Page 42 of The Forever Christmas Tree

“No, I am not moving, Monique. And I have no plans to close my business here.” Not immediately anyhow.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” she said, unconvinced. But then she relented and showed him the coat. “It’s beautiful. I know Mrs. Rutledge will love it. Should I gift wrap it?”

“Please. I’ll pick it up in a half hour.” He inserted his debit card into the chip reader on the counter and punched in his PIN number. When the transaction was complete, he said, “Pass the word if you can, Molly. No move by Ethan Rutledge.”

“Got it,” she said.

But it was probably too late.

Next, he stopped at The Book Den where the new owner, Clare Hunter, was behind the counter ringing up an order while an assistant was waiting on another customer. It was one of the Navy SEALs that Ethan had met last night, the Hispanic one, except now he was sporting a black eye.

“Hey,” the guy said, coming over to shake hands. “Christmas shopping?”

“Yeah. For my little girl. What’s with the shiner?”

“I ran into one of your locals at a bar last night, and he took exception to my ethnicity, and my hairstyle.”

“That’s why I stay away from bars late at night,” Ethan said with a laugh. “It was probably Stoney Adams. He usually manages to piss off one newcomer to town per month.”

“Well, it earned me a spot on your town’s grinch list. Near the bottom, with only ten votes, not like you raking in the big bucks, but who would waste fifty dollars on me?”

“It’s for a good cause,” Ethan said, repeating the lame mantra everyone chanted his way whenever he asked the very same question. “Where’s the rest of your gang?”

“Flipper is helping Aunt Mildred and Elmer Fudd make fudge for some church bazaar or something. Grizz is hibernating with a good book. Geek and K-4 are jogging.”

Ethan must have looked puzzled because the SEAL laughed and explained, “Nicknames. We all get them during Hell Week. Wendy’s is Flipper because she swims like a fish. Grizz shot a bear one time. Merrill is Geek because he would be the first to admit that’s what he is. And Kevin Fortunato is K-4 for obvious reasons. And me, JAM for Jacob Alvarez Mendozo.”

Good thing he’d reminded him of his name, which Ethan had forgotten. But that was way more info than he’d wanted and he certainly hadn’t meant to ask about Wendy. But Flipper? He smiled.

Clare came over then, and Ethan introduced her to Jacob Mendozo as a Navy friend of Wendy Patterson, whom Clare had yet to meet. The two of them—JAM and Clare—immediately began talking about California where Clare had a sister, and about how JAM had always thought it would be cool to run a bookstore in a small town like Bell Cove. Clearly, there was an instant attraction going on, so Ethan sidled away.

And, yes, he had to think that this guy must not be Wendy’s lover if he was looking at another woman that way. But then, maybe he was a hound. Or maybe that’s how they did things in California. Not that it was any of his business.

With a grunt of disgust, he moved to the tween section of the bookstore. Cassie was an avid reader, and if he let her, would probably be devouring novels way too adult for her still-childish mind. She loved Harry Potter and the Narnia chronicles, and had reread them several times, but she still liked books like Anne of Green Gables, and even Winnie the Pooh, which he supposed had a message for kids of all ages, even adults. He wouldn’t let her buy the Twilight series. Not yet. He also bypassed the huge display of How the Grinch Stole Christmas books, which she already had. However, against his fatherly misgivings, he purchased the three Hunger Games books.

He noticed the ladies coming out of the hair salon still sported an orange skin tone, but it was lighter now, more like a rutabaga than a yam. Francine must still be fine-tuning her machine. Who knew what would be next in her produce line? Squash?

Too late he realized that he should have avoided this side of the square because he was in front of The Bell newspaper office where the windows were plastered with upcoming events. Apparently the town council had been busy little bees at the emergency meeting he’d missed last evening.

He thought about going inside to ask Laura what was up, but then through a small section of the window not covered with “latest news” he saw Gabe Conti inside leaning against the counter talking with Bell Cove’s very own Katharine Graham, a.k.a. Laura Atler. That was either good news or bad news, that they were chatting each other up, but he wasn’t sticking around long enough to find out. Instead, he put a dollar in the vending machine and took out a paper to read later.

By the time he got back to his truck, a half-dozen people had stopped him on the street to ask about his dumping Bell Cove for the mainland. Another half dozen just gave him dirty looks. And Ina Rogers stepped on his toe with her walker in passing. He was pretty sure it was deliberate.

He drove out to the tree lot where both his grandmother and Cassie were working. Cassie was behind the counter on a high stool, chatting up customers, under orders not to put too much strain on her hip by walking around if she wanted to be well enough to participate in all the holiday events the next few days. His grandmother manned the register, and three high school boys, including the infamous Zach the Teenage Heartthrob, took care of customers out on the lot.

“How did it go?” his grandmother asked.

“A done deal. But how did word spread so fast? Have you been talking?”

“Me?”

“Well, someone must have mentioned my meeting with Parkins today. Now, everyone’s voting me top grinch because they think I’m closing shop here.”

“Don’t blame me. Maybe people are voting for you because you deserve the honor. Did you ever think about that, Mr. Scrooge?”

“Huh? What burr’s got under your saddle?”

“Nana’s upset because Maybelle Foster was in this morning and bragged about all her Christmas shopping being done, the gifts wrapped, the tree decorated, and Nana hasn’t even had a chance to make any of her homemade Christmas cookies yet.”