Buch lesen: «A Christmas Miracle»

CHAPTER ONE

DESPITE BEING GOOD friends with technology, Fleming Harris answered Jason Macland’s summons to the bank with printed copies of all the paperwork she could find. She knew very little about Jason. He was the son of the bank’s owner, but he was a stranger to the remote Smoky Mountains town of Bliss, Tennessee, not having set foot there in decades.

Fleming had heard stories. People said Jason was his father’s hired gun, brought in to close accounts, trim fat, sew up loopholes.

She swallowed a lump of panic as she smoothed her skirt beneath the pile of folders on her lap. Across the room, Hilda Grant, Jason’s admin, shared an empathetic smile that worried Fleming.

Her shop, Mainly Merry Christmas, was her future and her past. She’d grown up “working” with her single mother behind the counter, playing with the wooden trains that doubled as decoration during the holiday season, learning to count by handing out change. Her pride was tied up in the twinkling lights and the beautiful ornaments.

And the burdensome loan payments. She’d missed only two. Shame burned her. Only.

This bank guy wouldn’t have summoned her if he wasn’t about to threaten her shop.

“You can go in now,” Hilda said.

At the same time, the office door opened and a man emerged, lean and tall, with wary dark eyes and dark brown hair. His gaze caught her as if she were in a spotlight.

“Hello,” she said, when what she meant was What do you want from me?

“Please, Ms. Harris.” He held the door for her, ushering her inside. His mouth, a generous slash of masculine fullness, did not curve.

She stood, and her legs felt as stiff as planks as she passed in front of him, into the office of the bank’s president, William Gaines. Some said Mr. Gaines had taken a pre-Thanksgiving vacation, but she’d also heard he’d been fired.

“Mr. Macland,” she began, keeping things on a formal footing.

“Jason.” He shut the door behind her and gestured with an open, capable hand toward the leather couch in front of a wide fireplace, where a tablet was set up on a rustic, scarred coffee table. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know why I’ve asked you here,” he said.

Her mouth opened in surprise at his abruptness. She shut it. She wouldn’t give up the store to some bully. She’d find a way to fight him.

He waited for her to sit. “Would you like coffee?”

“I’d like to get this over with.” She tried to appear more confident than she felt. “I know I’m behind on payments.”

His hard mouth softened. He sat in the chair kitty-corner to the sofa and turned the tablet so they could both view the screen. “That’s exactly what I want to discuss.” He straightened one leg, looking more like a jock than the loan police. Muscles and strength. Power, leashed by frustration. The observation unsettled her even more.

He continued. “Mr. Paige, the former loan officer—”

“Former?” Bliss’s ultra-busy grapevine had fallen down on reporting part of the news cycle.

Untroubled by her interruption, Jason merely breathed in and went on, his husky voice claiming all her attention. “Mr. Paige was let go because he approved loans for certain of his clients under terms that were inappropriate.”

“I’m not understanding you.” She stood. “Are you suggesting I’ve done something wrong?”

He glanced down at the sofa, clearly asking her to sit again. “Not at all. You are behind on your loan, but that’s not why I’ve asked you here. Mr. Paige was skimming from several of the accounts and I believe he knew you’d never be able to continue to repay under the terms he offered you. I assume he meant to run before my father caught on to what’s been happening here.”

“The bank did something wrong?” A moment’s relief made Fleming realize she hadn’t breathed freely for two months. Was there a way out of this mess she seemed to be making of her life? “Am I going to keep the store?”

His expression didn’t change. She had the feeling he’d been repeating this conversation with other clients like her.

“I’m offering you a chance to secure a new loan with more affordable terms,” he explained. “Mr. Paige will be speaking to the district attorney. The bank is making restitution for his actions.”

“So that’s your point.” She followed his blunt lead. “I’m not interested in suing the bank. I only care about keeping my store, and I thought you were going to tell me I’m about to lose it.”

He nodded, reaching for the tablet. His hands distracted her again as he slid his fingers across the screen, his glance lifting to her face.

This man held her future in his spreadsheets. Fleming had some dreams she wanted to make reality, and keeping Mainly Merry Christmas for her own children was one of them.

“Not everyone has reacted as calmly as you have,” he said.

“You’re trying to measure whether I’m aware of what’s happening?”

He sat back. “No, Ms. Harris. I don’t doubt your intelligence.”

“Fleming.”

His smile caught her unawares.

She didn’t want to be attracted to him.

“Fleming,” he said, and turned back to the tablet. “If you’re agreeable, we’ll start from the beginning with a loan for you. I don’t usually work in the loan office, but since this is my family’s bank, I have the same concern you do that we all succeed in Bliss.”

“Are you saying I have recourse? Have I overpaid?”

A commotion interrupted from the outer office. Raised voices and thudding as if something had dropped on the floor.

Before Jason could speak, the door burst open. A tall glass vase tumbled and broke and furniture skidded as a man dived over the back of the couch, trying to plant his fist in Jason’s face.

With barely any effort at all, Jason stood and twisted out of the intruder’s reach. Jason climbed over the table and put himself between Fleming and his attacker, who’d ended up on the floor.

“Paige,” Jason said, as he pulled Fleming up and tucked her behind his back. The man at their feet scrambled for handholds on the table and the sofa.

Without thinking, Fleming flattened her hands on Jason’s back. “We need the police,” she gasped.

He urged her toward the office door. “Get out of here.”

She froze. “I can’t just leave you with him.” Walk away and leave someone else in possible danger? She looked into his eyes, and in that moment of ugly violence a bond formed between them. She took a step back, but not because she was afraid of the intruder.

“Stay there,” another voice barked.

Two armed, uniformed guards bounded over the furniture to scoop up the bank’s former loan officer. One hustled their prey, stunned by his fall, out of the room. The other, a long-time acquaintance of Fleming’s, faced Jason.

“We’ve called the police. They’re on their way.”

“Did he hurt anyone out there?” Jason glanced toward the reception area.

“No, sir. Seemed intent on getting in here. Fleming, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Oakes.” With relief flowing to every extremity, but feeling incredibly awkward at the same time, she hid her face as she bent to gather the files she’d dumped on the faded, flowery rug. “He must have tripped on these when he landed.”

“Let me help you.” Jason’s hand brushed hers as she picked up a file, which she dropped immediately.

Mr. Oakes, who’d also provided security for high school football games in years past, managed to retrieve the rest and handed the pile to her. “You should go home.”

“I have to go to work.” She stared into the hall, where Paige suddenly reappeared, writhing against his captor’s hold. “He never said a word.”

“He made his point, though.” Jason looked calm, but his voice seemed a thread huskier. This time, as she stared, fascinated, he looked away, feeling for his tablet underneath the chair. “You might want to stay in case the police...”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’ll email you the information I was hoping to discuss. We can talk about it again.”

After seeing him attacked, the last thing she wanted to talk about was her money troubles. It was embarrassing. If she lost the shop, she’d lose her home. She’d lose her mother’s respect. She’d lose her own.

“I trusted Mr. Paige.” How on earth could she believe that Jason Macland, whose family name was on the bank, really wanted to help her out of a financial catastrophe?

“A lot of people did,” Jason said, “including my father.”

So he wasn’t here just to fix the bank. He also had someone he didn’t want to disappoint.

* * *

“MR. MACLAND, that was your last appointment.” Hilda was already buttoning her coat. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home.”

By the time the police had left, Jason and Hilda and Fleming Harris had formed a triad—the first people Paige had found the guts to attack in person, rather than hiding behind a predatory loan. “You’re coming back tomorrow?” Jason asked.

She nodded. “As long as that man’s in the county jail.”

Which was apparently over the ridge that almost completely surrounded the town.

“You don’t happen to have Ms. Harris’s phone number?” he asked. Fleming had lingered at the edges of Jason’s mind since she’d left the office. She wasn’t the only person Paige had cheated. There was the man whose house was in danger of foreclosure, the two elderly ladies who’d retired to Bliss to open an ice cream parlor. Others, too. And all the while, Jason kept thinking of the woman who’d refused to leave a man she didn’t know when he might be in danger.

“I’ll find the number for you.” Hilda opened a file on her computer and then wrote the phone number on a slip of paper. “She must have been afraid.”

As Paige had sailed past Fleming’s shoulder, every story of workplace violence he’d ever heard had replayed in Jason’s head. His only thought had been to protect her, the innocent bystander who happened to be in his office at the worst possible time.

“I thought I’d offer to meet her somewhere else,” he said.

“That’s kind.”

Jason managed not to laugh. Kind was not a word often used to describe him.

He’d had to make hard decisions before. He normally analyzed a failing business, provided structures and policies for dragging it back into financial profit and then moved on to the next troubled company. He’d never had the slightest urge to work for his father in any of the Macland banks. His involvement now was supposed to be a favor for his grandfather, who’d actually been the one to notice something was going on in Bliss. Jason meant to be in and out, with his report sewn up by the first week in January.

He took the piece of paper. “Thanks, Hilda, and listen, you don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “The guy’s angry with me because I’m the one who told him he got caught.”

“I’m sure a few days in a cell will make him a lot happier.”

“We can hope he’s also cheated any attorney who’s capable of getting him bail. If you hear him coming down that hall again, jump in the nearest closet.”

“I’ve already made that plan.” She turned back to her screen. “You might try meeting Fleming at her shop. My girls and I spend a lot of time there this time of year. The Harrises put on activities for children, and Fleming’s mother makes the best hot cocoa I’ve ever tasted.”

He pushed the phone number into his pocket. “That’s a good idea. I’m curious about a place that sells holiday ornaments all year long.”

Or maybe he was curious about the owner of such a place. The year held other holidays. A smart business owner would consider diversifying. Fleming might be able to use his expertise.

* * *

FLEMING MANNED HER post behind the counter until the last of the pedestrians walking past on the sidewalk had disappeared for the day. The night before Thanksgiving was never busy, but she felt anxious. Bliss had never felt anything but safe until today.

Maybe a few customers would have taken her mind off this morning. Business would pick up on Friday.

Her stomach growled. She’d been so intent on making the store as inviting as her mother had when Fleming was a child that she’d forgotten to eat. The hotel at the end of the courthouse square had been doing a turkey dinner with fixings all week.

If she went to the hotel tonight, she’d probably have leftovers for a sandwich tomorrow, and she could finish making the shop shine by Friday morning.

Fresh eyes, she told herself.

It certainly wasn’t that she felt reluctant to go home alone.

She put on her coat and shoved the warm gloves she’d worn in this morning’s heavy frost into her pockets. She left Christmas lights twinkling in the windows and around the long wooden counter and set the shop’s alarm, then locked up before heading for the hotel.

Outside, the streets were almost empty. Earlier in the week, garlands had begun to go up, but the decorations weren’t yet complete. What with the danger of losing the shop and that Paige guy’s rage this morning, she finally admitted her world felt off balance tonight.

“Fleming?”

Startled, she whipped around. A car passed by. The courthouse bell began to toll. And Fleming laughed because she felt ridiculous. Jason Macland stepped off the curb across the street.

“I meant to call you,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened in my office this morning. Are you all right?”

“Fine.” She did feel fine now. He’d stepped in front of her with Paige, and now he made her feel safe because she wasn’t alone in the streets. She checked herself. How could she ever be afraid in Bliss, the mountain town that was part of her body and blood?

“How about you?” she asked.

His smile was self-deprecating and frustrated at the same time. “Also fine, except you and I will have to talk again. I’m sorry, but we have to discuss your loan.”

So—not so much concern for her as for his bank. “I’m gathering the information your assistant emailed about.”

“Good. The sooner we settle better terms, the safer your business will be.” Jason stepped onto the sidewalk, towering over her, ominous even if he didn’t mean to be. “I’m trying to get you into a better position before the rules of your loan take over. I can’t help you after that.”

“If the loan wasn’t legal...”

“That’s the problem for all of the people in jeopardy because of Paige. You signed the agreement, so you’re responsible for terms that are immoral, but not illegal.”

She was caught between worrying he was another bank guy trying to play her, and respecting his honesty. If he was being honest.

She turned, continuing toward the hotel, and somehow, Jason remained with her. “Why are you trying to help me?” she asked. “Why do you care?”

“I’m trying to help anyone who still wants to do business with Macland. It does the bank no good to write off bad loans. Especially as many as they have right now.”

They? She glanced at him, surprised.

He looked back at her, unbuttoning his top coat button as if he were uncomfortably warm. “We could bring down the local economy.”

“How did Mr. Paige manage to fly under the radar?”

“The former bank manager was taking a cut.” Jason turned toward the hotel with her, but when she reached for the door he stopped, looking down at her hand.

“I’m having dinner here tonight,” she said.

“Oh.” He looked back at the square as if he wished he’d planned to be elsewhere.

As they stepped inside, Lyle Benjamin, the hotel’s owner, appeared at the top of the cellar 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.