Chapter 9
Natalie had almost convinced herself the rumors would fade on their own, but by Tuesday evening, she knew better.
The day had been relentless in the strangest possible way.
Not unpleasant, exactly. No one had been cruel.
No one had cornered her with pity or clasped her hand while saying the Lord had someone out there for her.
Instead, people smiled at her knowingly, approvingly.
It was as if she had joined some invisible club, and everyone was thrilled she had finally found the door.
By the time she flipped the sign at Winter Wishes from OPEN to CLOSED, her cheeks hurt from smiling, her feet ached from standing, and her brain was still tangled in the absurdity of Mrs. Hernandez asking whether Mark liked peppermint bark because she wanted to make “something for you two.”
Natalie leaned against the front door and looked out across the square. The Christmas lights shimmered around the gazebo, the lamppost bows held their places perfectly, and the rebuilt display outside her window stood firm despite a cool breeze moving through town.
Mark’s work. Mark’s careful, stubborn, practical work.
She shook her head and pushed away from the door. “Do not start,” she told herself.
The bell above the door jingled.
Natalie turned, prepared to tell whoever had walked in that she had just closed, but when Mark Clemons stepped inside carrying a coil of orange extension cords over one shoulder, she shut her mouth.
He took one look at her face and paused. “Bad time?”
“No.” She locked the door behind him before the breeze could push it wider. “Just didn’t expect you. Or anyone.”
“Rebecca found these at the ranch.” He lifted the cords from his shoulder and set them on the counter. “Apparently they belong to you.”
“They do.” Natalie picked up one end of the coil and laughed softly. “I wondered where they went.”
“They were in a storage room behind three boxes of wreaths, two bins of tablecloths, and something labeled ‘emergency glitter.’”
“That sounds like Rebecca.”
“Glitter of any kind seems like a warning to me.”
“Emergency glitter is very real.” Natalie carried the cords behind the counter and hung them on the hook beneath the register. “You don’t need it often, but when you do, nothing else will work.”
Mark looked around the shop as if trying to decide whether she was joking. “I’ve never heard a sentence more impossible to argue with and less believable at the same time.”
She grinned at him. “That is the beauty of retail.”
He studied a nearby display of Christmas mugs, candles, and small wooden signs. “I’ve never actually been in here.”
Natalie turned so quickly she nearly bumped the counter. “Never?”
“I’ve walked past,” he said, sounding apologetic.
She crossed her arms and scowled as convincingly as she could. “That does not count,” she insisted, unable to help teasing him.
“I’ve looked through the window.” He held up his hands as if defenseless.
She did her best not to smile as she playfully rolled her eyes. “That counts even less.”
“I knew it was a gift shop.” Mark picked up a small ornament shaped like a cowboy boot and examined it with suspicion. “I didn’t realize it had so many sections.”
“It has exactly the right number of sections.”
“For what?”
“For finding the gift you didn’t know you needed.” She came around the counter and plucked the ornament gently from his hand before he could set it in the wrong spot. “Also, that belongs on the western tree, not the sentimental family tree.”
“There are categories?”
“Why wouldn’t there be categories?”
He glanced toward the front window, where the lights from outside reflected across the glass. “I suddenly understand the bow conversation better.”
“Good. Growth is important.”
His mouth twitched, and Natalie felt a ridiculous little spark of victory.
She had seen him smile more than twice now. She was not keeping a tally anymore, which felt wise considering how much trouble the first tally had caused her.
Mark rested one hand on the edge of the counter. “How bad was it today?”
Natalie didn’t bother pretending she didn’t know what he meant. “Mrs. Barlow asked whether you had any favorite Christmas hymns.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Why?”
“I don’t know. She said she was curious, which means she absolutely had a reason and chose not to tell me.”
“I don’t blame you if you were afraid to answer.”
“Oh, I was.” She tapped her cheek. “Mrs. Hernandez asked whether you liked peppermint bark.”
“Interesting,” he said, his tone a bit wry. “Because she asked me whether you liked it.”
They both started laughing, warm and helpless enough that Natalie had to lean against the counter.
“This town is impossible,” she said, wiping beneath one eye. “We repaired a display. That’s it.”
“You mostly supervised.”
“I held the sleigh.”
“That was important,” he admitted.
She beamed. “It was practically heroic.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It was moderately useful.”
She pointed at him. “That is as close to praise as I’ve gotten from you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Her laughter faded into a smile, and the shop felt warmer than it had all day.
Mark looked different under the soft lights of Winter Wishes. He still looked practical and solid and entirely too skeptical of her ornament trees, but somehow, he also looked like he belonged there.
Natalie liked that far too much.
She busied herself straightening a stack of gift tags near the register. “A woman came in today and told me she was glad I’d found someone.”
Mark’s expression sobered. “She said that?”
Natalie nodded and tried to laugh it off. “Which is bold, considering she apparently thinks I found someone in the middle of a sidewalk repair project.”
Mark wasn’t smiling. “Did it bother you?”
The question was simple enough, but something about the way he asked it made her pause. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t trying to steer the conversation into safer territory. He genuinely wanted to know.
Natalie set the gift tags down. “Not the way it should have.”
He tilted his head to the side. “What way should it have?”
“I should have been annoyed.” She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms loosely. “I should have corrected her immediately. I should have said, ‘Mark Clemons and I are not dating. He fixed one broken brace and argued about bow height. That does not constitute a relationship.’”
“That would’ve been a thorough answer.”
“I’m a thorough person.” She smiled faintly, but it didn’t last. “Instead, I thanked her.”
Mark was quiet for a moment. “Why?”
Natalie looked toward the front window, where a family had stopped outside to admire the wooden reindeer in the display. The little girl stood on tiptoe while her father rested a hand on her shoulder.
“Because she wasn’t trying to fix me,” Natalie admitted. “She wasn’t looking at me like my life was almost good except for the one obvious missing piece. She was happy for me. Completely wrong, obviously, but happy.”
Mark’s gaze followed hers to the window. “That happened to me too.”
“With your family?” she assumed.
“My siblings seem to think we’re dating, and they aren’t teasing me too much about it.” He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the counter, his voice even but quieter. “My mother just smiles like she knows something I don’t.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It was.” He glanced back at Natalie. “Stranger than I expected, but nice.”
Natalie understood that too well. She had spent years wishing people would stop asking. Then, for one day, they had stopped, and the relief had been so immediate it almost embarrassed her.
“I love my aunt,” she said. “She helped raise me after my mother died, and I know she wants me happy, but she’s coming next week, and I have been dreading the questions since she called.”
“Is she a matchmaking aunt?”
“Without a doubt.” Natalie picked up a ribbon spool then set it down again because there was no real reason to hold it. “She won’t mean any harm. She’ll help in the shop, pray for me, make me soup if I so much as sneeze, and somehow mention six eligible men before breakfast.”
Mark’s smile returned slowly. “That’s impressive.”
“It is a gift. Not one I requested, but still.”
“And now?”
Natalie took a breath. The answer felt foolish and honest at the same time. “Now I don’t dread it quite as much.”
He absorbed that without making light of it. That was becoming one of the more dangerous things about him. He was funny when he wanted to be, dry enough to keep her amused, but he didn’t trample over something serious once it appeared.
“I keep thinking I should correct people,” he said.
“I do too.”
“But?”
She looked at him then, and the humor between them shifted into something more like a confession. “But I don’t want to go back to being everyone’s project.”
Mark’s jaw tightened, not in anger but recognition. “I don’t want to go back to being handled carefully.”
Natalie considered him. Different wounds, same weariness. She had been smothered by hope people kept trying to hand her. Mark had been smothered by concern people didn’t know how to put down.
Both were exhausting, but neither was cruel. That made them harder to resent.
Natalie gave a small laugh, though it carried less humor than before. “This is ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Completely.”
“We’re standing in my shop after closing, seriously considering whether to let half the town keep believing something that is not true because it makes our lives easier.”
He wrinkled his nose. “When you say it like that, it sounds worse.”
“It is worse.”
“Maybe say it differently.”
“All right.” She straightened and lifted one hand as if presenting a display. “We are temporarily declining to correct a community misunderstanding during a busy holiday season.”
Mark nodded, almost solemn. “That sounds better.”
She shook her head. “It sounds like something a committee would approve.”
“Committees approve many bad ideas.”
She laughed, and he smiled again, and for one bright second, the whole thing felt possible. Then sense returned.
Natalie lowered her hand. “We can’t actually do this.”
“No?”
“It’s dishonest.”