stairs, his arms full of wood for the fires that would roar until midnight in the parlor dining room and reception area.
“Not you, too, Fleming?” he asked, glancing from Jason to her.
She blushed, and Jason looked impatient.
“The gossip in this town defeats any need for the internet,” he said.
“Sorry.” Lyle sent Fleming an apologetic look. “Will your mom be home for the holidays?”
“She and Hugh are on a vacation.” A month in a fancy hut in Bora Bora. She couldn’t control a smidge of envy for their carefree thirty days. “But they’ll be back for Christmas.”
“Good to hear it.” He carried the wood to the hearth near his check-in counter and tossed a log into the flames. “Table for two?”
“No.” Fleming flinched as Jason’s voice echoed her own, and they both turned down the opportunity to share a meal.
“I’ll call down for room service,” he said.
Fleming breathed a sigh of relief. She had to create a battle plan. This man wanted his bank back in the black. He might claim he was helping her, but he’d take Mainly Merry Christmas if shutting her down bettered his bottom line.
AFTER A SOLO Thanksgiving dinner in his room the following evening, Jason tried to concentrate on his tablet. He’d just about decided what he could do for Fleming. Next up was a guy who ran one of the last barbershops in America.
All these people were becoming far more than names on electronic files. He’d turned Paige’s information over to an assistant DA friend in New York. He wanted someone to make sure the local prosecutor put Paige away for as long as he deserved. Jason had several more weeks to negotiate small-town, Christmas-spirited Bliss.
He feared he wouldn’t be the only one who doubted the existence of Santa by the time he finished this favor for his grandfather.
On the up side, he was charging his father top dollar for work that was a lot less complex than his usual contracts.
He stood, stretching the muscles in his back. Voices from downstairs had risen through the old floorboards as families celebrated while he worked. He’d been so focused on his task he’d hardly remembered it was Thanksgiving.
Lights seemed suddenly to dance on the courthouse steps. He crossed to the window. A group of people with glow sticks in Christmassy colors was gathering.
Carolers? He shrugged.
Not that he was hot for singing holiday songs, but he hadn’t been outside these four walls all day.
He grabbed his coat and hit the hallway. Downstairs, the lobby was empty. When he went outside, he heard the first strains of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
He almost turned back, but a little boy going by waved a shy hello with the hand his mother wasn’t holding. Jason didn’t have the heart to show his cynical side to someone too young to understand.
Instead, he smiled and waved back.
He didn’t cross the square to the carolers, but he walked quickly along the sidewalk. Fresh air. He needed some of that.
Apparently, he was witnessing some kind of Bliss, Tennessee, ritual. Most of the citizens and shop owners appeared to be trailing toward the courthouse. It wasn’t until he reached a cotton-swathed window displaying a Christmas village and a running train that he saw another human being not joining in the singing.
He looked up. A rich red sign hung overhead, emblazoned with the words Mainly Merry Christmas. He looked inside again. Fleming, on the wide-plank floor inside, was engrossed in putting together another train track, clearly set to run around a verdant Christmas tree.
Jason tried the door. To his surprise, it opened.
She looked up eagerly at the sound of the sleigh bells above her door. Her face sobered as she saw him.
“What’s going on at the courthouse?” he asked.
Her smile was a surprise that made him feel less at loose ends. They shared a puzzling intimacy after yesterday.
“It’s tradition.” She scrambled to her feet as he shut the cold out behind him. “Everyone goes to the courthouse, and we sing carols to welcome the holiday season. Your bank files must show you we do a lot more business around here this time of year.”
“Until spring,” he said, “and then there’s a slight dip until summer vacationers arrive.” He went to get a closer look at the train track. “Need some help?”
She joined him. “I do, but not with this. Why don’t we talk about my loan?”
The figures were burned inside his head, but he didn’t want to make a mistake. “This isn’t a workday. Why aren’t you out there singing?”
“I’m maybe weeks away from losing my shop. I have to work today and sell tomorrow.” She sat and started placing the track again.
“You could sell this train set and make a sizable sum.” His grandfather had a similar one he’d bought at an auction and shared with Jason all the Christmases they’d spent together.
“More tradition.”
He retrieved a box of spare track from the window seat and carried it to her. “You could run this all around the store.”
“I’m torn between the charm of how that would look and the risk of children stepping on it.”
“Take the risk.”
She laughed. “Is that the way you feel about loans, as well?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“So you come across as all concerned for us, but you’ll close us down if you have to?”
He nodded, passing her a straight piece that she laid, directing the track toward a shelf of vintage holiday cards. “I don’t always enjoy what I have to do, but I hope you and everyone else here will realize none of my decisions are personal.”
“They should be personal. You should be going out of your way to meet these people. We’re not in some big city like New York. In a town this small, you have to study each face and family. You should try to understand what’s at risk before you start destroying people’s lives.”
“I’m not destroying anyone. I’ve told everyone I’ve seen exactly what I’ve told you, but I can’t fix what’s wrong if I don’t do what’s right for the bank’s investors.”
“In a town of this size, with a bank this small, we’re all investors,” she said, her temper slipping a little, and he had to wonder if the cliché about fiery redheaded women might be true.
“I’m working for my family right now, and they’ve owned the bank for over a hundred years.”
Fleming eyed him as if he didn’t quite understand reality. “Not unusual in Bliss. Almost every family out on the square has roots that deep.”
“Where’s your family?” He had no right to ask, but he wanted to know. She’d told Lyle her mother would be back for Christmas.
“My mother recently married.” Fleming’s voice softened and warmed in a way that didn’t happen in his family. “She’d been dating this guy for a few years, but after I finished college, they married.” She looked even more wistful. “I always suspected she stayed here so long because of me, so that I’d have my home to come back to. After she moved to Knoxville to be with Hugh—that’s his name—I took over the store.”
“And refinanced?” Jason asked.
She nodded. “I had to pay my mom, although now