Small Town Christmas (Blue Harbor #4) - Olivia Miles Page 0,22

but it almost gave the tree in Chicago a running. All this time, he’d assumed his memory had been distorted by childish exaggeration—making his experiences here out to be better than they actually were. But Blue Harbor was exactly like he remembered, and he wasn’t so sure how he felt about that.

It was easier to think of it all as a fantasy, rather than a possibility.

“I wonder if Cora gets to decorate the tree?” Georgie asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Phil helped his daughter maneuver an icy patch on the sidewalk as they neared the store. “You’ll have to ask her.”

That was, if she still spoke to them after he delivered the news. He’d decided to just get right to it. No more stalling. Surely, as a shop owner, she’d understand. And it wasn’t like he was putting her out of business—something that was often the case. She just had to move her merchandise to a different storefront. Really, this was no big deal at all. A minor inconvenience at best.

He’d spotted at least one or two empty stores off Main Street when they went to the bakery the other day. Perfectly viable options. And didn’t her sisters work there, down near the lakefront? It would be a win-win. Really, she might be happy to have a fresh new space.

Jingle bells jangled when Georgie pushed open the shop door, welcoming them to the warm and heavily scented space. Each time he came here, the place felt more crammed. Packed from the floor to the ceiling with seasonal dust catchers that would all be packed up come New Year’s.

He looked down at his daughter, whose eyes twinkled as she looked around the room. It was worth it, he decided. Work could wait—at least until she went to bed tonight. But this time with his daughter…it was long overdue.

Georgie wasted no time in starting to fill her basket, reaching for anything and everything that was pretty, sparkling, and breakable.

“Please be careful,” he warned, realizing the hypocrisy in that statement. Here he was, telling his daughter to protect the store, when he was responsible for shutting it down?

Or at least he would be, when he finally told Cora what he should have said the very first day he walked in, back when this was just a random property he wanted no further ties to, not a place that had become so important to his daughter in a short matter of time.

Not a place where Cora worked. Looking just as pretty as always, he couldn’t help noticing.

Today her sweater was cream and soft looking, with her thick hair falling loose at her shoulders. She smiled when she saw him across the room, and motioned that she’d be right with him.

No rush, he wanted to mouth. But that wasn’t exactly true. He couldn’t stall forever.

While she tended to the customers, he walked deeper into the store, monitoring Georgie from a distance, taking in the packed rooms of the old Victorian home that she had filled by theme, it would seem. And oh, was it stuffed. From the floors to the ceilings, where even from the rafters there seemed to hang wreaths and lights and tinsel.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Georgie exclaimed as she passed him her basket and went to fetch another.

Phil looked down at the items that rested in the basket in his hands. Wonderful wasn’t a word that he would use. Expensive, yes. Frivolous, sure.

A giant commercial enterprise that plenty of people seemed to feed into from the looks of the place. One thing was for certain; Cora wasn’t hurting for business.

But then, Christmas was only weeks away.

His stomach tightened at the thought. In less than a month he’d be gone, overseas.

And Georgie still didn’t know.

And just like the news he was yet to deliver to Cora, he wasn’t sure why he was holding back. Michelle had said it was his responsibility to tell Georgie. His news to share. And what was really so different? He could always fly back for a visit, meaning that whether it was an ocean dividing them or the prairie states, not much had changed. And it was for work.

It was business. Just like unloading this shop.

“Everything okay?”

He turned to see Cora standing beside him, her cheeks flushed, but a look of concern crinkling her lovely blue eyes. He nodded, grateful for the distraction, because distraction it was. From the stress of parenthood, from the memories he was trying to banish being back in this place. But she was also a distraction