him to the truck bed. “I have something to show you. I made this for you. I wanted you to know how special you are.”
There was a merman in the truck, welded to the river bicycle. He had unruly black hair and icy blue eyes that somehow managed to be cold and hot at the same time. He was graceful and powerful, and though he was mesmerizing, he wasn’t as magnetic to Brit as Joe.
EPILOGUE
THE MERMAIDS GARNERED most of the attention a year later when the Messina Family Art Exhibit officially opened.
But it wasn’t the mermaids Brit treasured. It was the heart of Joe she saw in the foundation pieces of the display. The pieces he’d made and moved to win her back—a tractor, a set of tires, his childhood swing set. The love he put into every rock he’d arranged into the form of a Volkswagen.
They’d married in August in the field where they’d met. A field cleared of cars and mown to a short, tame green. Reggie had served as maid of honor. Sam and Tracy from the bakery were Brit’s bridesmaids. Will stood up as Joe’s best man, with Vince and Gabe as groomsmen. But the exhibit and the wedding weren’t the only things keeping them busy. They were almost done remodeling the house Joe had grown up in. They’d knocked down walls and gutted the kitchen and bathrooms until nothing looked the same.
“I like the little mermaid on the tricycle best.” Sam ran up to Brit, who’d officially become her mother last month. The breeze teased the hem of her blue flowered dress.
Sam’s classmate and sometimes nemesis, Brad, accompanied her. He wore blue basketball shorts, a white T-shirt and a superior attitude. “If you have to choose the smallest one, I have to choose the biggest one. The merman on the tractor.”
“I love them all, gorgeous.” Joe draped his arm across Brit’s shoulders. “The one on the swing set. The one swimming through the tires. But especially the one tugging the rear bumper of the rusty Volkswagen.” He kissed Brit’s temple. “She reminds me of you trying to tug that bicycle free.”
They both looked back at the Messina Family Garage and the merman riding a river-salvaged bike that hung over the office door.
Joe’s free hand slipped over Brit’s swelling belly. “Are you happy, love?”
“Yes.” Brit tugged him close for a kiss.
“Your parents are having a baby.” Brad tossed the information like a taunt. “Your life is over, Sam. You’ll be babysitting until you’re thirty.”
“I won’t,” Sam said stubbornly. “Mom promised. And my mom doesn’t lie.”
Brit grinned, breaking the kiss long enough to whisper, “Be prepared, Shaggy Joe, for the day they realize they like each other like we like each other.”
Joe groaned, but he must not have been too depressed, because he kissed her again.
* * * * *
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A Christmas Miracle
by Anna Adams
CHAPTER ONE
DESPITE BEING GOOD friends with techn
ology, Fleming Harris answered Jason Macland’s summons to the bank with printed copies of all the paperwork she could find. She knew very little about Jason. He was the son of the bank’s owner, but he was a stranger to the remote Smoky Mountains town of Bliss, Tennessee, not having set foot there in decades.
Fleming had heard stories. People said Jason was his father’s hired gun, brought in to close accounts, trim fat, sew up loopholes.
She swallowed a lump of panic as she smoothed her skirt beneath the pile of folders on her lap. Across the room, Hilda Grant, Jason’s admin, shared an empathetic smile that worried Fleming.
Her shop, Mainly Merry Christmas, was her future and her past. She’d grown up “working” with her single mother behind the counter, playing with the wooden trains that doubled as decoration during the holiday season, learning to count by handing out change. Her pride was tied up in the twinkling lights and the beautiful ornaments.
And the burdensome loan payments. She’d missed only two. Shame burned her. Only.
This bank guy wouldn’t have summoned her if he wasn’t about to threaten her shop.
“You can go in now,” Hilda said.
At the same time, the office door opened and a man emerged, lean and tall, with wary dark eyes and dark brown hair. His gaze caught her as if she were in a spotlight.
“Hello,” she said, when what she meant was What do you want from me?
“Please, Ms. Harris.” He held the door for her, ushering her inside. His mouth, a generous slash of masculine fullness, did not curve.
She stood, and her legs felt as stiff as planks as she passed in front of him, into the office of the bank’s president, William Gaines. Some said Mr. Gaines had taken a pre-Thanksgiving vacation, but she’d also heard he’d been fired.
“Mr. Macland,” she began, keeping things on a formal footing.
“Jason.” He shut the door behind her and gestured with an open, capable hand toward the leather couch in front of a wide fireplace, where a tablet was set up on a rustic, scarred coffee table. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know why I’ve asked you here,” he said.
Her mouth opened in surprise at his abruptness. She shut it. She wouldn’t give up the store to some bully. She’d find a way to fight him.
He waited for her to sit. “Would you like coffee?”
“I’d like to get this over with.” She tried to appear more confident than she felt. “I know I’m behind on payments.”
His hard mouth softened. He sat in the chair kitty-corner to the sofa and turned the tablet so they could both view the screen. “That’s exactly what I want to discuss.” He straightened one leg, looking more like a jock than the loan police. Muscles and strength. Power, leashed by frustration. The observation unsettled her even more.
He continued. “Mr. Paige, the former loan officer—”
“Former?” Bliss’s ultra-busy grapevine had fallen down on reporting part of the news cycle.
Untroubled by her interruption, Jason merely breathed in and went on, his husky voice claiming all her attention. “Mr. Paige was let go because he approved loans for certain of his clients under terms that were inappropriate.”
“I’m not understanding you.” She stood. “Are you suggesting I’ve done something wrong?”
He glanced down at the sofa, clearly asking her to sit again. “Not at all. You are behind on your loan, but that’s not why I’ve asked you here. Mr. Paige was skimming from several of the accounts and I believe he knew you’d never be able to continue to repay under the terms he offered you. I assume he meant to run before my father caught on to what’s been happening here.”
“The bank did something wrong?” A moment’s relief made Fleming realize she hadn’t breathed freely for two months. Was there a way out of this mess she seemed to be making of her life? “Am I going to keep the store?”
His expression didn’t change. She had the feeling he’d been repeating this conversation with other clients like her.
“I’m offering you a chance to secure a new loan with more affordable terms,” he explained. “Mr. Paige will be speaking to the district attorney. The bank is making restitution for his actions.”
“So that’s your point.” She followed his blunt lead. “I’m not interested in suing the bank. I only care about keeping my store, and I thought you were going to tell me I’m about to lose it.”
He nodded, reaching for the tablet. His hands distracted her again as he slid his fingers across the screen, his glance lifting to her face.
This man held her future in his spreadsheets. Fleming had some dreams she wanted to make reality, and keeping Mainly Merry Christmas for her own children was one of them.
“Not everyone has reacted as calmly as you have,” he said.
“You’re trying to measure whether I’m aware of what’s happening?”
He sat back. “No, Ms. Harris. I don’t doubt your intelligence.”
“Fleming.”
His smile caught her unawares.
She didn’t want to be attracted to him.
“Fleming,” he said, and turned back to the tablet. “If you’re agreeable, we’ll start from the beginning with a loan for you. I don’t usually work in the loan office, but since this is my family’s bank, I have the same concern you do that we all succeed in Bliss.”
“Are you saying I have recourse? Have I overpaid?”
A commotion interrupted from the outer office. Raised voices and thudding as if something had dropped on the floor.
Before Jason could speak, the door burst open. A tall glass vase tumbled and broke and furniture skidded as a man dived over the back of the couch, trying to plant his fist in Jason’s face.
With barely any effort at all, Jason stood and twisted out of the intruder’s reach. Jason climbed over the table and put himself between Fleming and his attacker, who’d ended up on the floor.
“Paige,” Jason said, as he pulled Fleming up and tucked her behind his back. The man at their feet scrambled for handholds on the table and the sofa.
Without thinking, Fleming flattened her hands on Jason’s back. “We need the police,” she gasped.
He urged her toward the office door. “Get out of here.”
She froze. “I can’t just leave you with him.” Walk away and leave someone else in possible danger? She looked into his eyes, and in that moment of ugly violence a bond formed between them. She took a step back, but not because she was afraid of the intruder.
“Stay there,” another voice barked.
Two armed, uniformed guards bounded over the furniture to scoop up the bank’s former loan officer. One hustled their prey, stunned by his fall, out of the room. The other, a long-time acquaintance of Fleming’s, faced Jason.
“We’ve called the police. They’re on their way.”
“Did he hurt anyone out there?” Jason glanced toward the reception area.
“No, sir. Seemed intent on getting in here. Fleming, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Oakes.” With relief flowing to every extremity, but feeling incredibly awkward at the same time, she hid her face as she bent to gather the files she’d dumped on the faded, flowery rug. “He must have tripped on these when he landed.”
“Let me help you.” Jason’s hand brushed hers as she picked up a file, which she dropped immediately.
Mr. Oakes, who’d also provided security for high school football games in years past, managed to retrieve the rest and handed the pile to her. “You should go home.”
“I have to go to work.” She stared into the hall, where Paige suddenly reappeared, writhing against his captor’s hold. “He never said a word.”
“He made his point, though.” Jason looked calm, but his voice seemed a thread huskier. This time, as she stared, fascinated, he looked away, feelin
g for his tablet underneath the chair. “You might want to stay in case the police...”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’ll email you the information I was hoping to discuss. We can talk about it again.”
After seeing him attacked, the last thing she wanted to talk about was her money troubles. It was embarrassing. If she lost the shop, she’d lose her home. She’d lose her mother’s respect. She’d lose her own.
“I trusted Mr. Paige.” How on earth could she believe that Jason Macland, whose family name was on the bank, really wanted to help her out of a financial catastrophe?
“A lot of people did,” Jason said, “including my father.”
So he wasn’t here just to fix the bank. He also had someone he didn’t want to disappoint.
* * *
“MR. MACLAND, that was your last appointment.” Hilda was already buttoning her coat. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home.”
By the time the police had left, Jason and Hilda and Fleming Harris had formed a triad—the first people Paige had found the guts to attack in person, rather than hiding behind a predatory loan. “You’re coming back tomorrow?” Jason asked.
She nodded. “As long as that man’s in the county jail.”
Which was apparently over the ridge that almost completely surrounded the town.
“You don’t happen to have Ms. Harris’s phone number?” he asked. Fleming had lingered at the edges of Jason’s mind since she’d left the office. She wasn’t the only person Paige had cheated. There was the man whose house was in danger of foreclosure, the two elderly ladies who’d retired to Bliss to open an ice cream parlor. Others, too. And all the while, Jason kept thinking of the woman who’d refused to leave a man she didn’t know when he might be in danger.
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