Page 35 of Big Package

Her expression changed. “Okay.”

I had an early job. That part was true. It just wasn’t the reason. Staying felt too easy, and I’d learned a long time ago what happened when I got used to having someone around. Eventually, they were gone.

I almost made it to the door. Behind me, Emmy had started straightening a counter that didn’t need straightening. I knew that move. She fixed things when she didn’t know what else to do.

I turned around. “I’m not pulling away.”

Her hand stilled on a stack of tissue paper. “Then what are you doing?”

“Trying not to screw this up.”

“How would staying screw it up?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing useful came out. That was an answer all by itself. “Maybe it wouldn’t.”

A small smile touched her mouth. “Progress.”

I kissed her again, shorter this time, but not because I wanted less. Leaving still felt wrong. Halfway to the truck, I looked back through the window. Emmy stood beneath the Christmas lights with the wishing tree behind her, and my folded tag hung near the top.

I didn’t have to open it to remember the single word I’d written.

Her.

CHAPTER 9

EMMY

The Christmas festival started at four, and by four-fifteen Wrapped on Main was packed. The register barely stopped ringing, the food-drive bins were filling up, and the wishing tree had become a forest of kraft-paper tags. Kids ran up and down Main Street with hot chocolate, and every time the door opened, another gust of cold air swept through the shop.

It was exactly how I’d pictured it and just what I’d wanted. Maybe that was why I kept looking at the door.

Cole had said he would stop by. He hadn’t said when, and I hadn’t asked, because I was attempting to become the sort of emotionally balanced woman who didn’t need to know a man’s exact arrival time. So far, I hated personal growth.

“Expecting someone?” Janice asked from across the counter. She was wearing a green elf hat that hadn’t been on her head ten minutes earlier.

“I’m working.”

“So am I.”

“You’re eating a cookie.”

“I’m supervising the refreshment table.”

“From across the store?”

“I have excellent vision.” She waited until my customer left. “He’ll come.”

“Who?”

She gave me a look like I was speaking a foreign language. “You’re exhausting.”

The next two hours disappeared. I wrapped gifts, restocked ornaments, and talked one man out of buying his wife a kitchen towel as her only Christmas present. By six, my feet hurt and my cheeks ached from smiling. I had never been happier.

People lingered instead of rushing through. They added wishes to the tree and stopped to talk to neighbors they probably saw every day anyway. I had spent so long treating the shop like proof that I could rebuild my life that I hadn’t noticed when it stopped being evidence and started being the life itself. I didn’t need it to prove anything anymore. I just wanted it.

The bell jingled, and Cole walked in. Snow had melted into the shoulders of his dark coat. His gaze moved through the crowd until he found me behind the counter, and then he smiled. It wasn’t much, but it was enough, and my entire body warmed right through.

Janice appeared at my elbow. “There he is.”