Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The words December weather weren’t exactly a match for the words garage sale, Leo thought as he stepped back outdoors after taking a warm-up break inside his parents’ house.
Today’s temperature had started out below freezing before climbing to a cloudy forty-five around the time their sale opened.
He and Maddie had done what they could to mitigate the temperature.
They were holding the sale between the hours of noon and four, the warmest part of the day.
They had two patio heaters going. And Maddie’s mom was handing out cups of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows.
Leo, Maddie, and his two younger sisters were manning the sale. They were two hours in, and so far, largely because Maddie had pitched the sale to the community as a charitable event, they were turning a big profit.
He caught sight of Maddie talking to an elderly woman. As he watched, his smile grew. He couldn’t hear their exchange, but he could tell Maddie was haggling. In her very likable way, she was unashamedly trying to take the older woman for every cent she could get out of her.
So far today, whenever anyone had come up to him and proposed a price for an item less than the one they’d marked, he’d simply said, “Sure.” Bargaining was not his strength.
He’d never known this truth about himself until today because he’d never hosted a garage sale or attempted to bargain down the price of . . . anything.
During his elementary school years, he’d been so shy that he’d only spoken when his teacher had called on him in class.
He’d barely talked to his classmates because he hadn’t known how to talk to them.
He’d always understood that he and his family were oddly different and completely out of step with popular culture.
When he’d reached his teenage years, being out of step with popular culture had been akin to death, so he’d decided to take action. He’d approached his coolness problem the way he approached all things—through study.
He hadn’t been able to make his personality cool. But he had been able to make his clothing and hair as cool as possible. Fixing those two things had helped matters tremendously, which was a sad commentary on the shallowness of high school.
As he’d gotten older, he’d gained confidence over the years in ways that had nothing to do with clothing and hair styles. Even so, he knew that in certain social situations, he still came across as overly formal and stiff.
Maddie Winslow, on the other hand, had a way with people. It wasn’t that her personality was bulletproof, the way Olivia’s had been. It was more that she had a talent—despite her moments of uncertainty or awkwardness—for putting other people at ease.
The elderly woman went off to browse, and Maddie made her way to Charlie. Charlie had been bouncing off the walls inside, so his sisters had brought him outdoors a half an hour ago.
Maddie lowered to Charlie’s level and straightened his winter cap before the two of them launched into a conversation.
Intuitively, Maddie knew how to talk to Charlie.
She’d sat on his parents’ rug earlier today and played blocks with Charlie patiently, something that Leo didn’t always have the time or the desire to do.
His memory stretched back to the day when Maddie and Britt had driven to Idaho to visit them in the hospital after Charlie was born.
Maddie had taken Charlie into her arms and made holding a newborn—something he hadn’t been very good at himself back then—look like the most natural thing in the world.
He hadn’t thought about that in years.
He and Maddie had been communicating often since they’d become Mission:Christmas partners. On the way here today, Charlie had commented, “You’re feeling happy, aren’t you, Daddy?”
He’d realized that he was. Then he’d realized it was because he was looking forward to spending the day with Maddie.
She approached him, carrying Charlie on her hip. “Charlie’s cold, so I’m going to take him back inside.”
“I can take him in if you’d rather.”
“It’s no problem.”
“In that case, just drop him off with my dad. He’s probably hiding in his study.
” His parents often took turns with Charlie when their grandson spent time at their house.
His dad would keep an eye on Charlie while his mom read.
Then, like a wrestling team, his mom would tag in and watch Charlie while his dad read.
He had it on good authority that it was his dad’s turn.
Charlie reached for the piece of jewelry pinned to Maddie’s green coat. The big gem glittering in the center of it had to be fake. Even so, he didn’t want Charlie, who could destroy anything in seconds, anywhere near it. Leo peeled Charlie’s fingers from it.
“That’s pretty,” Charlie said to Maddie.
“Thank you,” Maddie answered. She turned to Leo. “I found this brooch going through a box in my parents’ attic, looking for garage-sale items.”
“Ah. Are you wearing it as an advertisement to sell it?”
“No. It turns out that this is a family heirloom my mom forgot to tell me about.” She gazed at him with wry amusement, then swept inside with Charlie.
Leo sold a pair of side tables to a couple, then a box of records to a teenage boy.
When business hit a lull, Maddie rejoined him beneath one of the space heaters.
They stood side by side, their gloved hands in their jacket pockets.
She wore a white winter hat that looked like a beret, but was big enough to cover her ears.
She had compassionate olive-green eyes and delicate brows.
A straight, firm nose. A chin that assured him she could stick to something if she put her mind to it.
She took out her phone and snapped a few shots of the sale, then one of him. “For Instagram?” he asked.
“Indeed.”
“Are you going to put a screen on top of the picture?”
“A screen?” She wrinkled her nose. “Oh! You mean a filter? You’re quaint.”
“Quaint?” He pretended outrage.
“Adorably so,” she said. “Look.” She added a filter that turned the picture sepia-toned, typed in some accompanying words, and posted it.
“That didn’t take you any time at all.”
“I’m a pro.” She nodded toward the elderly woman she’d been haggling with earlier. “She wants that lamp over there. It’s marked at fifteen, and she offered seven. I told her I can’t take less than ten.”
He laughed. “What if she decides not to buy it? Then we’ve lost a sale.”
“I know my customer. She really likes that lamp, Leo. She’s trying to frighten me by playing hard to get, but she’ll end up buying it for ten.”
“You’re ruthless.”
“I’m a ruthless garage-saler, yes. You’re a considerably less ruthless garage-saler, I’ve noticed.”
“Considerably less.”
She scanned the shoppers, her attention pausing on a twenty-something woman who looked like she may live on a hippie commune. “You should go tell that woman that the books she’s pondering are straight out of the library of famed research scientist Oliver Donnelly.”
“Are you suggesting I lie to her?”
Her face swung toward him. “No! I thought those had come out of your dad’s library.” Her smile transformed her face and . . . he forget what he’d been about to say.
“Whose books are those?” she asked.
“Mine. That big stack of books over there is from my dad.”
“I’m surprised that you had anything to donate to the sale just a few months after moving.”
“I’m always buying more books.” He ran through the monthly book budget he set for himself within the first two days of every month, then had to wait weeks before he’d let himself buy more.
“You don’t watch a lot of TV, do you, Leo?”
“I watch soccer sometimes.”
“Mm-hm. What about Top Chef? Or NCIS? Or So You Think You Can Dance?”
“No. The only show I watch is NBC Nightly News.” After he put Charlie down and straightened the house, he stretched out on his sofa with a pillow behind his head and read.
“I’ll have to introduce you to those shows sometime.”
“I’ll have to introduce you to Robespierre, Architect of the Reign of Terror sometime. I just finished it last night, and it was excellent.”
“I love to read, but that book sounds incredibly boring. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“I like funny love stories or fast-paced suspense novels.”
“I never disparage anyone’s taste in literature.”
“That’s good of you, Professor.”
“To each her own, so long as the cause of literacy is furthered.”
The twenty-something woman was still looking through his books.
“Go over and tell her that those books were yours,” Maddie encouraged. “That’ll result in an instant sale.”
“Famed research scientist Oliver Donnelly sounded a lot more impressive.”
“No way. The fact that they were yours will make them far more enticing to her.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because you’re persuasive in your own way. You must have noticed.”
“I’m an un-ruthless garage-saler, remember?”
“But you’re nice, smart, and handsome. Which is persuasive in and of itself.”
Maddie thought he was handsome?
“Trust me on this point,” she said lightly.
When he said nothing, she peeked at him. “Fine. Let’s skip the woman with the books.” She extended a white mitten toward a middle-aged couple. “You can tell them you’ll have to stand firm at five dollars for that electric can opener they’re considering.”
He surveyed the rusty nineties-looking appliance. “I’d take one penny for that can opener. In fact, I’d give them five dollars for it, just to keep it out of a landfill.”
Looking into his eyes, she laughed.
A tide of attraction collided with him. Fast and powerful. Unmistakable.
He broke their eye contact by looking back toward the sale. His heart was beating more quickly than usual, and his balance had turned shaky.
Maddie continued talking, about the money they’d raised so far and how much they could realistically hope to raise by the sale’s end. They discussed where and when they’d start shopping for the items on the Huntington’s list.