CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next morning, Hannah Leigh had one hand on her phone opening her calendar app and the other wrapped around a Bringleton’s mega cocoa. Her nerves as frayed as the bow hanging from the Chamber’s office wreath. Underneath all of South Hill’s holiday sparkle, things weren’t adding up.
The visit with Ruthie the day before was still rattling around in her head like a sleigh bell without a clacker. And then there was that block letter note.
When she stepped back into the office and spotted Birdie perched there like a holiday-themed gargoyle, the present rolled in. Birdie was having way too much fun with all of this, and that made Hannah Leigh half-wonder if the old bird may have written the note.
“I brought pralines.” Birdie offered a tin shaped like Santa’s sleigh.
“That’s the reason you came by?”
“I was across the way when I saw your aunt’s car.
” She scrounged around in her purse. “Oh! And look what I found in my attic.” She pulled out an old, yellowed newspaper clipping.
The photo was blurry, but unmistakably Ruthie Danvers.
She had to have been in her twenties, standing under the dogwood tree with a man who looked suspiciously like Henry Bell.
The story described a family welcoming an out-of-towner at Thanksgiving.
Apparently, Henry Bell spent the holiday with the Danvers family.
“Where did you get this?” Hannah Leigh asked.
“Like I said. My attic. My daddy saved every newspaper he ever touched. Didn’t throw out a scrap of anything except his back. I had this moment where I figured I should research the papers around that time. It was Thanksgiving week that ran.” Birdie shrugged. “Sometimes the past begs to be seen.”
With that, Birdie floated out, leaving a sugary trail of pecans and scandal.
Aunt Winnie walked up behind Hannah Leigh and peered at the photo. “Well. That Birdie is a pot-stirrer if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Christmas miracles come wrapped in the truth sometimes, I guess.”
Later that evening, Hannah Leigh sat in her room at Aunt Winnie’s, staring at the photo. There was no doubt the man was Henry. The recent note on the board didn’t seem to go with that story.
Either way, Nate was right. They were waist-deep in peppermint bark and secrets. They’d be judging cookies this afternoon and chasing ghosts in their spare time. She just hoped the two didn’t collide.
Hannah Leigh’s phone hadn’t stopped pinging from updates about the Hometown Holiday Festival. Getting down to the wire, Aunt Winnie showed up with a rolling suitcase, a shopping bag full of ribbon, and enough holiday spirit to power the courthouse lights.
Hannah Leigh had barely made it back to the Chamber office after a whirlwind cookie-judging dash — she’d had to run in, sample, score, and dash back out — leaving Nate and the others to tally the votes and announce the winners.
She was still catching her breath when Aunt Winnie bustled in, arms loaded with shopping bags she plopped right onto the desk.
“What’s all this for?” Hannah Leigh asked, eyeing the pile.
“Sunday’s wrap up,” Aunt Winnie said. “I have gifts for the volunteers. I need you to help me wrap them.”
“Happy to do that for you. What are they?”
Aunt Winnie unzipped the suitcase and handed her a box. “This one is for you. You don’t have to wrap your own,” she said.
“Thank you.” Hannah Leigh slipped her finger under the tab and opened the gift. Inside, a small jar of chutney in a mason jar with an embroidered snowflake design on buffalo-check flannel fabric.
“Thank you. I love it, Aunt Winnie. Did you do the embroidery, too?”
“I most certainly did. The best gifts are homemade. My volunteers, and you, my dear, deserve my best.”
“Everyone will love them.” Before Hannah Leigh could finish, the bell on the front door jingled. Birdie appeared as if summoned, holding a shoebox and a yearbook. It looked like someone had rescued the yearbook from a trunk in the church basement.
“I’ve got something for you, girls.” She plopped the box onto the table and flipped open the yearbook to a page she’d dog-eared with a sprig of mistletoe.
“Margaret Jane Russell,” she announced. “I bet that’s the woman who wrote that note on the Love Left Behind board.” Birdie flipped open the yearbook and poked her finger at a pretty brunette’s face.
Hannah Leigh leaned closer. “I can see her in that picture. But how does that prove she wrote the note?”
“She and Clarence were smitten back in the day. Everyone in school thought they’d get married.
Then her family moved away. It was all rather sudden.
Why else would she show up here after all these years and buy one of those condos?
She’s right back where she fell in love with him.
I’m telling you. It’s love coming full circle.
” Birdie clutched her hands to her chest.
“Birdie, that is a wonderfully romantic tale, but it doesn’t prove a thing.”
“It explains why Clarence is acting like a party pooper, and if the locket isn’t connected to him after all, I’d bet my reputation it has something to do with Margaret Jane and that dogwood,” Birdie said. “Call Margaret Jane and ask if she wrote the note.” She shoved the phone number toward Winnie.
Aunt Winnie lifted a brow. “Does she know we’re calling?”
Birdie shrugged. “Not yet. But she will once this one here dials.” She waved her arthritic finger toward Hannah Leigh. “I’ll tell you the number.”
Hannah Leigh opened her phone, heart fluttering. “What do I even say?”
“Say Christmas brought you back around to a mystery, and her name lit the path. Dial 555-1166.” Birdie winked and waved herself out, pralines trailing behind like a sugar-dusted sleigh.
As the front door closed, Hannah Leigh sat back hoping Margaret Jane wouldn’t answer, and thank goodness her wish came true. It went to voice mail.
Just then, her phone lit up again. This time a message from Nate.
NATE: Everything okay? Want to grab cocoa later?
She smiled, thumb hovering over the screen.
HANNAH LEIGH: Would love that. Meet you after I finish at the Chamber?
Three dots danced for a second.
NATE: Oops…rain check? I need to run over to Colonial for an electrical 911.
She stared at the message a moment longer than she meant to, then nodded to no one and slipped the phone away. Still, the small sag of her shoulders betrayed what her heart already knew—disappointment liked to pretend it didn’t hurt.
She glanced again at Margaret Jane’s photo wondering if she and the mayor had been lighthearted and in love. If her coming back had anything to do with it, or the mayor’s mood.
It was hard to picture the cranky mayor in love like that. If that’s why Margaret Jane moved back, you’d think that fantasy would’ve blown up when she saw his moody scowl he seemed to wear all the time.
Eventually the pieces would fall into place like ornaments on a tree waiting for the star on top.