a way of doing. Certain rituals.”
“We don’t have rituals,” Georgie said. “My dad doesn’t usually have a tree.”
Phil tossed up his hands. “Guilty as charged.”
“And why is it that you have no tree?” Cora tilted her head, waiting with a smile.
He shrugged. “Too much work.”
“Too much work or too little time?”
“Both.” He grinned. “I run a private equity company. There’s always something to do.”
“So you help struggling companies?” she asked, trying to imagine him in a suit and a conference room every day. Sure, he seemed a little out of place here in Blue Harbor in his sleek wool jacket instead of a parka and those fancy leather gloves, but she couldn’t quite imagine this other life of his.
But then, she struggled to imagine any life outside of Blue Harbor. It was all she had ever known, or wanted to know.
“Something like that,” he said. “But when it comes to all this…Christmas stuff, well, I’m afraid that this is all sort of out of my element.”
Clearly. And she was an expert, after all. “Well, I’m happy to help—”
“Please!”
“Only if you’re sure…” Phil’s eyes looked torn. “No pressure.”
“We live in the blue cottage on Forest Road,” Georgie interrupted, and for some reason, a strange look took over Phil’s face. He opened his mouth and then closed it, growing quiet.
Cora frowned. She knew that house. In a town this small, you tended to know every house that you pedaled past on your bike day after day, and the blue cottage on Forest was no exception, especially because it belonged to the Keatons.
“The Keaton house?” She’d been renting her own building from the Keaton family for years.
“Err…yes.” Phil blinked at her slowly. Georgie opened her mouth to say something, but Phil added, “We’re, uh…staying there for the month.”
“Oh!” Cora grinned, warming at the connection between them. Small world. She didn’t even know the family had finally decided to rent out the place, as most seasonal people did. Still, since the Keatons had moved away last winter, it made sense, she supposed.
Another happy coincidence, or maybe, just maybe a sign. Phil and Georgie kept passing into her life, and the more that their lives were brought together, the more that Cora couldn’t quite think it was just pure coincidence.
Maybe, it was a little bit of fate. Or a little bit of that Christmas magic that had finally come her way.
6
Before turning the sign on the door the next morning, Cora tossed on her coat and trekked down the street to Gabby’s flower shop, knowing that her cousin would have her order ready and waiting.
Like every other shop in town, the flower shop was decked out for the holidays, with a fresh pine wreath on the door and poinsettias and ivy arrangements all over the small room. Also like Cora, Gabby lived right above her shop, only unlike Cora, she had to walk outside to access her own front door.
“Sometimes I feel like I live at work,” she complained today, shivering as she turned on the lights.
“You didn’t put on a coat?” Cora stopped to smell some lovely red roses, knowing that by the first week of January, her store would have its share of heart and cupid and rose-themed decorations to balance out the Christmas stock she displayed all year round.
“The doors are side by side!” Gabby brushed away her concern. “Besides, I have a feeling I will get all too warm and tingly hearing about your new beau.”
Cora laughed. “My new beau? You mean the one with the little girl?” She didn’t dare say his name, or she’d really risk stoking that fire in her cousin. Clearly, one of her sisters had been talking last night at the tree lighting.
“Yes, that one!” Gabby said excitedly. “I didn’t want to interrupt you guys last night, but it looked like you were really hitting it off.”
Ah, spotted then. She could easily turn the conversation to Jenna’s choir, who had put on their best performance yet, in her opinion, but Cora supposed there was no use in denying it, even if there wasn’t anything to necessarily tell.
“It’s nothing. He’s come into the shop a few times—”
“A few times?” Gabby looked at her pointedly. “If the same man kept showing in my shop, I’d assume he had good reason.”
Cora grinned, not wanting to get her hopes up too much.
“And then you just happened to do to the tree lighting together?”
“We were having a nice time,” Cora confessed with a grin.
And then, because she couldn’t quite resist, she