Page 16 of Sleighing You
He seemed startled at the fact that I said her name, his eyes momentarily widening. “Yes… Mallery. My dad and I… well, look, I love him, of course. But we don’t always see eye to eye. Without my mom to ground him, I think he would blow the entire budget on whims and flights of fancy.”
That wasn’t exactly how Jack struck me. But then again, I’d only been working with him a few years. He was always pretty quick to approve my ideas, but maybe it wasn’t that he trusted me so much as it was that he just enjoyed brainstorming.Crap.The reality of that made my stomach turn upside down. Maybe he didn’t believe in me at all; maybe I’d just gotten really lucky most of my ideas were profitable.
“But then Mallery told me what an asset you’ve become to the company. And well, she told me I’d be an idiot not to listen to your ideas.”
I smiled, my reservations about Jack washing away with this new information. I’d always liked Mallery. She was tough in business and very savvy, but also kind. She was the proof that you didn’t have to be one or the other in order to be successful.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t have any of my notes or slides that I’d prepared to show Jack… but I knew this idea like the back of my hand. I could do it from memory. “Well… you know how successful the Build-A-Bear franchise has been?” I waited for him to nod before I continued. “And of course, there’s Elf on the Shelf.”
Another nod, but this time, his eyes narrowed and he licked his lips before saying, “But the Elf on the Shelf books and dolls only sell once per family. They’re necessary for the store, but not necessarily our top seller.”
I held up my finger and pulled out my phone, swiping until I found Mary Stroope’s website. “This is a local children’s author here in Maple Grove. She has a best-selling Christmas book… also about Santa’s elves. I’ve had a few meetings with her where she would be open to licensing her illustrations and brand for a line of toys exclusively sold in StoryBook stores.”
Chris took my phone, swiping through the images on her website. “Go on…”
“But I want to do more than that. I think for our store… the flagship of StoryBook, we could create our own Build Your Christmas Elf stations. We would have the children fill out questionnaires and based on that, we would ‘pair them’ with different aspects of their unique elf that they would build in the store. It’s not a single elf per family… it’s an elf for eachchild.”
He glanced up at me, not exactly smiling, but not frowning either. “Can you get me a copy of this book ASAP? I want to read it for myself.”
I nodded, ignoring the victory lap my stomach was doing within my belly. “Absolutely. But now it’s your turn. What about your idea?”
He grinned. “Ideas. Plural. But, we’ll start with one for tonight.” He tapped his knuckles against the tabletop. “I think the one I’ll start with goes well with what you’re proposing. There’s been talk of expanding your store—making it larger. More grandiose. If it’s going to continue to be our flagship store, it should look the part. You have to admit… StoryBook Christmas here in Maple Grove is pretty small.”
“I agree, but… I’m not really sure how we can expand. Maple Grove is a small town. There isn’t a ton of real estate.”
“You’re right. I don’t think we could do it in the current location. But across the square is a warehouse that’s for sale. We could renovate that, fix it up and make it a beautiful storefront.”
“Frank is selling his old warehouse?”
Chris nodded. “It’s not public knowledge yet, but yes. Over there, we could easily fit your Christmas Elf Station, and I was thinking we could also create a Santa’s Workshop Café. A place for families to come and have sandwiches and hot cocoa while they shop or after they’ve met Santa. They don’t just get to meet Santa… they have an entire interactive experience that transports them to his workshop at the North Pole, too. We can have employees dressed as elves who can take the children through the store to choose items for their lists for Santa—lists that will secretly go to the parents who can then check off their choices for what to purchase and have them wrapped to be picked up later, so everything can still be a surprise on Christmas morning.”
My chest warmed at the sight of Chris so excited by this idea. He didn’t seem passionate about the business this morning… he seemed like a pencil pusher. A numbers guy. But this Chris? The Chris who was excited at the prospect of expansion and a North Pole in Maple Grove?Thiswas a guy I could get on board with.
I smiled, staring into his eyes. “I love it. I’m nervous about moving spaces, though…”
“You’re a creature of habit,” he breathed. “But sometimes in order to grow, we have to move beyond the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves.”
I should have been insulted, but I wasn’t. He was right. Iwasa creature of habit. I had the same breakfast and lunch every day. The same schedule, the same weekly taco Tuesday with friends. Even this eggnog… did I really love it? Or was it just a Christmas tradition I couldn’t let go of?
I swallowed, tasting remnants of eggnog on my tongue. “It’s really an incredible idea, Chris.” I bit my bottom lip, a long-standing idea of mine itching at the surface… one I’d always wanted to propose, but our space was never large enough for it to work. “With a bigger space, we could host an event specifically for the children who can’t afford Christmas. They could come, meet Santa, write letters and have a special day that they normally wouldn’t have.”
Chris nodded. “Why aren’t we doing that now?”
“Our little store gets so packed with people as it is; it couldn’t handle a busload of children from the group homes. Plus, with that many children arriving at once, we’d probably have to close for an evening to the public because of fire codes.”
“In the new space we could definitely do that. But until then… we could bring Santa and presents tothem.”
I blinked, completely and utterly shocked by his selfless idea. “You think we could? It’s not really in my budget for the year, but it would mean so much—”
“We absolutely could. It would be great publicity, too. We could call around and get the local news to cover it. The story might even get picked up by larger networks, too.”
My heart dropped. Of course… he wasn’t into my idea because of its altruism. He saw the publicity angle.
Chris was still talking even though I felt like my heart had fallen to my stomach. “I’ve also been trying to convince the board that we could partner with local animal shelters for adoption days. Then, we could even have Santa ‘deliver’ the dogs that people adopt to their houses on Christmas Eve.”
“I have a good friend who runs the animal shelter here. I adopted Kringle from her. I could set up a meeting for you two.”
“I think you mean usthree. You should be there too.” He reached across the table and draped his hand over mine. “Ireallylove your ideas. Mallery was right about you.” I swallowed, my blood rushing faster, hotter, beneath the gentle weight of his touch. Our eyes locked, and he smiled at me, revealing a sliver of a dimple on one side of his mouth. Then, clearing his throat, he withdrew his hand, and the glide of his palm against the backs of my knuckles did strange things to my insides.
