Page 38 of Our Now and Forever

Though she’d been reluctant to use the engagement element, seeing Priscilla’s dull blue eyes go wide with surprise made Snow feel as if she’d won a contest. The conversation hadn’t proceeded far beyond that point, as Mrs. Winkle lost interest the moment she heard Caleb would not be courting her daughter.

It wasn’t until she’d finished her peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Snow experienced her third surprise encounter of the day, when Piper Griffin blew into the shop for their regular Monday meeting.

Piper was Snow’s sales rep from the Ardent Advocate. The middle-aged brunette dressed too young for her age, wore enough perfume to gag a moose, and could sell space heaters in the Bahamas. She’d been harassing Snow to increase her ad budget for three months.

If the painting turned out to be authentic and worth as much as Snow hoped, Piper might get her way.

“Am I glad Halloween is over,” Piper said, sliding behind the counter and lifting a plateful of cookies from a lower shelf. They’d made a deal long ago that Snow would always put a select number of cookies aside for these visits, since Lorelei’s goodies rarely lasted past lunchtime. “Now we can get on with my favorite time of year.” Piper popped a piece of gingersnap between her deep-red lips and talked around the morsel. “The Christmas shopping season.”

Snow noticed that Piper did not state that Christmas was her favorite time of year. So much for the reason for the season.

“We’re still weeks away from Thanksgiving,” Snow reminded her rep. She wouldn’t exactly call them friends, since Piper was only interested in the commission she could make off Snow’s advertising, but they did speak at social functions, on the rare occasion they crossed paths. So she was at least a friendly acquaintance.

“Pish posh.” Piper shooed the facts away. “I’ve bought four presents already, and if you don’t want people taking their business online, you need to remind them why they should shop local.”

And how she should do that was to buy a bigger ad. “Are you doing the Buy Local promotion again? That did well last Christmas.”

The paper had created a full-page ad the previous year dedicated to encouraging readers to invest their hard-earned money into local businesses, instead of driving down to Nashville to hit the big stores, or making the majority of their purchases on the Internet. Each local business had the opportunity to contribute a relatively small amount to be included in the promotion.

Piper finished off a chocolate chip cookie before responding. “We’re definitely doing that again, but it’s going to take more than your name included in a mass ad to let our readers know of the treasures you have here.” The empty plate returned to the shelf as Piper added, “You’ve got one-of-a-kind stuff in this place, Snow. And a much bigger inventory than you had this time last year. People need to know that.”

Snow supposed she was right. Though the shop benefited from its central location on the corner of a major downtown intersection not far from the town square, which, ironically, was round, there was less foot traffic in the winter. Buyers needed a reason to visit the store.

On a sigh, Snow said, “Why don’t you draw me up some sort of Christmas marketing plan and we can talk about it.”

Pausing in brushing crumbs from her cleavage, Piper looked up. “Are you serious?”

With a nod, Snow said, “I am. I’m not promising I’ll spend a lot, but you’re right. I need to advertise more, especially this time of year.”

“Brilliant!” Piper exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. “I’ll have a full plan drawn up for our meeting next week.”

Snow had half expected the saleswoman to demand they sit down and work something up right then. “Oh,” she said. “Okay. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

“You’re going to love it. Now I have to get back to the office.” The flamboyant woman shifted her abundant hips through a narrow opening between two large displays. “A new guy started at the paper this morning, and he is delicious.” She glanced at her phone. “He’s following Gerald around, and that means they’ll do a midday check-in within fifteen minutes. Bless that old man’s heart, you could set your watch by his schedule.”

This sounded like good news to Snow. Another new arrival might take the gossip heat off of her and Caleb.

“A new guy as in a new hire, or new to town?” she asked, hoping it was the latter.

Piper tapped her chin. “I’ve never seen him before, so I’m thinking new to town, but I didn’t get as much time with him as I wanted. He’s young, tall, and hot as all get-out,” she said. Piper wiggled her brows. “And no wedding ring. That means he’s fair game.”

A trickle of concern danced along Snow’s spine. That description matched her husband to a tee, but then young, tall, and hot weren’t exactly specifics.

“How was he dressed?” Snow asked, hoping against hope the answer would not be jeans and a red button-up shirt.

Warming to her topic, Piper said, “Oh, honey, let me tell you. The boy fills out a pair of jeans like he was born to wear them. I made sure I got a good look, and I’d bet my best push-up bra that you could bounce a quarter off those cheeks, and I don’t mean the ones above his neck. The red button-down was simple enough, but accentuated those broad shoulders to the point that I nearly wept.” With a wink, she added, “If I have my way, that boy will be the present under my tree, and wearing nothing but a red bow I plan to untie real slow.”

Snow was too stunned to say any of the million things running through her mind. A wave of jealousy smacked her like a bucket of ice water, while anger bubbled up over Caleb not telling her he was taking a job with the local paper. He hadn’t even mentioned the newspaper.

Was he planning to surprise her? “Hi, honey, I’m home. Guess what I did today? I got a job!”

And was Snow supposed to be happy? Relieved? Proud of her ultra-rich husband sinking low enough to take a salesman position with a paper that would be a joke in his father’s media conglomerate world?

She was torn between ripping Piper’s eyes out for fantasizing about her man, and the urge to follow Piper back to the paper and order her husband to go home.

As Snow stewed, Piper stepped through the front door into the November sunshine, yelling, “See you next week!” She was off to see her client’s tall and hunky husband, who had apparently failed to mention he had a wife. Or a fiancée, rather, since they were keeping the wife thing a secret. For now.

In that moment, Snow wanted nothing more than to claim Caleb as her own. To make sure every woman within a hundred miles knew the gorgeous man with the tight jeans and blazing blue eyes was very much off-limits.

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