2. Harrison
HARRISON
Harrison stood in the bakery doorway, watching the three young women exchange glances while he took in the rich scents and warm holiday decor.
It sure didn’t smell like the bakery was closed. In fact, the cinnamon-sweet aroma was making his mouth water.
But maybe Mallory had changed her mind or forgotten. Her offer to show him around might not have been as enthusiastic as it seemed from her messages.
Resentment twisted his gut. Life was so light for everyone else. Harrison often felt like he was the only one carrying the weight of the world.
The young woman who had told him the place was closed examined him like he was a bug under a microscope. She seemed exceptionally fashionable for a small town like Trinity Falls, with her sleek bob and cherry-red lipstick.
Across from her, the second woman’s dark hair covered her face as she whispered something to the third girl, whose beautiful red mane was held back in a ponytail.
The redhead’s bright green eyes were filled with what looked like surprise as she gazed over her shoulder at Harrison.
“Hi,” she said in a bell-clear voice, scrambling out of her seat and sending her ponytail swinging with the sudden movement. “Sorry about that. I’m Mallory.”
“Oh,” he said, taken aback. He’d been assuming that Mallory was behind the counter or back in the kitchen.
He’d also pictured her much older, though he wasn’t sure why. He supposed you could lose your mother at any age.
“You must be Harrison,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Harrison Law, and this is my daughter, Katie.”
He braced himself for Mallory to start chirping at Katie and get her feelings hurt, like a lot of adults seemed to do.
Sometimes, when enthusiastic grownups talked to her, Harrison almost felt like he had to double check that he still had a daughter and not a teacup chihuahua in a bedazzled sweater.
“Hi, Katie,” Mallory said calmly instead. “Nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” Katie said, in her usual clipped tone.
Mallory nodded, unfazed, and lifted her chin to look at Harrison again.
“How was the drive?” she asked.
“Not too bad,” he told her. “It was a good day for a road trip—nice view out the window.”
Her green eyes flicked to the windows of the shop, where snow flurries were still swirling like they had been ordered especially to welcome Harrison and Katie to Trinity Falls.
If only Katie were the kind of kid who got a kick out of snow.
His eyes went back to Mallory and his head started spinning again.
How is she so young and beautiful?
It was probably for the best that the message board where they met didn’t use profile photos.
If he’d known what she looked like, he probably wouldn’t have ever started messaging with her in the first place.
And that would have been a shame, because she had gotten him to open up in ways he never thought he could.
“Are you two hungry?” Mallory asked, turning her attention back to them. “Or do you want to get started walking around town?”
He looked to Katie. She was just a kid, and there was a king’s bounty of sweet treats glistening under the glass counter. She would want to choose something. He wasn’t sure he could resist himself.
“Let’s go,” Katie said without missing a beat.
“Great,” Mallory replied. “Now, where should we start?”
She was frowning like she was thinking about it for the first time, even though she had already sent Harrison a short list of destinations, which he had immediately memorized.
“How about Carla’s Place?” he reminded her.
“Right,” she said with a funny look on her face. “Yes, of course. Let me just grab something.”
She jogged back behind the counter, her fiery ponytail bouncing in a way he found almost hypnotic, and came back with a big box.
That’s really Mallory…
“Okay,” she said, setting the box on one of the tables to pull on her coat before picking it up again. “Here we go. See you, Ana. Bye, Valerie.”
“Have fun,” the girl with the bob said, giving Mallory a sly smile.
“Bye,” the other girl added.
Harrison let go of Katie’s hand to open the door.
She was only eight, but he was sure that she wouldn’t run into the street or get distracted by a puppy or an ice cream truck.
He was proud of her being well-behaved, but sometimes he wished she’d get excited enough about something to be a flight risk.
“Are you really closing just for us?” he asked Mal as she stepped past him into the flurries, the faint scent of vanilla trailing after her on the breeze.
Stop noticing her hair…
And her eyes…
And her smell…
“No, no,” she assured him. “My helper is getting here in a few minutes. She’ll open up again.”
“It’s good you have help,” Harrison said.
“She’s only part-time,” Mallory said, shrugging. “She’s a college student, so she just works during her breaks. Actually, it’s her senior year, so next Christmas I’ll be on my own again if I don’t find someone else.”
She seemed resigned about it, though Harrison figured it ought to be easy enough to find another kid to hire.
It’s grief, he reminded himself. Soon after losing Penny, he’d felt exhausted and overwhelmed by even the smallest decisions and challenges.
Now I’m just angry all the time.
Mallory shifted the big box in her arms as they set off down the street.
“Can I carry that for you?” he offered automatically, indicating the box.
“That would be great,” she said with a smile as she handed it over. “Thank you.”
“Hey, Mal,” a lady whispered loudly in their direction, her head poking out of the open door of the hairdresser’s and glancing around. “Have you seen Sloane? Do you know if he’s with her?”
“Haven’t seen them yet today,” Mallory replied.
“Thanks,” the woman replied, nodding to Mallory and giving Harrison a quick once-over before ducking back inside.
“We’ve got some excitement in town,” Mallory said, smiling up at Harrison. “I mean, by our standards it’s exciting.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, not sure if he was more intrigued by the subject or the way her cheeks had gone pink in the frosty breeze.
“There’s a reporter here in the village,” she confided. “His name is Kai Blackstone, and he’s here to do a write-up on Trinity Falls. Sloane Greenfield is showing him around. She’s one of the local real estate agents.”
“What’s it for?” Harrison asked.
“There’s a big competition for Best Small Town in America,” Mallory said.
“We’ll never win, but it’s still kind of exciting.
And maybe we could make the top hundred or something.
Though even that doesn’t seem too likely, since no one has seen the guy smile yet.
I guess he’s not usually on the rural beat. ”
Mallory was right, of course, Trinity Falls was a sweet little place, but it didn’t have the slick, expensive feel of the towns that always wound up at the top of those lists.
“If you made the list, what would that mean for the town?” he asked.
“That’s the wild part,” Mallory said. “The new highway is finally coming in—the crews cleared out trees and did the grading over the spring and summer. So if Trinity Falls gets that kind of attention now, it could mean a lot of new people moving to town, since the commute to Philly will be a lot faster, Wilmington too.”
“Is that something you want?” Harrison asked.
“That’s tricky,” Mallory said, frowning. “I know it would help our small businesses if we had more customers—that’s why a lot of the shop owners are excited. But…”
He waited, wondering if she was going to say what he was thinking.
“Is it wrong not to want the place to change too much?” she asked softly. “I love Trinity Falls just the way it is.”
“Nothing gold can stay,” Harrison quoted without thinking.
“Robert Frost,” Mallory said, smiling.
He sent her quotes like that all the time, and she always seemed impressed online. But now that they were together in person, he felt kind of embarrassed about it.
“A dairy farmer shouldn’t be quoting poetry,” he said gruffly, feeling like a fool.
“Not at all,” she replied. “The farmers in town are some of the biggest readers I know, especially in the off-season.”
“The produce guys get their winters off, huh?” Harrison offered, chuckling.
“I guess it’s not so easy with livestock,” Mallory said with an apologetic smile. “You have early mornings and late nights too.”
He remembered the night he’d missed their usual after-dinner chat because one of the cows at the old place was having a difficult labor. They’d messaged well past midnight about it afterward. He’d been so tired that he’d let his guard down even more than usual that night.
I can’t believe this is actually Mallory.
It was such a strange feeling to be here in person. It was like he was meeting her for the first time, but she probably knew him better than anyone else.
“No days off,” Harrison agreed, nodding. “But it’s good work. I like it.”
She nodded and they walked on.
“The town looks good,” he said after a moment. “There are a lot of shops that weren’t here before.”
“The vibe never really changes though,” Mallory said with a faint smile as her eyes caressed the old Tudor-style storefronts. “And we’ve still got our candy-cane decorations. Did they have those when you were a kid?”
“Yeah,” Harrison said, a smile trying to tug up the corners of his mouth. “They had them hanging from the lampposts every year. Oh, look at that, the dollhouse is still in the window.”
He paused in front of the real estate office, time tumbling away around him as he admired the beautiful Victorian dollhouse decked out in its Christmas finery on a bed of cotton snow.
He and his brothers used to stand at this window, noses pressed to the glass to look for the little Santa figure that always mysteriously appeared in the chimney.
He glanced over at Katie, but she simply stood on the sidewalk waiting. Even the beautiful dollhouse didn’t capture her imagination.
His heart ached at the sight of her blank expression.
“Yes,” Mallory said with a smile. “They still decorate it for the holidays, just like always.”