Christmas in Angel Harbor - Jeannie Moon Page 0,81

store spread in front of her and found Tracy and Viti standing in the doorway of her office. Both of them were bundled up in big warm coats, and had snow covering their hats and the shoulders of their jackets. She hadn’t looked outside in hours, forgetting that a big storm was rolling in.

With everything on her mind, there wasn’t room for details about the weather. “What time is it?” Jane wondered.

Tracy crouched down next to her and laid a hand on her arm. “After eleven, and it’s snowing like crazy. Tara and Kathleen are frantic. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

Jane shrugged. Dodging everyone’s calls was completely selfish, especially with a snowstorm, but she just didn’t want to face the sympathy and the platitudes. Now that word of the store closing had reached everyone in town, there was no avoiding it. Jane just wanted a couple of hours to lick her wounds on her own.

“I should have called. I’m sorry.”

“Honey, we’re here for you. What can we do?”

Jane looked over at Viti whose thumbs were flying over the screen on her phone. “I let your mom know you’re okay and that we’re with you.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t call them.” Jane leaned back in the old wooden desk chair, and rubbed her temples.

“It’s okay,” Viti said. “We’ve got you.”

Tracy reached out and wrapped her arm around Jane’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah, I should go home.”

“Not home,” Viti assured her calmly. “We’re going right across the street to Claire’s apartment. She has the water on for tea, and I brought all the leftovers from the shop.”

Claire lived above her yarn shop in a gorgeous apartment that was like a little piece of Ireland. When she first opened the store five years ago, Jane used to go over after work for a glass of wine, or a bite to eat, but since they’d both gotten busier over the years, they weren’t able to do it as often. Still, she and Claire, along with Viti, Tracy, and Gina would try to do dinner once a month. They’d missed a few, the nights becoming casualties of their busy lives.

Tracy stood, and grabbed Jane’s coat from the hook. “Come on, girlfriend. Let’s get you out of here.”

Jane was going to object, but she didn’t have the energy. That, and she knew that if Tracy had her mind set on something, there was no use in fighting it. They shut the lights and locked up the store. These were good friends, and she hadn’t trusted them with some really important pieces of her life. Did that make her a bad friend? Or was she too stubborn for her own good?

With Viti on one side and Tracy on the other, they trudged through six inches of wet snow covering Main Street and into the small vestibule right next to the front door of Harbor Knits. The building was one of the oldest in town, dating back to the late eighteenth century. When it was first built, the large brick structure had a general store on the first floor, and small apartments and rooms on the second and third floors for sailors who used to crew boats based in the harbor. The town was originally called Derby Harbor after an English earl who was honored with the land, but the name was changed around 1800 when sailors insisted angels guided their boat through rough seas and safely home. After a while, the name Angel’s Harbor stuck, and then finally, it became Angel Harbor.

There was no good reason for her to have the town history running through her head, but she had been steeped in nostalgia all night, looking at old photos of the store from when her grandfather started the business and made a go of it. The pity party would get her nowhere—maybe she needed a bit of the mettle shown by those sailors who relied on faith and their shipmates to get them home.

Once they stomped the snow off their boots, they headed up the narrow steps, with Tracy leading and Viti bringing up the rear. She didn’t know what they were going to talk about since the sale of the store was done. There was no way to solve a problem that had already reached the point of no return.

“Gina couldn’t make it. She’s at The Nutcracker with her sister,” Viti informed her. “But she wants a full report. She’s bringing you truffles tomorrow.”

Jane didn’t know how to respond to the news of truffles, although