Page 39 of Meet Me on Mistletoe Lane

“Sometimes, it’s more about intuition than anything else.” He slowly let go of my hand. “You know what I mean?”

Honestly?

No.

My intuition had been dead wrong lately.

Or…has it?

I turned around, facing him, and tried to slow my racing heart. “I feel like we need a concrete plan or something.”

“For the poinsettias?”

“No, um, The Market.” I stepped back a bit and braced myself against the bench.

This is good.

Benches are good.

Distance is good.

“Right. The Market.” Sam stepped back too and then crossed his arms. “So, you want a plan to, what, win them over with Christmas magic?”

“Exactly,” I replied. “But Mr. Bailey is so consumed with his work…I don’t know how we’ll get him away from it.”

“Maybe you should ask James,” Sam said, turning back to the plants, and the air immediately changed between us.

I was about to ask him what he meant by that when a scratching sound made us both glance toward the door. Sandy sat there expectantly with something hanging from her mouth.

I opened the door to let her in. She dropped an old, laminated baseball card at my feet and gave a short bark. “Hey, I recognize this card,” I said, picking it up. “This is Don Mattingly’s rookie card. Hal had one like this in his shop. Belonged to his dad, I think.” I scratched Sandy’s head. “Where did you find this, girl?”

“Where does she find anything?” Sam asked, giving her a treat from the jar his family kept in the corner.

Sandy gobbled down the treat and then gave us a happy “thank you” bark before turning around and waiting at the door to be let out. The sun had started to sink below the tree line, long rays of deep orange and red melting behind blankets of gray clouds in the distance.

“I should go,” I said, letting the door close behind me as I grabbed my stuff. “I promised Leo we’d make biscuits to go with the Crock-Pot stew tonight.”

“Do you guys need a hand?” Sam asked.

I so wanted to say yes.

Normally, I would have.

But Sam’s new back-and-forth moods were making me dizzier than watching Marco and Jo play Ping-Pong.

“Thanks, but we got it.” I slid my earmuffs down over my ears.

“Okay.” Sam kicked a few pieces of loose gravel and then turned back to the poinsettias. “See you tomorrow then.”

“See ya.” I turned to go, but Sam called to me as I opened the door.

“Don’t worry about getting Mr. Bailey on board with Christmas here,” he said as he grabbed a pair of pruning shears from the workbench. “You’re like the Queen of Christmas, G. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

I sure hope so.

The streetlights blinked on as I walked home from the greenhouse, and the smells of wood-burning fireplaces drifted in the air, carried through the trees by the crisp wind. The glow of the lit trees and wreaths hanging from every light pole on Mistletoe Lane greeted me with a welcoming smile.

What kind of person chooses to stay inside when they have all this beauty surrounding them?