Chapter 3
By seven-thirty that evening, Natalie Winters’ feet hurt, her scarf had gone missing, and she had somehow acquired a second clipboard.
Winter Wishes remained open though the steady stream of customers had finally slowed enough for her to catch her breath as she stood in the middle of the shop, surrounded by boxes, tissue paper, ribbon, ornaments, and displays that needed adjusting before tomorrow morning. She let out a long breath.
December always changed the pace at Winter Wishes. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were her busiest of the year. They were also the most beautiful, profitable, and exhausting.
Natalie loved it. She really did. She loved the scent of cinnamon candles and cedar garlands that filled the shop from November through New Year’s.
She loved helping a husband find the perfect necklace for his wife after twenty years of marriage.
She loved children pressing their faces close to the front window, pointing at snow globes, nativity sets, wooden trains, and tiny ceramic angels.
She loved wrapping gifts in brown paper and red twine, tucking handwritten tags beneath ribbon, and watching customers leave with that particular hopeful look people wore when they believed they had found something that would make someone else smile.
She loved Christmas, but she also wanted to sit down for approximately three days.
She set the mystery clipboard beside the register then began straightening the display of hand-painted ornaments near the front window.
One glass star had shifted too far forward.
A wooden reindeer faced the wrong direction.
The tiny lanterns needed to be angled slightly toward the ceramic village, not toward the stack of gift boxes.
Small things, yes, but small things mattered.
People didn’t always know why a display made them stop, but they stopped when it felt right. Natalie had learned that years ago.
Bringing Christmas to life took work. That was the part people forgot.
They saw warm lights, velvet ribbon, pretty windows, and thoughtful gifts arranged just so.
They didn’t see the late nights, the spreadsheets, the inventory counts, the vendor calls, the sore feet, the extra prayer when sales were slow and bills did not care how charming a shop looked.
The bell above the door jingled. An older couple stepped inside, immediately drifting toward the nativity display near the center of the shop.
Natalie smiled automatically. “Let me know if I can help you find anything.”
They thanked her, and she returned to her display while keeping half an eye on the floor. Years of retail had taught her how to straighten merchandise, answer questions, ring up purchases, and monitor the entire store at the same time.
She picked up a snow globe and rubbed a smudge from the glass with her sleeve. Inside, a little white church sat beneath a glittering flurry of fake snow. She gave it a gentle shake before setting it back in place.
“There,” she murmured. “Much better.”
Natalie leaned both hands on the counter and closed her eyes. Lord, thank You for a good day.
A good day meant people had come in. A good day meant the town square was coming together. A good day meant she had not dropped three spools of ribbon into the street, thanks to one very serious cowboy who had looked personally offended by festive chaos.
Mark Clemons.
Natalie opened her eyes and realized she was smiling.
He had taken ribbon placement far too seriously for a man who claimed not to care.
He had argued with her about bow emotions, denied being cheerful, and looked like he considered every request a personal test of endurance.
He had also helped without complaining nearly as much as he probably wanted to.
Natalie moved behind the counter and pulled out the day’s receipt folder.
She had paperwork to finish before she could go upstairs.
The apartment above the shop waited for her, small but cozy, with a quilt on the couch, a half-decorated tree in the corner, and a sink holding one coffee mug she had meant to wash that morning.
Possibly yesterday morning.
She winced. Tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, she still had to review sales, update the festival merchant checklist, and make sure the special order nativity sets were marked for pickup before Sunday.
She started to refill a display of Christmas cards when her phone buzzed on the counter. Natalie glanced at it.
Aunt Eleanor.
For one brief, uncharitable second, Natalie considered pretending she was too busy working, but the couple didn’t seem like they required her immediate attention. As long as the call was quick…
Natalie picked up the phone and forced brightness into her voice. “Hi, Aunt Eleanor.”
“Natalie, sweetheart! I was beginning to think I’d have to leave a message.”
“I’m working.”
“At this hour?”
“I’ve extended my hours. It’s Christmas season.”
“That’s exactly why I’m calling. I have news.”
Natalie straightened a card. “What kind of news?”
“The best kind. I’m coming for Christmas.”
Natalie closed her eyes. She loved her aunt. Aunt Eleanor had helped raise her after her mother died, had sent birthday cards every year, had prayed over Natalie’s shop before it opened, and had a way of remembering every ache Natalie tried to pretend she had outgrown.
She also had the matchmaking instincts of a woman who believed singleness was a temporary clerical error.
“That’s wonderful,” Natalie said carefully. “When?”
“Next week. I found a good flight into Amarillo, and your cousin can bring me the rest of the way. I thought why wait? Christmas is better when stretched as long as possible.”
Natalie looked around her shop, taking in the boxes still waiting to be unpacked, the custom orders, the half-finished window display, and the list of festival tasks sitting beneath her elbow.
Another couple stepped inside before she could answer.
“Next week is soon,” she said.
“I know. Isn’t it exciting?”
“Oh… Yes.”
Aunt Eleanor laughed. “You sound tired.”
“I am tired.”
“Then it’s good I’m coming. I can help.”
Natalie’s heart softened. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I want to.” Her aunt paused. “Besides, I want to see this town of yours again. Maybe meet the people you spend all your time helping.”
Natalie reached for a stray ribbon curl on the counter and wrapped it around her finger. “You’ve met plenty of people here.”
“Not everyone.”
“Aunt Eleanor, I can hear you thinking.”
“Good. Then I’ll save us time.” Her aunt’s voice softened and sharpened at once, a talent Natalie had never mastered. “Are you seeing anyone special?”
Natalie stared at the ribbon around her finger. She could have said no. She should have said no.
Instead, Mark Clemons’s dry voice drifted through her memory. This bow has welcomed all it’s going to welcome.
Natalie pressed her lips together, fighting a smile before sighing and hanging her head. “No,” she said. “I’m not seeing anyone.”
Aunt Eleanor’s sigh was much more dramatic. “Natalie, I only ask because I love you.”
“I know.”
“And because you always sound so cheerful when you talk about everyone else’s weddings, anniversaries, babies, and family Christmas cards.”
Natalie’s throat tightened. She wished her aunt were less perceptive. It would make life easier.
“I like being happy for people,” Natalie said.
“You’ve always had a generous heart.”
“That sounds like a compliment before a lecture.”
“It is a compliment before a concern.”
Natalie turned and looked at the front window. Outside, the town square glowed with the newly hung lights. The lamppost bows Mark had tied looked surprisingly good, although she would never tell him that too soon.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
The tenderness in those two words was almost worse than a lecture.
Natalie swallowed. “I am.”
“I believe you. I also know fine can become a very lonely place if you live there too long.”
Natalie did not answer because she could not quite argue.
Her life was full. Truly full. The shop gave her purpose. The town gave her belonging. Church gave her grounding. She had friends, customers, neighbors, and more volunteer responsibilities than one woman probably should have accepted.
She cared for people. She helped them find gifts for husbands, wives, children, grandparents, teachers, pastors, and friends.
She wrapped engagement ornaments and baby’s first Christmas keepsakes.
She ordered memorial angels for families spending their first December with an empty chair at the table.
She helped create joy for everyone else, and most days, that was enough.
Some days, though, when she climbed the stairs alone after closing and ate dinner standing at the kitchen counter because sitting at a table for one felt too quiet, it was not.
“Natalie?” Aunt Eleanor asked gently.
“I’m here.”
“I don’t want to pressure you.”
Natalie let out a small laugh. “You are not particularly good at that.”
“I know. I’m working on it.”
“Are you?”
“I said working. Not succeeding.”
Natalie laughed louder, and the tightness in her chest loosened a little. “I’m glad you’re coming,” she said.
“I’m glad too. I promise I will try not to ask too many questions.”
Natalie lifted her eyebrows. “How many is too many?”
“More than twelve.”
“Aunt Eleanor.”
“Fine. More than six.”
“How about none?”
“That seems extreme.”
Natalie shook her head, smiling despite herself. “I’ll make up the guest room.”
“Don’t fuss. I’m easy.”
“You are not easy.”
“I am delightful.”
“You are both.”
Her aunt laughed, pleased. “I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too.”
By the time she ended the call, helped another couple find gifts for grandchildren, and wrapped a ceramic nativity set for the first customers, another hour had slipped by.
The square outside had grown quieter. Most of the decorating volunteers had gone home.
Natalie flipped the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED and locked it.
Finally.
She rubbed her temple.
Aunt Eleanor was coming for Christmas next week with her careful questions, the hopeful looks, the gentle suggestions about widowers, church friends, cousins of friends, men from neighboring towns who were “very nice” and “still single for reasons no one can quite understand.”
“I should get a cat,” she muttered.
The wreath on the door shifted faintly from the draft.
“No, two cats,” she corrected. “Then everyone will know I’ve committed to a direction.”
The joke helped for approximately three seconds.
Natalie picked up the clipboard and glanced down at the page. Lamppost Two Complete. Mark laughed twice.
She stared at the words. Then she groaned softly and pressed the clipboard to her chest.
“Oh, that is not helpful.”
Mark Clemons was practical, guarded, and clearly skeptical of Christmas displays with too much personality. He was also kind to children, respectful of his mother, useful on a ladder, and surprisingly easy to talk to when he wasn’t pretending to be difficult.
None of that meant anything.
It certainly did not mean she should be standing in her shop after hours thinking about his almost-smile while her aunt’s impending visit loomed over her like a tinsel-covered storm cloud.
Natalie set the clipboard down with more determination than necessary and reached for the receipt folder.
Love did not behave. Hope certainly did not, and Christmas, despite her best efforts to manage every display and ribbon and wrapped gift, had a dangerous habit of making people believe things they had no business expecting.
Natalie looked out the front window again.
Across the square, the lamppost bows looked perfectly welcoming beneath the glow of newly strung lights.
She smiled, shook her head, and went back to work.