Page 18 of Sweet Christmas Wish
“Oh, so you already know about her?”
“Yep, I met her at Sweet Thing. She and Sarah are friends.”
“Gotcha. Let’s see… Mark Bridger and Delaney Rust got married a couple of years ago, and I think they’re expecting their first baby—”
“We all saw that coming,” Will cut in with a chuckle. “They were practically glued together at the hip all through high school.”
“Yep, it’s no surprise. Anyone else? Oh, Jared Bowers and CeCe Green are dating. If the rumors in town are true, he’s planning to ask her to marry him.”
“Wow.” Will shook his head. “It’s so crazy to realize everyone’s grown up. In my head, everyone is still the age they were in high school. It’s easy to forget everyone is growing up since I’ve been away so long.”
“I’ll bet.” Clark’s cell phone started ringing. “Oh, I’d better get that. It was good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, man.”
Will smiled, turning away as Clark took the call and heading toward the hygiene section. He browsed through the scanty options and finally selected a brand of shaving cream that was the most similar to what he used back in New Jersey, then grabbed a stick of deodorant.
A few minutes later, his shopping was nearly completed and he headed for the register. As he was checking out, the candy near the cash register caught his eye. Next to the old fashioned candied orange slices, he saw the toffee chocolate bars from Moose Mountain Chocolatiers that he’d been telling Sarah about. On impulse, he grabbed a couple of bars and tossed them into his basket.
* * *
Sarah grunted, changing her position on the sofa so that she was curled up in the corner of it with a blanket nestled around herself, trying to get comfortable.
Come on,she thought,just relax. Relaxxxxx.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in, held it for a few seconds, then slowly let it out. When her heart refused to slow down, she tried again. Inhale, hold, then exhale. Still nothing.
She opened her eyes, reaching for the mug of mulled spice chai on the table by her elbow and taking a sip, wincing as the hot drink scalded her tongue.
Great. Just one more thing that isn’t going my way.
She set the mug aside and tried to focus on the book that lay open in her lap, sliding her finger over the page until she found the place she’d last read. Within seconds, her eyes were glazing over and she’d lost the thread of the sentence that she’d already tried to read what felt like a hundred times.
“Ughhhh,” she groaned aloud, forcing herself not to throw the book across the room. All she wanted was to relax, to get her mind off the astronomical bill for her new oven—which, unfortunately was the same oven that was now broken, still leaving her with only one working oven.
At this point, it would’ve been better if she’d never even bought the thing. At least then she wouldn’t be in a huge amount of debt that she had no way to pay. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, tears of frustration and fear and utter, bone-deep exhaustion.
She looked around the room, so familiar and yet so devoid of comfort to her right now. She lived in the apartment above the bakery, which she usually loved, but right now it was a little too close to the source of her problems, and she wished for a moment that she could run far, far away and not have to deal with the issue at hand.
Stop it,she told herself, trying to be firm even as the tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.You need to be strong. If you fall apart now, so will the bakery. You can’t let your family down like this. You can’t let yourself down like this, either.
Realizing she was unlikely to actually be able to relax, she threw the blanket aside and stood, deciding to go down to the bakery’s office and look over the bill again. Maybe if she studied her accounts and her ledger enough, she’d be able to find the money somehow.
She knew it was a useless venture, but at least she would feel like she was doingsomethingto deal with the problem at hand, rather than just sitting around and hoping for it to magically solve itself.
Not bothering to change out of her zebra-striped pajamas and her fuzzy slippers, she padded down the steps and pushed open the door that led to the bakery kitchen and the office. The desk in her office was strewn with disorganized papers, the way it always was, and she sat down in the old, creaky desk chair with a thump, staring at the mounds of papers before her.
With a sigh, she booted up the ancient computer, spinning in the desk chair as the computer slowly came to life. She desperately needed a new computer, but it wasn’t like she could afford it, so she would have to keep working with the dinosaur for the time being.
She had just begun looking over her bank accounts online when she heard the bell jingle at the front bakery door. Her heart leapt into her throat and she shot to her feet silently, her pulse racing.
Was someone trying to break in? Was she in danger?
On silent feet and with trembling hands, she tiptoed into the kitchen and grabbed the sharpest knife she could find, silently moving to the swinging kitchen door. Raising onto her toes, she peeked through the window in the door and almost collapsed with relief as she saw Will standing in the bakery’s front room, looking around.
Her limp fingers dropped the knife and it fell to the floor with a clatter that brought Will’s head whipping around. She pushed open the kitchen door, her eyes wide and the adrenaline only now beginning to fade from her veins.
“Oh! You about gave me a heart attack,” she managed to say. “What are you doing here?”
