Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
The afternoon rush at The Toy Chest had been relentless, but Mabel Stewart wouldn’t have had it any other way.
She stood behind the counter, brushing wisps of her curly, silvery bob out of her face as she rang up the last customer, a harried-looking mother who had three board games tucked under her arm, a box containing a train set in one hand and two stuffed animals in the other.
“These should keep them busy through New Year’s,” the woman said with a grateful smile as Mabel finished ringing her up and handed the items over to Vanessa, her granddaughter, to begin wrapping them.
Vanessa smiled back at the woman as she began prepping a red-and-green striped bag each for the stuffed elephant and horse, complete with silver, glittery tissue paper.
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” Mabel replied with a knowing chuckle. “And if they don’t, you know where to find us. We’ll be here all through the holidays.
As the bell above the door chimed the woman’s departure, Mabel let out a contented sigh and surveyed her domain.
The Toy Chest was her pride and joy—a warm, colorful place full of happiness and imagination for the children who came to browse, and a place where parents could feel sure that they’d be able to find what they needed for their kids…
or get help picking it out if they didn’t.
She loved her shop year-round, but at the holidays there was a special kind of magic to it, she thought.
Santa’s throne was at one side, surrounded by bags stuffed with tissue to make them look round and full, and there was an old-fashioned letterbox to one side of it for children to drop off their letters to Santa—which Mabel promptly forwarded on to the parents.
The Christmas tree, which she’d gotten from George Lowery’s tree farm as always, brushed the ceiling and sparkled with lights and strings of snowflakes and berries, and had candy canes hanging from the branches that the children who came in were free to snag.
And of course, the window displays were what she was especially proud of—old-fashioned, gorgeous displays with faux snow, tiny trees, train sets and nutcrackers, a winter wonderland facing out to the street, tempting customers to come inside.
She’d spent years upon years perfecting the store and making it into everything she’d ever hoped it could be, and she loved it dearly. It was made even better now by the fact that her granddaughter, Vanessa Stewart—now Hayes after her wedding—now worked side by side with her in the shop.
“That was the last of the afternoon crowd, it seems like,” Vanessa said, neatly folding up and putting away the remnants of the wrapping paper and gift bag paraphernalia, before heading over to start straightening a display of picture books that had been thoroughly examined by small hands throughout the day. “I think we can finally breathe.”
Mabel smiled as she watched her granddaughter work, and began to tidy up the counter around the register.
Vanessa had proved to be a godsend. For years, Mabel had pushed back against any idea that she needed help with the shop, but when she’d sprained her wrist badly two years ago, she’d had to admit that she couldn’t keep up with the bustle of the holiday season without assistance.
It had taken a little grandmotherly finagling on her part, but Vanessa had ended up helping her for the season, coming to visit Fir Tree Grove from San Francisco, temporarily at the time.
It had ended up becoming permanent. And she couldn’t have asked for a better helper.
Everything Vanessa did was done with careful attention, all of the precision that had made her once an invaluable office employee for her boss back in California now focused on the shop.
Every surface was cleaned and dusted and polished until it gleamed, every book and game organized perfectly, every display righted and arranged so that it looked exactly as it had when Mabel first set them up.
They’d grown so much closer too, over the past two years, Mabel thought fondly.
For so long she’d been estranged from her granddaughter, the only family she’d had left, and for years she’d thought she’d come to terms with it.
She’d understood that it was hard for Vanessa to reach out back then, with her parents gone as the result of a car accident and her life so busy and so far away.
She’d understood too, that Fir Tree Grove had held memories for Vanessa that she’d have a hard time revisiting after the loss of her parents.
But life had a way of bringing people back together when they needed each other most, and Mabel couldn’t be more grateful for the second chance they’d been given.
“Are you and Jackson doing anything fun tonight?” Mabel asked as she started preparing to take out the trash for the evening, setting the bags by the back door as Vanessa started dusting the window displays.
“Maybe a nice dinner at home? I’m so tired, and we still have a lot to do to get the house ready for the holidays.
Besides, it’s hard to go out when my husband is such a good cook.
” Vanessa laughed. “I don’t know how he still wants to when he runs the diner all day, but he never seems to get tired of it. ”
“I wouldn’t complain for a second if I were you,” Mabel said with a laugh, and Vanessa shook her head.
“Oh, trust me, I’m not.”
Jackson Hayes, who had charmed Vanessa with his coffee and a perfect eggnog latte from the beginning, owned the Snowdrift Diner in town.
Mabel had thought that he and her granddaughter would make a perfect couple from the moment that she’d noticed that the two of them were starting to make eyes at each other, but it had taken Vanessa longer to come around.
Pumpkin lattes and homemade eggnog creamer aside, Vanessa had been a big-city girl through and through, all designer clothes and fast-paced lifestyle.
No one had expected her to stay, least of all Vanessa herself.
But Fir Tree Grove had gradually won her over, as had the chance to be closer to her grandmother, and the slowly budding romance between her and Jackson. By the end of the season, she’d decided to stay, last Christmas they’d gotten engaged, and now the two of them were happily married.
Mabel smiled to herself as she remembered their wedding this past summer.
It had been everything a small-town wedding should be—intimate and simple and heartfelt, with the whole town taking part and celebrating Jackson and Vanessa’s love story.
They’d held the ceremony in the park under a huge elm with the backdrop of beech trees and mountains, fairy lights strung in the branches and what seemed to be all of Fir Tree Grove in attendance.
Vanessa had been gorgeous in a simple white lace gown that she and Mabel had picked out together, and she’d worn Mabel’s treasured pearl necklace and earrings.
She’d carried wildflowers that they’d picked from George’s farm, and it had been so beautiful that just remembering it made Mabel’s eyes go misty.
It had been a perfect wedding, with the couple so in love that everyone had felt it.
They’d held the reception at the Snowdrift Diner afterward, with Jackson’s famous comfort food served family-style and dancing that had gone on until well past midnight, the celebration spilling out of the diner and into the courtyard outside with tents and a dance floor set up.
Mabel had watched her granddaughter laugh and spin in her husband’s arms, and she’d felt like the night was the absolute pinnacle of happiness.
She and George had danced all night too, like they were in their twenties again, and gone home far too late.
It was funny how life could surprise you, even when you thought you had it all figured out, she mused as she carried the bags out to the back and came back inside to straighten up the back room of the shop.
Two years ago, she’d had friends in Fir Tree Grove but no family left, her shop to keep her company but no romantic partner.
She’d been a widow who had felt that part of her life was over, and she’d been all right with it.
Now she had Vanessa back in her life, a wonderful grandson-in-law who helped to fill the void from having lost her own son years ago, and—most surprising of all—a romance of her own that still made her feel like a giddy teenager sometimes.
She bit her lip, feeling her cheeks pinken a little and her lips turn up in a smile at the thought of George Lowery.
If someone had told her even a little over a year ago that she’d be head over heels for the grumpy owner of Merry Pines Christmas Tree Farm, she’d have laughed them out of the shop.
Regardless of the fact that the town had been betting on them getting together for years, she’d seen him as a friend and nothing more, someone she could tease and chat with and annoy with gradually more and more creative pranks that he returned in kind.
She still hadn’t entirely forgiven him for the garland of fake chickens, honestly, and he still brought up the tree-elves.
But her little kitten, Rascal—who was not a kitten any longer and yet still somehow just a mischievous—had changed all of that.
Somewhere between George letting himself be talked into kitten-sitting for her during the day and her going to pick Rascal up in the evenings, they’d finally admitted that there was something there.
More than just something, she knew now, after a year of being together. What she had with George was something special, something she never thought she’d find again at her age, and she was endlessly grateful for it.