Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Grant Whitaker arrived at the First Bank of Frost Pine Ridge at six-fifteen on Saturday morning. As he pulled into the parking lot, he noticed lights glowing from the ballroom windows—the exterior ones that faced the back alley.
Someone was already there.
He let himself in through the main entrance, his footsteps echoing in the empty lobby.
The programs were still stacked on the welcome table—he’d alphabetized them last night before leaving, one of the small ways he’d been trying to help all week.
Everything was ready. Perfect. Waiting for the gala that would start in twelve hours.
He walked through the back corridor and pushed open the interior door to the ballroom.
Felicity stood in the middle of the space with her clipboard and a thermos of coffee. She looked up as he entered, and even from across the room he could see the exhaustion—dark circles under her eyes, hair escaping from her bun, the same green sweater she’d worn yesterday.
She hadn’t gone home.
“You’re here early,” she said, professionally neutral.
“So are you. Felicity, did you sleep at all?”
“I slept.” She turned back to her clipboard. “I have seventeen items to verify before the caterer arrives, and I need to do a final walkthrough—”
“Felicity, please look at me.”
She did, and the exhaustion in her eyes was almost physical. But underneath was something fiercer—determination. The look of someone who would not let herself fail.
“I’m fine. The gala starts in eleven and a half hours. By midnight tonight, this will all be over.” She took a breath. “But right now, I need to work. So if you’re here to talk about anything that isn’t directly related to this event, I need you to save it for later.”
Grant wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her she was running herself into the ground. But the brittle brightness in her eyes told him that pushing now would make everything shatter.
“What can I do to help?”
Surprise flickered across her face. “The programs need to be alphabetized and placed on the welcome table. They’re in the boxes on that table.” She pointed to the table in the corner.
“Consider it done.”
Two hours later, Grant heard raised voices from the ballroom. He found Meena, Leo, and Felicity standing beneath the massive tree.
The tree was dark. Completely, utterly dark.
“What happened?” Grant asked, cold dread settling in his stomach.
“Power’s out to the whole tree,” Leo said.
Meena looked up from her phone, panic barely contained. “The gala starts in nine hours. We cannot have a dark tree.”
“It could be a single bad bulb,” Grant said, his engineer’s brain automatically troubleshooting. “On older strand connections, if one bulb fails, it can break the circuit for the entire string.”
“I know. But Grant, we used forty-seven individual strands on this tree. Finding one bad bulb...” She gestured helplessly at the massive tree.
“It could take hours. And we have the ornaments and tinsel already on. If we start pulling strands to test them individually, we’ll destroy the whole design. ”
Meena turned to Grant. “You and Felicity decorated this tree. You know every wire, every connection.”
Grant’s stomach dropped. “Meena—”
“There has to be a way.” Felicity was near tears. “Without the lights, the entire event is ruined.”
Something in Grant’s heart broke at the sound of disappointment in her voice. And suddenly he knew… he would do anything to make things right for her.
“We can do it,” Grant said, looking at Felicity. “We decorated this tree. We know how every strand is positioned. We can do this.”
Felicity stared at him, and he could see her doing the math. Eleven hours until guests arrived. Maybe six or seven hours to remove, test, and restring forty-seven light strands while keeping the ornaments intact. That would leave barely any time for everything else that still needed to be done.
“Felicity,” Meena said quietly. “Can you two do this?”
The question had layers. Could they fix the tree? Could they work together? Could they put aside everything that had happened this week and function as a team?
Felicity looked at the tree, then at Grant, then back at Meena. “We don’t have a choice.”
“What can I do to help?” Meena asked.
“Take care of the other setup issues,” Grant said. “This is a two-person job; any more than that might muddy the waters, but if you let us concentrate on just this, we can get it done.”
Meena nodded. “Okay then, let’s get to work.”
Meena headed toward the lobby, and Leo left to do deliveries., leaving them alone with a dark tree and nine hours until showtime.
Finally, Felicity spoke. “Fine. Let’s start with the bottom strand.”
“Felicity—”
“Not now. We need to get this done. Focus on the tree.”
They fell into a tense rhythm, working methodically through the tree’s wiring system. Felicity had detailed diagrams showing every strand, every connection. They moved around the tree carefully, speaking only when necessary.
“Second strand is good.”
“Check the third section.”
“Need the wire tester.”
“Here.”
An hour passed. They checked every obvious connection, every bulb. Everything tested fine.
“It has to be a loose connection in the main trunk line,” Grant said, climbing down from the ladder. “But with this many strands...”
“We’ll have to check each one individually.” Felicity’s hand trembled slightly as she consulted her diagram. “Forty-seven strand connections.”
“Then we’d better start.”
They worked in silence. Strand one: fine. Strand two: fine. By strand fifteen, Grant’s back ached. At strand twenty-five, Felicity was moving slower.
“Trade positions,” he said quietly. “Give your arms a rest.”
She wordlessly handed him the tester and moved to the junction box.
The new angle gave him a closer look at her face. The exhaustion was bone-deep—not just tired, but the weariness of someone running on fumes. She looked fragile and fierce all at once.
Strand twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
“Found it.”
Grant looked up. “What?”
“Strand thirty-one. The connection wire is broken.” Relief flickered across her face.
“Can you fix it?” Grant leaned in to look. Inside the tiny socket, two thin wires should have extended up evenly on either side to connect with the bulb. But one wire had pulled back or been pushed down, leaving it too short to make the connection.
“I can’t get the right angle to push it back up,” she said, her tired fingers fumbling with the tiny socket. “My hands are too—”
“Let me try.”
She handed him the strand, and he held the socket up to examine it more closely. The wire was incredibly delicate—thin as a thread and tucked deep inside the small plastic housing.
“Guide me,” he said. “What needs to happen?”
“You need to push the short wire back up so it’s level with the other one. To gently work it up through the socket, use something thin—maybe a paperclip or a pin—until both wires are even. But be careful—if it breaks completely, we’ll have to replace the entire strand.”
Grant pulled a pen from his pocket and removed the ink cartridge, leaving just the thin plastic tube. He carefully inserted it into the socket, feeling for the recessed wire.
“Like this?”
“More to the right. Gently—yes, you’ve got it. Now push up slowly.”
He could feel the resistance as the wire caught on something inside the socket.
He adjusted the angle slightly, applying steady, gentle pressure.
Felicity leaned closer, watching intently.
He was acutely aware of her presence—the warmth of her beside him, the faint citrus scent of her perfume mixing with pine.
“Almost... just a little more...” she coached softly.
He felt the wire shift, slide upward. “I think—”
“That’s it,” Felicity breathed. “Try the tester.”
The voltage showed power flowing through. “We’ve got current.”
“Okay.” Felicity moved toward the power strip. “On three. One... two...”
“Wait. Before you—Felicity, can we talk about—”
“Three.” She flipped the switch.
The tree exploded with light.
Felicity stepped back from the tree, her heart doing something complicated and dangerous in her chest.
The lights glowed warm and golden, every branch perfectly lit, the star on top catching the glow and scattering it like captured starlight. It was exactly what she’d envisioned. Better, even. They had made it perfect. Together.
And that was the problem.
She could feel Grant beside her, close enough that the heat from his body reached across the small space between them.
Close enough that she could smell pine sap and his cologne—something crisp and clean that made her want to lean in instead of step away.
She didn’t let herself look at him. If she looked at him, she’d see whatever was in his eyes, and she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
“Felicity.”
His voice was low, rough with something that sounded dangerously like emotion. Her name in his mouth felt intimate, like a touch.
She forced brightness into her voice, forced her gaze to stay fixed on the tree. “It’s beautiful. Exactly what I envisioned.”
“Felicity, I need to—“
A sharp ping cut through the air. Grant’s phone, loud in the quiet ballroom.
He muttered a curse, pulling it from his pocket. “Sorry, I thought I’d silenced—“
But Felicity had already seen it. Just a flash, but enough. The name on the screen, visible for a split second before he could tilt it away: Victoria.
And below it, visible in the preview: Have you given more thought to my offer? Boston would be—
The rest cut off as he swiped the notification away, but Felicity didn’t need to see more. She felt the floor tilt beneath her feet, felt the careful walls she’d been building around her heart since she’d walked back through those doors suddenly reinforced with steel.
Boston. An offer. Victoria.
Of course.
“We should finish the prep,” she said, and her voice came out steady, professional, perfectly controlled. A miracle, considering her chest felt like it was caving in. “The gala’s in four hours.”