Chapter 2
Natalie
Catching sight of my reflection in the rearview mirror, I winced. No wonder the cashier in Nature’s Basket eyed me with concern while she rang up my groceries. I had a mascara smudge beneath one eye, and my dark circles made me look like I was recovering from the flu—or a bad hangover.
In reality, it was neither. I was simply an emergency department nurse who worked graveyard trying to function on my day off.
With a sigh, I tore my eyes from my less-than-perky reflection and looked again at the receipt. Had my three measly bags of groceries really cost that much? And why did my niece, Annabel, who was only six, seem to eat as much as me and my sister combined?
Probably because Annabel never stopped moving.
Just as I turned on the engine, Louise Haven walked by and caught sight of me through the windshield. She wiggled her fingers in a wave and scurried to the driver’s side.
“Isn’t this a lovely surprise,” she said as I lowered the window. “Natalie Thatcher. So nice to see you.”
Louise Haven was something of an institution in Tilikum, the quirky small town in the Cascade mountains where I lived.
She had to be pushing eighty but had the energy of a puppy.
Around town, she was known for three things: bringing food to neighbors—sometimes when they needed it and other times as an excuse to be nosy—her constant attempts to play matchmaker for her nephews, and her velour tracksuits.
Today, her tracksuit was forest green—appropriate for the holiday season—and she wore a necklace of blinking, multicolored Christmas lights.
“Hi, Louise. It’s nice to see you, too. I like your necklace.”
“Thank you, dear. Isn’t this fun? I love being festive. Listen, do you have a minute? Because I was thinking…” She dug through her large handbag.
“Actually, I should get home and put away my groceries.” As nice as she was, I didn’t want her getting any ideas about involving me in her matchmaking schemes. I jerked my thumb behind me. “I have frozens.”
She drew a small notebook from her handbag and flipped through the pages.
“Here it is. I’m running out of single nephews, but the town has plenty of eligible bachelors.
My friend Marie’s grandson is an absolute catch.
Works in finance. He doesn’t live here full-time, but I think you two would really hit it off. ”
“Handsome businessman type?” I asked, not bothering to disguise the skepticism in my voice. “Plenty of money, always wears a suit?”
She smiled. “Oh yes, describes him perfectly.”
“Hard pass, Louise. The last thing I need is a suit.”
“Hmm.” She went back to turning the pages of her notebook. “That’s fine, dear. There’s a firefighter who is inexplicably single, and—”
“Thanks anyway.” I interrupted. “But I’m not dating right now.”
“No? That’s a shame. I’ll keep thinking about it.” She decisively shut her notebook. “How’s your sister?”
“She’s fine. Busy.”
“Of course she is. The life of a single mother is full.”
“Very full.”
“Is she seeing anyone these days?”
My mind raced with excuses to keep my sister, Nina, off Louise’s matchmaking radar. Maybe keeping it vague and pleading ignorance would be enough. “You know, there might be someone, but I’m not sure. We work opposite schedules, so I don’t always know what she’s up to.”
“Because now that I think about it, Marie’s grandson…” She tapped her lips.
“The suit? I don’t think Nina needs a guy who’s only in town part-time.”
“That’s fair. Well, the solution is bound to present itself, probably when we least expect it. Have a nice day, dear.”
The solution is for me and my sister to both stay single, thank you very much Ms. Small-Town Matchmaker.
“You too, Louise.” I smiled, keeping my thoughts to myself, and raised the window while she headed for the entrance to the store.
With no more meddling townspeople in sight, I left.
A few snowflakes drifted from the low-hanging clouds.
They wouldn’t add much to the layer of white that already covered the town, but I hoped the flurries weren’t the start of a bigger storm.
I was used to getting around in the snow—mountain life—but the last thing I needed was one more complication. At least until after the holidays.
My phone rang, and the Bluetooth in my car picked it up. It was Rosa, one of my coworkers at the hospital.
“Hey,” I answered. “What’s up?”
Her voice was urgent. “Did you see the email?”
“No, I’m running errands. What’s going on?”
“We’re on strike.”
My mouth hung open, and I hesitated for a second, not sure what to say.
“Natalie? You there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t think it was actually going to happen.”
“I know. Neither did I,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll get everything worked out sooner rather than later.”
“Fingers crossed.”
“I wasn’t sure if you were on the schedule for tonight and wanted to make sure you knew.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the heads-up.”
“No problem. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye, Rosa.”
She ended the call, and I let out a heavy sigh as I drove. A nurses’ strike. It was probably for the best. Things were tough in our field. Burnout was a huge problem, and there was a lot at stake in those negotiations. But man, the timing could not have been worse.
I didn’t want to be selfish about it, but I had a family to think about. Not in the traditional sense, of course. But Nina, Annabel, and I were a family—a household. We shared a home, costs, responsibilities. And we did the best we could.
But lately, even being a two-income household was hard.
We lived in our childhood home our mom left to us when she passed.
Which was great, except it seemed like everything in the sixty-year-old house had needed repair, maintenance, or full-on replacement in the last year alone.
Inflation was hitting hard, as were the mountain of home repairs.
Not to mention, Nina’s car died over the summer, mine had seen better days, and Annabel seemed to outgrow shoes every week.
A strike was not going to help, especially right before the holidays.
“Annabel, I hope you didn’t put anything expensive on your Christmas list,” I muttered to myself. “Santa’s on a tight budget this year. Again.”
I drove home, pondering solutions. We’d been trying to save enough money to replace the furnace.
It still worked, but if it went out in the dead of winter, that would not be good.
Putting off that project would at least buy us some time.
We had a wood stove. If worst came to worst, we wouldn’t freeze.
We’d probably have to move mattresses into the living room since the bedrooms would be cold, but Annabel would love an extended slumber party.
The bright side? If the strike went on long enough, I’d have Christmas off. And I hadn’t been home for Christmas in years.
Everything would be fine. We totally had this.
I turned onto our street and blinked in confusion. Why was a van in our driveway? And why was Nina home?
Not just a van, but a water damage restoration service van.
Oh no.
I parked, grabbed the groceries, and ran inside. “Nina?”
Her voice carried from the basement. “Coming!”
I took the bags to the kitchen and set them on the counter.
Nina emerged from the stairway off the kitchen that led to the finished basement.
She and I looked a lot alike even though she was ten years younger than me.
Similar face shape, brown eyes, olive skin, and dark hair, although she kept hers shorter than mine.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is someone here? And why are you home? I thought you had to work today.” She was an aesthetician at a local spa.
“I was at work until Mr. Gardner called and said we had water shooting out of our hose bib on the side of the house.”
“That’s not good.”
“Nope. And when I came home to check, I found that water was not only shooting out of the hose bib outside, it was leaking into the basement.”
I stared at her for a long moment. No words. I had no words.
“Obviously, I freaked out. Mr. Gardner saw me losing it in the backyard and came outside. He called the water restoration guys for me. They got the water to the house turned off, and they’re down there now setting up a bunch of big fans and dehumidifiers to dry everything out.”
I could imagine Nina freaking out on seeing the leak. My sister was many things, but calm in a crisis was not one of them.
“Thank you to Mr. Gardner, I guess,” I said.
“He is a nice neighbor.”
“But this also means we don’t have water.”
“Um, yeah, about that. The restoration guys said we need a plumber to fix whatever broke before we can turn it back on.”
I let out a long breath. Water damage. A plumber. None of it was good news.
“Okay.” I nodded a few times. “This is fine. We can figure it out.”
Nina nodded along, her eyes wide and hopeful, looking to me for reassurance.
“Have you called a plumber yet?” I asked, and she shook her head. “Let’s call Jason. He’ll do a good job and won’t overcharge us.” One of the benefits of small-town life—being able to call someone you knew from high school when you encountered problems in the grown-up world.
“Good idea.” Her shoulders dropped with relief.
Moving on autopilot, I started putting the groceries away. “Do you need to go back to work?”
“Yeah. I got someone to cover one client, but I have more appointments this afternoon.”
“That’s fine. I’ll take over from here.”
“You don’t work tonight, do you?”
“I don’t work at all for the foreseeable future. As of today, we’re on strike.”
“What?” Her face went ashen, and when she spoke again, the pitch of her voice rose with every word.
“You’re on strike? That means you can’t work, doesn’t it?
Which means you don’t get paid. And we have water damage and need a plumber, and oh my god, Natalie, it’s almost Christmas. What are we going to do?”
“Don’t panic.”
Her voice came out in a squeak. “But the water and the plumber and the bills and—”