Chapter 15

fifteen

STERLING

“ I ’m taking a chance on a new beginning,” I said to the tartan stag head on the wall. “I am choosing to believe in hope.”

“Oh, is that what you’re going with?” Win asked, the door slamming shut behind him as he lugged an armful of firewood inside. “Because it sounds like you’ve been abducted by a cult of people who wear yoga pants and read Eat, Pray, Love .”

Kyle took off his woolen hat and thwapped Win over the head with it. “Let Sterling practice for his call.” He threw me an apologetic look. “We’re heading out to our neighbor’s in a few. Gonna help him clear his driveway. That’ll give you some privacy.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

Win was right though. He might have left home well over three decades ago, but the family hadn’t changed the way it operated. My father wasn’t going to give a damn about my feelings. And that wasn’t personal. Feelings were irrelevant—mine, or his, or anyone’s.

Win carried the firewood through to the fireplace, dumping it in the basket there and then straightening up to pick the wooden fibers off his polar fleece coat. “Did you sleep okay last night?” he asked, no longer teasing.

“The bed is really comfortable, thanks.”

Win’s mouth quirked. “Not what I asked.”

I dipped my chin in acknowledgement. “Okay, sure, not great.”

Win shoved his hands in his pockets. “Been there. I get it.”

“Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if you stayed?”

Win sat down on the arm of the couch. “I know exactly what it would have been like, and the last thing Manhattan needs is another asshole in an expensive suit.” He snorted. “Would have been nice to still have access to some of that Van Ruyven cash when the roof needed replacing a few years back, or my truck died, but thinking that was the same as thinking about winning the lottery—it’s not gonna happen.”

“It could,” I said. “You could contest Grandfather’s will. With the right lawyers, you’d probably get half his estate.”

Kyle reappeared in the living room. “Hey, did we get toothpaste last week?”

“It’s under the sink.”

“I looked there.”

“Then look again,” Win said. “It’s there, I promise, unless you think we’ve got elves that come in at night and steal it.”

“It’s not there.”

“Look again!”

Kyle grunted, and turned and headed for the bathroom. Moments later he called out, “Found it!”

Win laughed silently, shaking his head. “Next time he complains he can’t find something and I say he does this every time, he’ll pretend not to remember it.” His smile faded as he regarded me seriously. “Dad’s money? As far as I’m concerned, Quentin’s earned that. He’d tell you the same thing.”

“Probably for very different reasons though,” I said. My father would believe he’d earned the entire inheritance because he’d been the one who’d stayed and helped to steer the business year after year. And Win, I suspected, would tell you my father had earned it because he’d sold his soul.

“Probably,” Win agreed softly. He stared into the middle distance for a moment, and then slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “Okay, Kyle and I need to go help clear that driveway. Help yourself to anything in the fridge, if I didn’t tell you last night.” He had. “If you need anything, we’ll be right next door.”

“Thank you.”

I went to the kitchen and made a coffee, listening out for when Kyle and Win left. Outside, the day was cloudy and cold. The cabin looked especially cozy and warm, a feeling I was sure would only increase if the clouds kept building.

I heard the front door rattle as it was pulled closed, and moments later Kyle’s truck rumbled to life outside. An arc of headlights brightened the living room windows for a second, and then Win and Kyle were gone.

I took my coffee and sat on the couch and stared at the stag head. It stared back with button eyes. I grimaced at it, and then picked up my phone and made the call I’d been putting off since yesterday when I’d told Harvey I was staying.

James answered almost immediately. “Good morning, sir.”

“Hi, James,” I said. “Can you bring my father in on this call, please? And stay conferenced in with us.”

“One moment.” A few moments later: “Mr. Van Ruyven, I have Mr. Sterling Van Ruyven on the line for you.”

“Sterling?” my father asked. “Are you back in the city yet?”

Right to the point, Dad.

So maybe I was a coward, but the reason I’d asked James to stay on the line wasn’t just to keep him in the loop and save myself from having to repeat this later for his benefit. It was because with James conferenced in, this was a business meeting. And if there was one thing my father had taught me, it was business. I knew how to stick to my guns in the most hostile of board meetings.

“No,” I said. “I’m calling to advise you of my resignation. I’m giving two weeks notice, but I’m also taking my overdue vacation days, effective immediately. I won’t be coming back into the office.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on line from James.

“What’s this about?” my father demanded. “Has Patrick gotten to you? What the hell sort of offer has he made you?”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to Patrick and this has nothing to do with him. I’m resigning because I no longer want to work for the company.”

Until I’d said them aloud, I hadn’t realized how right the words would feel. I literally had no idea what the hell I was going to do for the rest of the week, let alone my entire life, but it didn’t matter. Having no plan didn’t panic me. Instead, the sheer wealth of possibilities was intoxicating.

“You can’t just quit ,” my father exclaimed. “You’re a Van Ruyven!”

I regarded the tartan stag’s head with a faint smile I was glad my father couldn’t see. Because Win had quit being a Van Ruyven, hadn’t he? And look what it had gotten him.

If I’d told my father that, and managed to fill him in on all the details before his head exploded, he would have sneered and asked what . What did Win have that was worth having? A small cabin outside a town nobody had ever heard of? Worn furniture and pipes that rattled? Worn jeans and plaid overshirts? Freddy Van Ruyven had vacationed in Aspen. Win went into town once a week to buy groceries. But only one of them was happy.

And there were no guarantees that my story would mirror Win’s, but I didn’t care, because the chance that it might —that I might find happiness too—was more than worth the risk.

“I’ve made my decision.”

“Sterling! This is ridiculous!” He sounded caught between anger and genuine befuddlement.

“Of course I’ll be available remotely for the handover process for whoever you hire to take over my position,” I said. “As a gesture of goodwill.”

“ Goodwill .” He spluttered. “You can’t quit. You are a Van Ruyven .”

Okay, so he wasn’t finished with the denial part of the process yet.

“Who the hell am I supposed to find to replace you?”

A more naive man might have thought there was a compliment hidden behind that anger, but I knew better. “If the name on the door matters so much, Sarah got her MBA from Columbia. You could always offer her the job.”

Dead silence, as though the idea was so wild it had never occurred to him before. It probably hadn’t; my grandfather had a long reach, even from the grave.

“I’ll be sending my official resignation by email this afternoon before close of business,” I said. “But I wanted to tell you first.”

“Sterling, this could not have come at a worse time,” my father said, and I could see him in my mind’s eye running through the numbers and wondering how my desertion would impact whatever bullshit Patrick was bringing to the next board meeting. Without me voting with him, my father might actually need to learn there was more to negotiating than shouting at people.

“And I apologize for that,” I said. “But as I said, the decision is final.”

“Is this a power play?” he asked. “If Patrick didn’t put you up to it, who did?”

“I think we’re done here,” I said. “You can expect my email by close of business, as I said. James, please take my father off the call.”

“Sterling! What the hell—” And then his voice cut out.

“Holy shit, sir,” James said, his voice shaky. “Should I get your sister on the line?”

This was why he was such a good P.A. He knew that if Sarah wanted my job, she’d need to act quickly, while my father was still off-balance enough to let it happen.

“Yes, please,” I said. “Let’s hope it’s a quick conversation. I have to go and meet my boyfriend for lunch.”

“Holy shit ,” James said again. “Um, congratulations? If it’s appropriate to say so.”

“Thank you,” I said, warmth spreading through me. “And yes, for the record, ‘congratulations’ is very appropriate.”

I parked Win’s truck on Comet Street, across from Rudolph’s, and buttoned my coat up against the cold before I opened the door. The frigid air was invigorating, or maybe that was just the anticipation building inside me because I was just around the corner from the Festival Museum and Harvey.

When I crossed the street and rounded the corner, I had to yield the sidewalk to a bunch of carolers dressed in Victorian costumes. They were red-cheeked and cheerful, and I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face as they sang. A reindeer trotted down the street, pulling a sled occupied by a driver in an elf costume.

This place !

It was still a few weeks until Christmas, but you’d never know it because Santa’s Village went so hard. I wondered what the place looked like the rest of the year. I knew the town also held events for Christmas in July, but did they do it to this extent? I was looking forward to finding out.

I made it around the carolers and hurried up the steps of Festival Hall. I held the door open for an elderly couple who were leaving, weighed down by gift bags from the Arts and Crafts Fair, and then stepped inside the warmth of the building.

I laughed when I got to the door of the museum and saw the sign: Back in 5 minutes. But almost immediately there was a touch to my shoulder, and I turned to see Harvey beaming at me.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

He leaned forward a fraction, and by the time I realized he’d been going for a kiss and leaned in to meet him, he was already pulling back again. I laughed at our awkwardness and Harvey, his nose wrinkling, did the same. Then he pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the museum door.

“It really was just five minutes this time,” he said. “I had to go next door and buy some of Patty Frobisher’s fudge. It’s to die for. It sells out the second the locals realize it’s there, so I had to get in fast. You snooze, you lose.”

We stepped into the museum, and I took off my coat and scarf. “And where’s Martha?”

“Still buying fudge,” Harvey said.

“You couldn’t take it in turns?”

“It’s like a Black Friday sale when word gets out about Patty’s fudge, Sterling, and I’m not even kidding. You don’t wait when you get word there’s fudge. You run .”

“Has it ever occurred to you that nobody comes to the museum because it’s never reliably open?”

Harvey wasn’t offended. He sat on his desk and pulled a paper bag out of his pocket. “Um, no, because three quarters of our visitors are tourists, and they don’t know that the sign is an exaggeration.”

“A lie.”

“An exaggeration.” He held the paper back out to me. “Fudge?”

I sat beside him on his desk and took a piece of fudge. It was mint chocolate, and melted in my mouth. “Oh, wow! This is great!”

“Worth running to get it, right?”

“Yes, actually.”

Harvey smiled and popped a piece in his own mouth. He knocked his shoulder against mine. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

“Did you call your dad?”

I hummed.

“And how did that go?”

“About as well as expected,” I said.

Harvey’s expression pinched with worry. “Are you okay?”

“I am.”

“Really? Because you just chose me, and Christmas Falls, and unemployment, over everything else in your life.”

I thought of my phone call with Sarah and shook my head. “Not everything. Besides, I have savings, and my grandfather left me a small inheritance.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I have a feeling our definition of ‘small inheritance’ is very different.”

I took another piece of fudge. “What’s yours?”

He smiled. “A thousand bucks and a suitcase full of old books?”

“Sounds nice.”

“You got more than a thousand bucks, didn’t you?”

I snorted. “I did, yeah. No suitcase full of books though.”

“Well, you win some, you lose some, I guess.” Harvey’s expression grew serious again. “But you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be more than okay, I promise.”

He let out a breath. “Good.” He reached for my hand, his cheeks pink, and twined our fingers together. “There. That’s better.”

“That’s much better,” I agreed.

Harvey stood up, still holding my hand, and tugged me gently to my feet. He led me out of the reception area of the museum, and through the room with all the photographs to the storeroom where we’d gone through all those old newspapers looking for clues about what had happened to Freddy. He opened the door of the storeroom, turned the light on, and then pulled me inside with him.

“What are we doing?” I asked as he backed me up against the wall beside the ladder.

“Research project,” Harvey said, his eyes bright as he leaned in to kiss me.

Researching Harvey Novak and the way he kissed?

That was a project I’d happily volunteer for, for as long as he’d have me.

We snagged a booth at the Snowflake Shack for lunch, and ordered burgers and fries.

“I’m probably going to have to come here for lunch every day,” I said.

“You should,” Harvey said. “And invite me too.”

“That goes without saying.”

“You have a lot of things to plan.”

“I do.” I needed to buy a car, and find a place to live that wasn’t my uncle’s spare room. Win and Kyle had been nothing but welcoming, but if I was going to be here for the long term then I definitely wanted to give them their space back. Also, I wanted to be in town, and wasn’t that something? I’d thought Christmas Falls was crazy when I’d first arrived, and now I wanted to live here. Most of it was admittedly down to the guy sitting across the booth from me, but why the hell not enjoy Christmas all year round? I had a lot of catching up to do when it came to actually enjoying the holiday season. “I’m excited for everything I have to do, though. Finding a place, a car, furniture?—”

“Cats,” Harvey agreed, nodding.

“Cats?”

“Sterling, there are cats in need. One of us has to get some of them.”

I stole one of his fries. “Congratulations on your new fur babies, then.”

He laughed, and used his finger to trace a mistletoe on the laminated dessert menu the server had left on our table. “Do you know why it’s a tradition to kiss under the mistletoe?”

“I have no idea,” I said, warmth spreading through me. I could listen to Harvey talk about random facts and trivia for hours, not just because it was genuinely interesting to me, but because of the way it made him light up.

“Mistletoe blooms even in winter, so ancient people believed it was a symbol of life and fertility,” Harvey said. “The Celtic druids had a rule that if two enemies met under the mistletoe, they had to put their weapons down and have a truce. I guess it’s only a short jump from that to kissing!”

I laughed.

“And in Norse mythology, Frigg is the goddess of love. And her son, Baldur, was prophesied to die. So Frigg went around to all the animals and plants in the world, and made them promise not to kill him.” His eyes danced. “But she overlooked the little mistletoe, and Loki made an arrow out of it and killed Baldur.”

“This is a happy story,” I said, dragged a fry through a puddle of ketchup.

“So cheerful,” Harvey agreed, “but it gets better. Well, the gods resurrected Baldur, and Frigg was so happy that she declared mistletoe was a symbol of love, and vowed to kiss anyone who passed underneath it.”

“That’s a hell of a leap in logic. ‘Oh, this plant killed my son, but he got better, so now I’m a fan.’”

“Not many myths are logical,” Harvey said, wrinkling his nose. “Also, it probably makes more sense in the original Norse.”

“So mistletoe got recruited into Christmas celebrations.”

“History is just one big recycling plant. The Romans used to put wreaths on their doors and exchange gifts for Saturnalia. Wassailing, which was when people would go singing from house to house, predates Christianity, but it morphed into caroling. And of course Yule was an ancient celebration that had singing, feasting, and burning the Yule log. It’s all recycled and reinvented.”

“Does that take away the magic?” I asked him curiously.

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s the opposite. For thousands of years, way back to before history was even recorded, we’ve been telling each other that even in the middle of the dark winter, there’s light coming. Light, and hope, and joy, and a promise to love each other. I think it’s kind of amazing, actually.”

“Yeah,” I said, warming again. “It really is. But Christmas isn’t the most amazing thing about the town.”

Harvey widened his eyes, and I could see the moment he decided he was going to make a joke out of what I’d said. “It’s the fudge, isn’t it?”

“The fudge is amazing, but no. It’s you, Harvey. You’re the most amazing thing about Christmas Falls. I came here looking to find my missing uncle, telling myself I was doing it for the business, but you saw straight through me. You saw a better me.”

“When you...” Harvey cleared his throat. “When I met you, I told myself I was going to help you get a Christmas miracle. I just didn’t know it’d be you staying in Christmas Falls.”

“I’m glad it is.”

“Me too,” he said. He reached out across the table and caught my hand in his. His smile was beautiful. “Me too.”