Page 8 of Lighting Up Christmas

“I hope you’re talking about electricity,” Sophia admonished. “Although the small space next door is going to be open after the Christmas pop-up shop closes in mid-January. We could be neighbors, and you could have a shop to sell your lights.”

“And be out of business with a storefront of inventory in a month.”

“When you show your lights, they sell,” Sophia argued.

“And who would run my shop while I’m out on calls?” Riley pushed down the tug of the dream. “I love being an electrician and facing the unknown of each day. Plus, I like the struggle,” Riley admitted. “People expect a man a lot of times, and they get me, bossing my crew, which earns more than a few double takes even in the twenty-first century. Also, I’m mentoring the next generation.”

“I know,” Sophia said softly, and her beautiful face was etched in sorrow. “I was being selfish. I get lonely.”

“You see me a lot,” Riley said. “And I’ll be here tonight to help you unpack and check in inventory.”

“Thank you, Riley.”

Riley hugged Sophia again. “I’ll text you when I’m leaving for Fire Ridge and also when I’m leaving his property,” she promised. “Do you want me to bring some dinner for ourwork party? I’ve only got one small job later this afternoon scheduled.”

“That sounds great. But we’ll do takeout from Leeks. You bring a bottle of wine and whatever you want to drink.”

“It’s a date. See? I get out.”

Ninety minutes later, Riley turned off Stagecoach Road to Old Ashland and continued to drive until she came to an unmarked gravel road flanked by a large boulder, likely left by a flood a millennium or two ago, and a stand of birch trees.

She paused for a moment and absorbed the snow-dappled vista. Bear Creek and the surrounding Rogue Valley always got more than a few inches of snow a few times each winter, but up in the Siskiyou foothills, one could almost count on a white Christmas. The stark, pristine, endless beauty always stole her breath.

“Work, Riley.”

She shifted her truck into a lower gear and headed up into the hills. This was a business opportunity. She intended to seize it and wring out the juice—ha ha, pun intended. Her dad and uncle wouldn’t have to worry about handing the business over to her. They could stop hoping that one of her brothers or cousins would have a change of heart. They wouldn’t dare. Flanagan & Sons was almost hers now, and no way would she not put her own mark on the family business.

“Zhang Shi,” she whispered as she bounced over the rutted road. His name sounded like a whisper or a bird song—something she’d hear on a summer breeze when hiking or trail running up Table Rock.

She’d googled him, hoping the information would give her insight, but he was more of an enigma than she expected. No personal social media accounts. He had been born in Hong Kong and raised there as well as London and New York. He’d attendedStanford on a full scholarship but had his own tech start-up jacking up his bank account long before he’d graduated.

“Stalker much?” she murmured, looking at the Rosie Riveter string ornament dangling from her rearview mirror. It had been a gift last Christmas from one of her students in the Girls Tackle Trades entrepreneur and business program Riley and several other local businesswomen had initiated a handful of years ago at the local middle and high school. Now coding and a robust STEM program had been added to create a two-week summer program for area girls.

Riley had been lucky. She’d been born into a family with a business, and her father hadn’t known what else to do with a girl except treat her like his three older sons.

“You can nail a sale,” she mantra-ed as she reached the top of the first hill.

Wow. Man. Oh. Man. This view never got old. Not ever. She hadn’t realized how much she missed coming up here until this moment.

Fire Ridge was her favorite spot in the valley. And she’d once had her run of it. But the former owner and horse breeder and trainer, Leah Tully Moore, had sold her family property unexpectedly. Riley had worked on Sundays in the stables since she’d been twelve, and as she’d hit her early twenties and had continued to volunteer, she and Leah had discussed the possibility of her carving out five acres for Riley to buy. Riley had worked and saved since her teens but acquiring a small slice of heaven had been snatched away with the surprise sale.

This afternoon she could drink in the view for a few moments.

Riley dragged her mind back to the here and now—the only thing that mattered—and tore her hungry gaze away from the rolling hills. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Acres and acres of vines. But a lot of the land was still untouched—rollinghills of pastureland dotted with oak savannahs. And then as the property steeply climbed, evergreens. But there were three hills that had rows of sticks pointing darkly and accusingly up at the blue sky. And then one off to the side, higher up. Still, not nearly as many as she’d imagined. He had—what? She eyeballed the property. Fifteen acres planted? More?

The entire property was more than 580 acres. Once sheep and goats had grazed, along with the horses Leah had raised. The goat cheese Leah had made had covered the property taxes while Leah focused on her horses.

She’d never told Riley why she’d sold. Riley hadn’t even known Leah considered walking away from her three generations of Tully property. Just like Riley had never considered another career other than being a part of her family business. But something in Leah had seemed changed, broken, after her marriage and astonishingly quick divorce, and she’d stopped communicating very much. Even though Leah had been more than ten years older, Riley had felt like a friend but not a good enough one. Her heart clenched.

“Pull your head out of the past, Rye,” she counseled as she finally turned away from the vista and headed down the switchback road and then drove up the next hill toward the barn where she’d spent so many hours in her youth. “You’re here for a sale and a business opportunity, not to reminisce and regret.”

Regrets were for…she searched for a word.

Her brother, Simon, would have had a word ready that began with a P and would make her sock him in the arm and give him a dose of regret.

She smiled, thinking of Si, the brother closest to her in age—Irish twins, only twelve months apart. Her poor mother had cheerfully admitted that Riley being an oops was a welcome surprise because after three boys, she hadn’t wanted to takeanother spin of the gender roulette wheel a pregnancy would offer.

Riley pulled up fairly close to the open door of the smaller barn where Zhang had said he’d be working. This must be the winery. She looked behind her at the massive barn that had once felt like her second home. What was he using that for? She didn’t see any sign of animals. Maybe an event space?

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