Page 3 of Big Package

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted some fries with your sandwich.”

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

She laughed while I checked the time. It was a little after eleven. Cole lived maybe twenty-five minutes outside town, past the turnoff for the Visitor Center and up toward the park boundary. If I left now, I could get there and be back way before the advisory even started.

“You’re thinking about going out there to get it yourself,” Janice said.

“I’m not thinking about it. I’m going.”

“Emmy.”

“I have customers coming to pick up their orders. How’s it going to look when they’re not here?”

Janice stared at me with the same look my mother had been using on me since I was six. “There’s bad weather coming.”

“I’ll be back before then,” I said. “I’ve spent enough of this year waiting for a man to decide what he wanted. I’m not waiting for one to return my Christmas inventory too.”

Janice’s expression softened for half a second before she sighed. “At least text me when you get there.”

“I will.”

“And don’t do anything stupid.”

“I own a retail shop at Christmas. My judgment is already questionable. Can you watch the shop for me until I get back?”

“Of course. Be careful.”

I grabbed my coat, thanked Janice, and took the rest of my sandwich with me. The sky had darkened while I’d been inside, heavy clouds settling over the ridges beyond town, and the Christmas lights strung along Main Street had already blinked on against the gray morning. Ribbons on the holiday wreaths on the streetlights fluttered in the wind.

For a second, I stopped next to my SUV and just looked. Big Wood was the kind of town people put on Christmas cards, the kind I’d once been convinced was too small for the life I wanted. How had I gone from that to owning a shop on Main Street? Life had a sense of humor.

By the time I passed the turnoff for the Visitor Center, the first drops were hitting my windshield. Rain, I told myself and kept going. A few minutes later, the drops turned to ice, and the road underneath me started to shine.

“Oh, come on.”

It wasn’t enough freezing rain to panic about, but it was enough to make me tighten both hands on the wheel as the GPS led me deeper into the woods. The turnoffs for houses spread farther apart and my cell signal dropped to a single bar. The road climbed, and my stomach climbed with it.

I’d pick up the shipment, get back to town, save the festival, and pour myself a very large glass of wine. Once I conquered this challenge, maybe I’d work up the nerve to sell that wedding dress. One disaster at a time.

I rounded another curve, and Cole’s cabin appeared through the trees, though it wasn’t really a cabin. The two-story timber house was gorgeous, with a wide front porch, dark-framed windows, and enough privacy around it to make the rest of Big Wood feel like a lifetime away. A black pickup sat in the drive, and there, taking up an outrageous amount of porch space, was my crate.

Relief rushed through me. “Found you.”

I parked behind the truck, killed the engine, and looked at the front door. The truck in the drive meant Cole was home, which meant I wasn’t going to get lucky enough to steal my own merchandise off a man’s porch without having to explain the voicemail.

The cold hit me as soon as I opened the door. Icy droplets pelted my hood and bounced off the porch steps as I crossed the driveway. Up close, the crate looked even bigger.

“You are officially the worst purchase I’ve ever made,” I told it.

The front door opened, and when I turned, whatever I’d planned to say went straight out of my head.

Cole Maddox filled the doorway in a charcoal thermal shirt, dark jeans, and gray wool socks, one of them worn thin at the big toe. He’d gotten broader since high school, a lot broader, and there was a carpenter’s pencil tucked behind one ear, like I’d had the nerve to interrupt him halfway down a column of numbers. His dark hair was longer than I remembered, and several days of scruff shadowed his jaw, but his eyes were exactly the same, steady and gray and impossible to read.

His gaze held mine. “Emmy Parker.”