My Smalltown C.E.O. Scrooge: A Festive Romantic Comedy

by Harmony Knight

  “Jesus shit!”

  My whole body jerks, including my hands and the mug I’m holding, which sends a couple of drops of the cold coffee mud splashing onto my face. I’m pretty sure I hear him snort a laugh, but by the time I look back up he’s already on his feet beside me.

  “That thing scared me last night, too,” he says. His eyes are a little softer and he’s holding a handkerchief. He stands over me and reaches down, dabbing gently at my cheek. There’s something tender about the way he does it, and something intense about this sudden intimacy with someone who is, let’s face it, an absolute stranger.

  “Do you have any other jobs?” he asks. I’m so distracted by the tingling sensation on my cheek that I almost miss the question.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “Wait. I mean yes. I work at Jimmy’s bar sometimes. That’s evenings though, usually.”

  He nods and takes the mug out of my hands, placing it down on the table.

  “We’ll work out your schedule later,” he says. “And you can invoice me through HelpForHire at the end of each week, all right?”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Come on, we’ll get started with the dust sheets.”

  I nod and stand, but before I follow him out of the room I reach for the mug on the table, pick it up from the polished wood again, and set it down on top of his notepad. If he gets a ring on there it’s his own fault for not having coasters.

  “Ms. Brooks?” he calls from the hall. I quickly pull my sleeve down over my hand, swipe it across the coffee ring on the tabletop until it’s gone, and follow him out.

  Chapter 4

  Greyson

  It’s the first day of my second week in Sunrise Valley, on a house-flipping project that is supposed to be on a tight deadline, and I’ve been pacing in the kitchen for the past twenty minutes. I have plenty I could be getting on with; emails, calls, looking over my company’s ongoing projects. But I get this nervous energy whenever Ms. Brooks is due to arrive, and I just can’t bring myself to sit still. It’s a little pathetic, but no-one besides me will ever know.

  I shouldn’t have asked her whether she had a husband or boyfriend during our first meeting last week. Very unprofessional. And it’s probably for the best that she didn’t answer me. Knowing me, I’d probably have pursued her for a one-night stand, but there’s something about her that makes me think a quick roll on the couch wouldn’t have scratched the itch the way it usually does. I’d have wanted more, and since my ironclad rule is that I don’t do more, that would have been disastrous. So I’ll keep my distance, be as brief as I can when I talk to her, and let her think whatever she wants about me.

  What she probably thinks about me is that I’m a standoffish asshole. Which, again—good thing. I don’t do relationships, and that’s for the best. For me, and for the women I might have ensnared if I’d wanted to. And it’s definitely best for gorgeous, faux-French smalltown girls with dazzling smiles and an overabundance of consideration for coffee tables.

  “BING BONG!”

  The doorbell rings just as the kettle starts to whistle on the range. I pick it up, put it down to one side, and go to answer the door.

  “Morning!” Alora is smiling, standing there in jeans and boots, a thick coat, a chunky scarf, and a rainbow-colored woolly hat with a bobble on the top and what I think is a Care Bears patch sewn onto the side. She looks ridiculous. And adorable.

  “Nice hat,” I say, nodding to it.

  She gives me a wider grin and plucks it off her head, releasing a mop of dark curls that bounce all around her lovely face. At some point since she first started working here, she must have realized that she was the only person in town registered on HelpForHire, because she’s gotten a lot more talkative and a lot less awkward since that first day. Not that I’m complaining.

  “Couldn’t find mine so I had to borrow my niece’s. What’s that smell?”

  She’s walking forward, face lifted, sniffing as she goes. I loft a brow at her and move out of the way, watching her go another couple of steps before she turns around, still sniffing. She’s like a bloodhound on a trail. Ridiculous. And adorable.

  I fold my arms over my chest and continue to watch her. She gets closer and then a little closer again, and then she leans right into me, pressing lightly against my front. My breath hitches when I feel the tip of her November-cold nose against my neck. I freeze, feeling a distinct, instant twitch in my pants.

  “It’s you!” she says, stepping back. She’s lucky I don’t grab her up in her stupid coat and carry her upstairs. “Nice cologne.”

  I turn away from her and walk with some difficulty back to the kitchen, placing myself strategically behind the breakfast bar, which—thankfully—is waist-high. The last thing I need is to end up on some sort of registry.

  “Hot date,” I say, sardonically.

  Because I’ve been restraining myself so carefully around her, she doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm. “OooooOOH!” she says, her voice lilting up and down. “Who’s it with? No, no. Let me guess.”

  I’m not about to stop her.

  “Coffee?” I ask. She nods, but her finger is tapping against her chin as she looks me over.

  “Let’s see. Emily from the bar? No. Too young. Hmm…”

  I put the kettle back on the range to regain a little heat and pull a coffee press out of the cupboard overhead. Much better than the instant crap I had to drink the first night.

  “Amanda from the post office?” she asks. “She’s kind of older than you though. Do you like cougars?”

  I fix her with a look, but she’s oblivious. She pushes herself onto one of the high stools on the other side of the island and puts her Care Bears hat down on the counter.

  “Ohhh. Samantha would be a good fit for you. Samantha Reynolds. She’s pretty, blond, blue eyes. Works in her father’s antique shop on the corner of Main Street. Yeah,” she says, nodding. I slide her coffee over to her. “I bet that’s it. You went in to look at furniture for this place and your eyes met across a vintage armoire…”

  I take a deliberately slow sip of coffee and set my mug down. Then I shake my head.

  “There’s no date. That was a joke.” I can’t stop myself adding: “and I’m not into blonds.”

  She flicks her green gaze up to mine, and our eyes meet for a long moment.

  “Sooo,” she says, breaking the silence, but not before I’ve spent far too long thinking about kissing her. “I guess you’re pretty bad at jokes?”

  I turn around a little too quickly, before my face has a chance to betray me, and pick up my coffee ring-covered notepad from the worktop opposite the island. Opening it to the last page I was writing on, I spin it around and push it toward her.

  “This is what’s on the agenda for today.”

  She sips her coffee quietly and reads it over.

  “You know,” she says, looking up at me. “There’s not actually as much to be done as I thought there would be, the first day I came over. Now that all the sheets are off it looks way better. If I get the rest of the dusting done today I bet it’ll look great.”

  She’s right. There are definitely trouble spots; paper peeling off the walls, a little dry rot here and there, and the whole place needs a fresh coat of paint and some new fixtures. But compared to a lot of places I’ve flipped it’s not half bad. I don’t know why I haven’t called Ben and told him I might be done in four weeks instead of six. Or maybe I do know the reason, and she’s sitting across the island from me.

  “Yeah. It’s a nice place.”

  “You never thought about keeping it?” she asks, her head tilted to one side quizzically. And adorably.

  I snort through my nose and shake my head. “Nah. My company’s in New York City. What use do I have for a house in the ass-end of—“

  Her glare is immediate and devastating and silences me immediately.

  “Well, you have to admit. Sunrise Valley is pretty remote.”

  “Mmm,” she says, and sips her coffee.
“What’s your company do?”

  “Marketing,” I reply, and I leave it at that. I don’t tell her I co-own one of the most successful marketing companies in the city. And with her, it’s not even because I’m worried she’ll smell money and get weird—I’m pretty sure she’s not the type. It’s because I don’t want her to think that I’m bragging.

  “Fun,” she says, as though my deadpan, distant way of communicating with her is starting to rub off. I hope that doesn’t happen. I’d miss her smile.

  “It has its moments. Have you always lived in Sunrise Valley?”

  “Yup!” she says, brightening a little. She looks back down to the notepad, tapping her finger on the page. “Lucky for you, judging by the number of contractors you need to bring in.”

  I feel a bit guilty, having been so dismissive of Sunrise Valley. It’s got its charms. I look down at the notepad and move around the counter to stand beside her. She smells like vanilla and some sort of fruit.

  “You have all of these in town though, right?” I ask. I’m going to need an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter… the list goes on. I did say I’d flipped houses before—I never said I’d done it single-handed. I’m more of a project manager than an all-purpose handyman.

  “Of course. You want me to call them for you?”

  I hesitate, looking over the list. And then an idea strikes me, and before I realize how stupid it is, I say it out loud.

  “I actually prefer to do business face-to-face. We’ll make a full list of what needs doing today, and then maybe you can take me to meet them? Are you free tomorrow?”

  It’s an abject lie. Nobody prefers doing business by phone and email more than me. It’s efficient. And it takes a lot of the emotion out of the equation, which comes in handy when you’re trying to convince people to market their beloved products and services in ways they’d never imagined. But I’ve been here over a week and I’ve barely left the house. I’m starting to get cabin fever.

  “No, not tomorrow. Wednesday, maybe?” she asks. “I work the diner in the morning but my shift is over at noon. I’ll have to check my planner…”

  “Great. I’ll buy you lunch. Call it a bonus.”

  A ripple of excitement runs up my spine at the thought of taking her to lunch, and once again I have to school my face to stop it from betraying me.

  “Last of the big spenders,” she murmurs, looking back down at the notepad. But I can see the side of her cheek lifting with a smile.

  “Oh,” she says, tapping the end of the pen against the paper. “The plumber. Caleb. He’s out of town at the moment. I’ll call Caroline and see when he’ll be back.”

  “Caroline?” I ask. She looks up, her green eyes framed with dark lashes. God, she’s beautiful. Every time her lips move I imagine the most sinful things.

  “His wife. She’s a friend of mine.”

  Of course she is. Everyone is a friend of everyone around here, by the looks of it.

  “Right,” I nod. I reach for the pen, and I feel a jolt as my skin makes contact with hers. She freezes, and I’m suddenly, acutely desperate to know if it’s because she felt the same thing.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles, releasing the pen into my grip and dropping her hand onto her lap. She swallows uncomfortably, and I clear my throat.

  “Sorry,” I say, and put a little asterisk beside the word “plumber” on the paper.

  I take a few steps away to reclaim a little distance and busy myself with rinsing out my coffee cup.

  “All right,” I say, trying to affect an authoritative air, as though I’m not constantly thrown off my game by her presence. “Let’s get moving, shall we? I’ll start in the yard and you start upstairs. Just write down any little jobs you see that need doing, and we’ll put a list together later. You can use these.” I pull a second notepad and another pen out of a nearby cupboard and place them on the countertop in front of her.

  “Sure thing,” she says, pushing her cup away. She takes the notepad and pen and leaves the room before I can say anything else. Like she feels as much of a need to get away from me as I feel to get away from her. I can’t help but wonder, as I watch her go, whether she feels the same pull to get closer.

  Chapter 5

  Allie

  “Thanks so much for doing this again, Sadie,” I tell my sister-in-law as she hands me a steaming mug of coffee. It’s 7:30 am and the girls have run upstairs to see their cousins. Sadie is watching them for me to work a breakfast shift at the diner before I meet Mr. Blair for lunch.

  “Hey, any time,” she says. “You know that.”

  I take my first sip and close my eyes, willing the caffeine into my veins. I seem to be living on coffee, these last couple of weeks. When I open my eyes again, Sadie is frowning at me.

  “You look tired,” she says. “Are you sure you haven’t taken on too much?”

  I take a deep breath and puff out my cheeks as I sigh it back out.

  “Maybe,” I admit. “I fell asleep watching a movie with the girls last night. I didn’t wake up until midnight and they were both asleep on top of me.”

  Between my shifts at the diner and the bar, and now the extra work up at the mansion, I’ve barely had any time to rest. Even when I do have time off, it’s spent running errands, stocking up on groceries, and catching up on laundry. If I’m lucky I’ll manage to find an hour here and there to give the girls my undivided attention.

  It’s not sustainable, no matter how much I need the money. I’m exhausted.

  “You know, we could loan y—”

  “No,” I cut her off, a little more harshly than I intended to. The idea of borrowing money from Eddie and Sadie, after all the help they give me with the girls, makes me balk. Plus I know they’d never let me pay them back. “But thank you!” I add, trying to soften my response. “You already do enough, helping with the girls. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  “Psht. You’re a warrior and you’d do just fine,” she says. She really is the most amazing friend. “Besides, they’re a pleasure.”

  “Yeah, they are,” I agree. As much work and stress as it is to be responsible for these two little humans, they really do fill up my life and my heart.

  “Y’know, Allie, if it’s too much, it’s too much,” she says. “You’re raising two wonderful children. You know they’ll be happy with whatever you get them for Christmas. Maybe you should think about going a bit easier on yourself.”

  “Yeah.” I nod. It’s a fair point. The mansion was only going to be a temporary gig anyway. And if I’m honest, it’s been more hours than I was expecting when I took the job. “And Blair will have all the tradesmen he needs after today. There probably won’t be much left for me to do.”

  “Blair is the guy at the mansion?” she asks.

  “Mr. Blair,” I say. “His name’s Greyson. I saw it on a letter up at the house. But he introduced himself as Mr. Blair so…” I shrug.

  “Oooh,” says Sadie, wrinkling her nose. “Is he all stuffy and pompous?”

  I shrug again. He is. And he isn’t. It always feels a bit like he’s purposely holding back, putting up a front. He’s so distant a lot of the time, but he’ll occasionally say something dry and funny, and when I laugh his eyes betray a sparkle that makes me think he’s smiling on the inside.

  “I told him to call me Ms. Brooks,” I say, and Sadie laughs.

  “Of course you did,” she says. “You’re the most contrary person I know.”

  “No I’m no—” I begin, before I realize what I’m saying. Sadie’s amused, I-told-you-so expression brings a smile to my face. “Okay, maybe there’s some truth in that.”

  Sadie looks like she’s just about to argue the “some” in that sentence, but we’re interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing. I put my coffee down, dig it out of my bag, and glance at the screen before answering it.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” I’m surprised to be hearing from him so early, and I don’t quite succeed in keeping it out of my voice.

&nb
sp; “Allie, hey. How’re things?” the voice on the other end replies, sounding a little hesitant.

  “All good. What’s up?” I say, my brow furrowing. Usually, by this point in our calls, Jimmy is already reeling off a list of extra shifts that he wants me to work.

  “Well, uh,” he pauses. “The thing is... Jimmy Junior came home yesterday.”

  Jimmy Junior left town six months ago with nothing but his guitar and a heart full of hope, to try and make it in the city. Jimmy’s spent the entire time since fretting that his son would never come home again, and talking my head off about Junior’s childhood every chance he gets.

  “Oh, that’s great!” I say, and despite the fact that I know what’s coming, I’m genuinely happy for Jimmy that JJ is home. “You must be so glad to see him.”

  “Yeah, it’s great to have him back,” says Jimmy, sounding a little more relaxed. “But he’s in need of work, Allie, and I don’t think anyone in town is going to take him right away, what with how he left and all. And… well...”

  “You’re letting me go,” I say. Across the table, Sadie rolls her eyes. We both know that every job in a town like Sunrise Valley is forever under threat from a prodigal son, or a sister in need of some extra cash, or a teenage nephew looking for summer work.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy says, after barely a pause. “Sorry, Allie. But I know you have this new job up at the mansion. And I’ll give you the best reference Sunrise Valley ever saw. It’s just… family. You know.”

  “I know, Jimmy,” I say.

  “No hard feelings?” he asks.

  “No hard feelings. Say hi to JJ for me, though, all right?”

  “I will, and you be sure to come by and see us, ya hear? Junior’s setting up some karaoke thing this Friday. It should be fun. He’s full of ideas.”

  “That does sound fun,” I say. “See you soon, Jimmy.”

  “You’d better promise,” he says. “Thanks for understanding, Allie. You’re a good girl.”