Chapter One

Ryan

 

Let’s be clear about one thing from the start: I’m an asshole. Always have been, probably always will be. If you’re the type of person who’s inclined to make excuses for assholes, I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You can blame my parents if you’d like. My father took off before my twin brother, Jake, and I were born, and my mother abandoned us in a motel room for several days when we were four years old. She came back…eventually. But not until we’d already been picked up by Child Protective Services, and when they made it clear she’d have to fight to get us back, she said she’d rather not.

       The child psychologist New York State sent us to for a few months seemed to think that sort of thing could mess a kid up.

       Maybe he had a point. To this day, Jake can’t bear to be in a locked room, and I slipped into survival mode and stopped caring about anything but protecting my brother and myself.

       So you can blame them, if you’re inclined. Or you can blame Edmund Roark, the man who made us thieves.

       To be fair, I only met the guy because I tried to pickpocket him in Central Park when I was thirteen years old. I had it in my head that I could steal enough money for Jake and I to pull a runner from our foster home and live alone, obviously dumb given the cost of rent in New York City. Even in former crack dens, it’s expensive enough that no kid could afford it unless he stole the Mona Lisa.

       I failed to pickpocket Roark, partly because he was a good half a foot taller than me and a faster runner. But also because he is a very good thief of very fine things. Given that he keeps a couple of goons on his bankroll at any given time, it could have been a painful lesson. But he asked me a few questions, which I answered because I was so scared I nearly pissed myself. Then he had his guys give me a few punches—fair’s fair—and offered to teach Jake and me “the art.”

       At the time, I figured it was because he recognized the potential in me, like I could be the Captain America of thieves. No one had ever seen potential in me. My teachers all thought I was an idiot, and for my class superlative, I was voted Most Likely to End Up in Jail.

       In eighth grade.

       So it felt pretty damn good to have someone who was obviously successful see something in me. Jake felt it too.

       But as we got older, we figured out the score. We’re identical twins—a gold mine for a man who’s looking to con people out of their treasures. Get Twin One to turn on the charm, find out every damn thing they can about the treasure, like where it’s kept and how it’s guarded. Then send in Twin Two to make the grab.

       Perfect alibi for Twin One, am I right?

       I was Twin Two. Jake’s a better actor, and I have poor impulse control but a better ability with locks.

       You might think I’d get pissed about being used, but it wasn’t a new feeling. From what I could tell, everyone on God’s green earth used everyone else. It was a food chain, and you didn’t want to be on the bottom, even if you had to climb on a few heads.

       See? Asshole.

       For years, Jake and I worked together for Roark, bringing in treasures for him. It was a challenge. A game. And I didn’t mind much, because the people we robbed were wealthy, with plenty to spare.

       But this story isn’t about me being an asshole, or at least I hope it’s not. It’s about me deciding to do something decent for a change.

       Of course, people don’t just wake up one day and decide to be decent. You’ve got to fall really low for that message to sink in…

       And that’s exactly what happened to me.

***

       Right before Christmas last year, my brother stopped talking to me. (If you’re wondering why, let’s just say it was my fault.)

       On a related note, Jake told me he was going legit and probably leaving New York City.

       He seemed to really mean both things this time, unlike the half a dozen other times he’d said things like: I swear to God, Ryan, if you get me into any more messes, I’m done. Or: Why is there a groundhog in my apartment? You’re not allowed up here without supervision.

       So when Roark called me the day before Christmas Eve and said he had a super important job for me, and if I didn’t do it, he’d pull Jake back in, whether my brother liked it or not, I asked, “Where am I going and when?”

       It just so happened that when he called, I was in the bathroom of my friend’s bar, trying to scrub a cartoon dick off my face. Someone must have drawn it on me after I’d passed out in the back room. The room smelled like stale cigars and old vomit, the dick wasn’t coming off my skin which suggested the involvement of a Sharpie. So, yeah, at that point I was down for anything that would get me the hell out of New York City for the holidays.

       “You’re going to steal Christmas,” Roark said with a huff. He liked to amuse himself. Didn’t matter to him whether anyone laughed at his jokes.

       “That’s not specific enough for me. I’m a simple guy,” I said.

       “You’re going to The Crooked Quill bed and breakfast in Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia, and you’re going to steal an ornament for me.”

       Half the time, I wondered if the shit he sent us to grab was actually worth anything, or if he was just a rich dude who liked messing with people who’d pissed him off. Either way, he paid a finder’s fee, and it was more than I could make working as a checkout clerk or a bartender. Unlike my brother, who at least had graphic design skills, I wasn’t good at anything that lent itself to making money legally.

       “You got a thing for Christmas suddenly?” I asked.
      “I have a thing for money, Ryan. Javier will deliver your car and identity.”

       Javier was one of the guys who worked as Roark’s hired muscle and errand boy. It wasn’t a fancy gig, and he’d complained to me about it on a number of occasions. He was a good guy, Javier. We’d hung out at this particular bar several times, and he’d never once drawn a dick on my face.

       “Who owns the B&B?” I asked, pushing my way out of the bathroom. The dick was still very much there, but I was too exhausted to care. No one was in the bar, so I walked toward the exit without stopping, past the fake Christmas tree with its mini-alcohol-bottle ornaments, then swung back and checked to see if they were full. No dice. Holding the phone in place with my shoulder, I let myself out of the side door, which locked automatically when it was closed.

       The first person I saw, of course, was a toddler girl with floppy blond hair and a headband with two bobbing Christmas trees on it. She pointed at the dick on my face and said, “What’s that, Mommy?”

       I grinned at her mother and saluted.

       She gave me the finger.

       God bless New York City.

       But Roark still hadn’t answered—taking the whole dramatic pause thing too far, like usual—so I started walking toward my place, a railroad-style apartment I shared with a college kid named Billy.

       “She’s a little old lady,” Roark finally said, amusement thrumming in his voice.

       I cursed under my breath. “You want me to steal a Christmas ornament from a little old lady who runs a bed and breakfast?”

       Sounded like a punishment, right?
      “Good, you were listening,” he said with a hoarse laugh. “It’s a very valuable Christmas ornament.”

       Which only made it worse.

       I darted across the street, not in the mood to wait for the light, and nearly got creamed by a yellow cab. The driver honked at me, making my headache an automatic ten times worse. “I don’t like the sound of this, Roark.”

       “I don’t care. If you don’t do it, I’m going to make your brother—”

       Make him pay, make him regret, make him dance like a puppet. Blah-dee-blah-blah-blah. I had a feeling I was going to be hearing a lot of threats involving Jake moving forward. Worse, I had a feeling they were going to work.

       Sighing, I said, “Fine, whatever. It’s not like I had any plans for the holiday.”

       “I knew you didn’t, kid,” he said, almost sounding sorry for me.

       He should.

       Normally, I’d spend the holiday with my brother. In fact, this would be the first Christmas we weren’t spending together. But as I said, Jake wasn’t talking to me, so I hadn’t put up a single strand of twinkle lights. The little crappy plastic tree an ex-girlfriend had bought me was still packed up in one of the plastic crates next to my bed. Nowhere to store them. Billy wasn’t much for Christmas either, so he hadn’t done any decorating of his own.

       “The information you need will be in a packet in the car. Do we understand each other?” Roark asked when I didn’t say anything. He was always careful with what he said over the phone.

       “Yeah,” I told him, suddenly feeling my age. I was nearly thirty, and here I was, sharing a crappy apartment with a college kid, being exploited by a criminal five hundred times richer than me. Worse: it was all happening while I had a Sharpie dick on my face. It felt like a low moment.

       I didn’t know anything about low moments yet.

       “Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll do it.”

​

Chapter Two

Ryan

 

The next day I’d been rechristened Ryan Reynolds—Roark’s idea of a cute joke—and was walking up to my room in The Crooked Quill with Edith Whitman, the owner. She looked like she’d been picked out of a casting call of hundreds to play the “sweet old grandma.” Worse, she’d already insisted that I call her Grandma, as if she knew she was twisting the thumbscrews.

       My conscience, which had been more or less asleep for most of my life, was prickling…especially since Grandma Edith didn’t seem to be particularly well-off. The inn was nice enough, and I knew from the packet Roark had prepared for me that the building itself was worth a bundle, but the carpet wasn’t much nicer than the one in my apartment building, which had probably seen its last update half a century ago, and some of the furniture in the lobby looked like it would collapse if a bird perched on it.

        I’d only gotten a quick glance at the Christmas tree from the front window when I’d circled the place on foot. I hadn’t gotten eyes on the ornament Roark wanted, but from the picture he’d provided, it didn’t look like much—a smallish glass ball with little spikes on it. Kind of like a spiky ball from a  sweetgum tree but red and white. The only way I could figure it was worth anything was if it was stuffed with something more valuable and probably illegal, but this little old lady sure didn’t look like a drug peddler, and I’d never known Roark to mess with that stuff.

       So maybe it was personal, although what this broad could have done to piss him off was anyone’s guess.

       “Grandma” led me up the stairs, stopping every three or four steps for a rest, taking so long I wanted to pick her up and carry her to the top for both of our sakes.

       When we reached the top, she led me to a door with a mini holiday wreath attached to it.

       “This is it, dear,” she said, breathing heavily.

       I opened the door and saw a room like any other, except a small Christmas tree had been set up in the corner.

       She was lingering in the doorway, though, like she wanted something, so I nodded toward it. “Nice tree.”

       Clearly, I’d read her right, because she glowed in response. “Oh, thank you. My granddaughter Anabelle put it together for me. She has a Christmas store, but online, you know. It’s called It’s Christmas Again. She repurposes old Christmas decorations no one wants anymore and makes them new again.”

       “Cool,” I said, entering the room and depositing my duffel bag.

       Still, the old lady hadn’t budged, so I turned back to face her, feeling a weird prickle of guilt across my skin. Because she wasn’t just little and old and kind of frail. She seemed lonely. I was liking this job less with every minute I spent here.

       “You know,” she said slowly, “you have genitals drawn on your face.”

       Surprised laughter spilled from me. “Yeah. Someone drew it on my face when I was…asleep. It was in permanent marker, and I haven’t been able to get it off.”

       “I’d wondered if you’d drawn it yourself,” she remarked with a smile. The wrinkles around her mouth were deep and there were a lot of them, like she was a person who’d smiled a lot in her life. It made me like her more, and myself less.

       “Nah.” I shifted my weight between my legs. “I’m enough of a dickhead that I don’t think I need to announce it with a picture.” I cringed, and tried to backpedal. “Sorry for the language, ma’am. Grandma.”

       Her smile grew wider. “I’ve been using adult language since before you could toddle on two feet, young man. And I also know a secret for removing permanent marker.”

       “No shit,” I said, then gave her my best oops face.

       “Come on down.” She gave a weary sigh and glanced back at the staircase before taking a weak step toward it.

       “Uh, is what you need down there?”
      “Yes,” she said with another sigh, “and I’ll admit my legs aren’t what they used to be. Anabelle keeps telling me I need to employ a helper, but I’m sorry to say business hasn’t been brisk lately. You’re my only guest until after the holiday.”

       Dammit. This was further proof that Roark’s story about the ornament was bullshit. He was just doing this to punish me. Want to put Ryan in his place? Make him steal from a little old woman on Christmas. That’ll teach him.

       “I’m going to carry you down the stairs,” I say.

       “Excuse me?”

       “I’m going to carry—”
      “My eyes may have given out, but there’s nothing wrong with my ears. The last time a man offered to carry me on a staircase was just after I’d gotten married.”

       “I’ll marry you if you insist. But I don’t think carrying needs to come with a lifetime commitment.”

       She snorted. “I’m sure you’re a lovely young man. But I have a firm rule against marrying men with genitals drawn on their faces.”

       “You’re much too young for me,” I tease, “but if you help me fix the problem with my face, I might stand a chance at charming someone.”

       And because I didn’t know shit about carrying people, I picked her up under the armpits and started walking. She couldn’t weigh much more than my duffel bag. It was cold outside, and not much warmer in here, yet I felt sweat beading at my temples. I couldn’t take something from this woman…

       “What on earth are you doing?” she asked, affronted, and the dozens of romance movies I’d been made to watch by a long stream of disappointed women came back to me. Feeling like an idiot, I picked her up like a princess and carried her down the stairs.

       She seemed amused by the whole thing and chuckled softly as I set her down at the bottom of the stairs. Reaching up, she patted me on the cheek. “You’re a good boy.”

       It was like she knew she was twisting my heartstrings. I trailed after her like a lost little kid latching on to the first friendly face they see as she walked to her desk by the front door. She took out a few alcohol wipes and, giving me a stern look, started rubbing one of them across my cheek with as little self-consciousness as if she were my mother. Not that my mother would have given a shit about a thing like that. After she finished with one wipe, she assessed my face and then started in with another. “You shouldn’t be drinking that much around friends who’d do a thing like that. Friends like that aren’t much good at all.”

       “You’ve got that right,” I muttered as I took the wipes from her.

       It was probably time to go back upstairs. I could come down later to scope out the tree. But I found myself wondering what this nice old broad was doing alone on Christmas Eve. I didn’t like it.

       “Where’s Anabelle tonight?” I asked.

       “Why? Would you like to draw a phallus on her face?” she asked, completely straight-faced.

       “No,” I said, laughing. “Just wondering why a nice lady like you is working on Christmas Eve. Especially if you’ve got a granddaughter who’s got a thing for Christmas.”

       Moving slowly, as if her whole body hurt, she edged out from behind the desk and motioned for me to join her. I followed her into the room with the Christmas tree, which she’d probably call the parlor.

       It should’ve felt like a windfall—she was going to lead me straight to the tree—but I didn’t feel good about it at all.

       There was a credenza just inside the door, with a thermos sitting on a shiny metal plate on top, next to a couple of Frosty the Snowman mugs. She uncapped the thermos and poured something into the mugs—hot chocolate, by the scent—but my attention was on the tree.

       It was large enough that two guys must have had to haul it in, and densely decorated from top to bottom with lights, tinsel, and old-fashioned ornaments. Looking for the sweetgum ornament would be like trying to find one specific needle in a needle factory.

       You’re just looking for excuses to fail.

       No one could call you out quite like the voice in your head.

       Edith pressed one of the mugs into my hand, and I reflexively took a sip, lifting my eyebrows when I tasted the Baileys.

       Edith shrugged. “We’re both alone on Christmas Eve, son. I suppose we might as well make the most of it.”

       I could have pointed out that we weren’t alone because we had each other. But she didn’t seem like a woman who’d stand for bullshit, and truthfully, I would have been disappointed if she had. So instead, I touched my mug to hers and followed her to an old-fashioned, wooden-legged sofa facing the tree.

       She lowered herself onto the gold-and-red-striped upholstery first, and I joined her.

       For a moment, we sipped in silence, looking at the tree, my eyes moving over it slowly. But I couldn’t pay attention to it because the question of why she was here alone kept bothering me. “Why’d you have the hot chocolate out if you weren’t expecting company?”

       “One never knows when a Christmas miracle will present itself.” She said it seriously, and I didn’t even feel like cracking a joke.

       Another few seconds of silence passed, comfortably enough, and then she blurted, “My son is an idiot, and my daughter-in-law is no better. They did invite me to celebrate Christmas with them this evening, but I told them no. I don’t hate myself. Keeping the inn open was a handy excuse.”

       Snorting, I raised my mug to hers for another tap.

       But she wasn’t smiling. She pointed to a framed photograph hanging on the wall opposite the tree, which I hadn’t noticed because I’d been trying to look for the sweetgum ornament without appearing to look for it.

       The photograph was of a woman about my age with long, wavy brown hair and eyes so big they made me think of a baby deer. I instantly wanted to protect her. The thought was ridiculous, because I’d never successfully protected anyone. I’d only accepted this job to protect Jake, and I couldn’t even do that right, because I was getting the feeling I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to steal from Grandma. Especially since she was this fawn-eyed woman’s real grandmother.

       Jake had been right—being Twin One was the harder gig.

       I cleared my throat to make sure my voice came out right and said, “I’m guessing that’s your granddaughter Anabelle?” I liked the musical sound of her name. It suited her. There was something elegant and sweet about her face.

       She looked like the kind of woman who’d see right through me.

       “Yes,” Edith said warmly. “She isn’t stupid at all, thank goodness. I’m grateful some traits skip a generation.”

       “Was your husband stupid?” I asked, because Jake wasn’t around to tell me to stop running my mouth.

       “Oh, yes. Terribly.”

       I laughed in delight, then felt a rumble of guilt move through me like a garbage truck backing up and preparing to dump its load.

       She sipped more from her mug, then said, “She’s with a young man who’s all wrong for her. That’s where she is tonight. Nothing would do but visiting his family for the holiday. I’m worried he’ll propose.”

       “What’s wrong with him?”

       “He’s a hotelier.”

       I was unclear on how that would automatically make him an asshole, but I had a feeling I’d agree with Edith on this one. She was a solid, salt-of-the-earth sort—if she said someone was a prick, he was a prick.

       “I never stay at hotels,” I lied, lifting my hot chocolate for a sip. “Bed and breakfasts all the way.”

       She gave me a measured look. “You’re a good liar, you know. And what are you doing here, all alone, Ryan Reynolds?”

       She obviously knew the name was bullshit, and I didn’t have it in me to try to convince her otherwise. “The only person I care about wants nothing to do with me, that’s why. I figured why not come here? They say it’s nice during the holidays. I could be anywhere, though, and it would be all the same to me.”

       Before checking in, I’d walked around Williamsburg some. Seen the big Christmas tree they’d hoisted up in Market Square and strolled around the college campus and the colonial area. Checked out the jokers walking around in their tri-cornered hats and stockings, pretending it was colonial times. Everything seemed to have a red bow on it, like the place itself thought it was a gift. And you know what? It was kind of nice. It felt like Christmas here in a way it hadn’t at my apartment.

       Still hadn’t made me merry.

       “Why does this person want nothing to do with you?” Edith asked, studying me with sharp eyes.

       The question felt like a punch to the gut, but I was still half-heartedly planning on stealing Edith’s prized possession. The least I could do was answer her truthfully.

       “Because I ruined his life.”

       That was the conclusion I’d drawn from what little Jake had told me. I was the one who’d pulled him into our arrangement with Roark. If I hadn’t tried to pickpocket him, we never would have met him in the first place. We’d be…well, I wouldn’t have made it as an accountant or a store manager or anything like that, but my brother might have.

       “And is your lover the one who drew the genitals on your face?” Edith asked, giving my cheek a glance. Maybe a ghost of the dick was still there, outlined on my cheek.

       I snorted. “Jake’s not my lover. He’s my brother. I’m straight. But I haven’t found a woman who’s willing to put up with my bullshit either.”

       “Huh. You’re a late bloomer, maybe,” Edith said, turning away. I followed her gaze  to the tree, and a red-and-white sunburst caught my eye. The damn sweetgum ornament.

       Something strange happened in my chest as I watched it refract light from the white bulbs strung on the tree, but Edith didn’t seem to notice anything was up with me.

       After a moment’s silence, she released a gust of air and said, “One thing’s for sure. You’ve got time to change things. I envy you that.”

       I glanced at her sharply. There was something about the way she’d said it…

       She nodded in acknowledgment, her hair bun grazing the top of the couch. “They gave me two years. Maybe three. I only hope I have time to convince Anabelle not to marry that fool. He’d never accept her for who she really is. I was in a marriage like that for half a century, Ryan, and I wouldn’t wish it for her.”

       I felt the news more deeply than I would have thought possible, given that Edith was a complete stranger I’d known for an hour.

       “Shit, I’m really sorry,” I said.

       She huffed and leaned back. “Try not to do anything you’ll have to feel sorry for later. That’s one thing I’ve learned.”

       “Then I’m definitely fucked,” I said, and instantly apologized again, getting an amused look.

       “I’m old enough to have heard it all, you know.”
      “You’re not so old,” I lied.

       “I am, but I’m nothing compared to this house. You know, some of the things in here go back to the very start of this country. You wouldn’t think it to look at them.” She pointed directly at the sweetgum ball. “That ornament has been passed down in my family for years. My son brought it to that Antiques Roadshow thing this past fall. Didn’t even ask me, of course. They told him it was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

       Surprise kicked me in the balls. Hundreds of thousands for that puny little bit of glass. Some people had too much money to spare, money spilling out of their pockets and bank accounts. Money they didn’t know what to do with. It was the only explanation I could think of for why a person would blow a wad of cash on something that was going to hang, barely noticed, on a Christmas tree.

       Maybe this brings us back to my point about being an asshole, but I wouldn’t feel so bad about taking money from a person like that. I would feel like shit on the bottom of Satan’s horse foot if I took something from her.

       “Who’d pony up that much for an ornament?” I asked.

       “Someone stupid,” she said, hoisting her mug. I tapped it with mine yet again, sensing a deep thrum of understanding between us. It had been a while since I’d gotten along with someone in this way. Other than Jake, most of my friendships and relationships were transactional and brief. Getting drinks. Having a laugh. Hooking up. Getting in trouble.

       “Someone stupid,” I agreed after a moment. “You made him give it back?”
      “I did. He wanted to sell it and share the profits. I told him I’d turn him in for stealing it if he didn’t bring it home to the inn where it belongs.”

       “Which is why you’re not spending Christmas with your son and his wife,” I said with a half-smile.

       “Oh, there are dozens of reasons. Maybe a hundred. Now, tell me about your brother.”

       The last couple of months of being a stranger to my brother—the one person I told everything—must have screwed me up more than I’d realized, because I did exactly as she asked. I told her about growing up in crappy foster homes, where we were treated like we were only worth the extra dollars we brought in each month, only to fall into a life that wasn’t any better.

       And she told me more about Anabelle, who was, of course, an absolute angel who was much too good for the hotelier. As I sat there listening, my gaze kept darting back to that photo. To the determined tilt of Anabelle’s chin and those big eyes. I decided that she looked sweet, for certain, but she also looked tough.

       It was late afternoon by then, and Edith announced she was making me Christmas dinner. I didn’t say no, because I’d already decided I was going to leave that night and never come back. Maybe it would get Jake in trouble, maybe not. But I wouldn’t steal from this woman. I couldn’t.

       I understood now why he’d struggled so much with being Twin One. Getting to know the people you intended to screw over made it twice as hard. Thrice.

       A couple of hours later, Edith and I ate Christmas dinner together—a real dinner, with roasted potatoes and broccoli and an honest-to-God ham. Afterward, at her insistence, we bundled up and went for a walk on Duke of Gloucester Street. It was cold, but not as cold as it would have been in New York, and the whole street was lined with glowing twinkle lights and those big red bows. Other people were milling around, singing Christmas carols and drinking hot chocolate, generally making merry. I have to say it was pleasant. The best Christmas Eve I could remember having.

       I’d never had any family other than Jake. My mother hadn’t objected to losing custody, and no other blood relations had wanted us. No grandmothers, aunts, or uncles had come forward. Not a single one. We’d only had our various foster parents, who’d seen us as a job, and Roark, who’d seen us as a paycheck.

Edith was like the two grandmas I’d never had.

       After we returned from our walk, we said goodnight to each other and she kissed me on the cheek.

“You’ll grow up just fine, Ryan,” she told me, as if I weren’t already fully grown.

       I waited until two in the morning to head downstairs with my pack. The Christmas lights were still glowing in the parlor, the soft white light spilling into the hall. I wasn’t going to take the ornament. But I wanted one last look at the little ball of glass that was about to screw up my life.

       I entered the room and approached the tree, coming to a stop a few feet away. My gaze narrowed on the red-and-white sweetgum ball. A pretty little thing, to be sure, but I didn’t think much of anyone who’d try to buy it for that insane price tag. I did think a lot of Edith, however.

       Satisfied with my decision, which felt decent, I turned to go—and stopped cold, because Edith was standing in the doorway. She was wearing an old-fashioned dressing gown, complete with a satin hair net. Her huge glasses were perched on her nose as she watched me, making me feel like the green grump in that Dr. Seuss story.

       My heart lurched, but I hadn’t been caught doing anything wrong.

       “You move like a cat,” I commented.

       “My bones disagree with you. Are you planning on leaving?”

       I adjusted the strap of the duffel bag on my shoulder, needing something to do with my hands. “Yes.”

       Her gaze still on me, she said, “You came here for the starburst ornament. I’d wondered if someone would come for it after that program aired. I told my fool boy he’d set me up for it.”

       “You should have an alarm system,” I said.

       “Would it matter? Any worthwhile thief would be able to disable it.”

       “But it would make it harder.”

       I took a step toward her—because the exit was that way, and I was guessing she’d prefer me to leave—and she instantly recoiled.

       Something twisted in my chest. She thought I was going to hurt her. This little old woman who’d treated me like family all night thought I was going to hurt her.

       It was a low moment, is what I’m saying.

       “I’d never hurt you, Edith,” I said, my voice as urgent as my racing pulse. “I don’t hurt people.”

       “But you do steal from them.”

       The obvious thing to do would have been to lie. I might not have been Twin One, but I have plenty of experience with lying when need be. But this day had split me open in ways I didn’t understand. Or maybe it had just deepened the wound from my brother turning his back on me.

       “I work for a man who hires me to take things, yeah, and he sent me here. But I’m not going to take it. That’s why I’m leaving. I just…” I scratched my head. “I guess I wanted to take one last look at the damn thing.”

       “What will happen to you if you don’t bring it to him?” she said pointedly, her eyes taking my measure from behind her big glasses. Or maybe they weren’t. I remembered what she’d said about being nearly blind.

       “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “He threatened my brother. But my brother wouldn’t want me to do this either. He’s better than me. Always has been.”

       She was quiet for a long moment, studying me in the glow of the tree lights. Finally, she said, “You’ll grow up to be a fine man someday. I can tell.”

       I huffed a bitter laugh. “I wish I shared your confidence.”

       “Take the starburst ornament. Take it, but I expect you to come back next Christmas. Come back, and tell me you’ve changed your life and made up with your brother. I’ll be waiting to hear it.”

       Disbelief swallowed me like a black hole. This woman had threatened to turn her son in for taking the little ornament onto Antiques Roadshow, and she was just going to give it to me?

       It would solve a major problem for me, no doubt, but I couldn’t take it from her. I’d already decided I was going to do something decent, dammit.

       She stuck her hand out, her wrinkled chin held high, and I felt powerless to do anything but step forward and take it, careful not to hold on too tightly. She squeezed my hand and then released it, nodding to herself as if she’d come to some conclusion she agreed with.

       “I’ll wrap it up for you.”

       “You’re going to wrap it up for me?” I asked in shock as my whole world ripped open. This wasn’t what experience had taught me to be true. People didn’t just give you valuable things, ever. You had to take them. You had to trick your way to success.

       Her sidelong glance held surprising humor. “I said you could take it, not break it.”

       “I can’t possibly accept this.”

       “It’s a Christmas gift, Ryan. But there are strings. I meant what I said. You’ll come back here next December and tell me what you did to turn your life around.” She gave me that same creased-cheek smile as earlier. “And I hope to tell you that I succeeded in vanquishing that hotelier.”

       Thank you felt too small.

       Thank you felt like nothing.

       So I nodded, and tried to swallow the blockage in my throat. “I promise you, Edith Whitman, I’ll be back next year.”

       “And I’ll hold you to it,” she said. “December 1st.” She said it so assuredly, even though she didn’t know my real name or where I lived, or have any meaningful way of pulling me back except my word. She was treating it like it meant something, which made me want it to mean something.

       “Merry Christmas, Ryan,” she added.

       Then she wrapped up the ornament and sent me off into the night.

       Something inside of me was broken and reborn, and I knew I’d be back. I knew it. Because Edith Whitman had changed my life.

​

Chapter Three

Anabelle

Eleven months later

Tuesday, December 2, 23 days until Christmas

 

Santas sold today: 5

Santas made or purchased today: 7

​

       It’s Monday afternoon on December 2nd.

       Ryan Reynolds is officially late.

       “He’s already one day late,” I whisper to my cat, Saint Nick, as he circles the claw-footed wooden legs of my chair. “I trusted Grandma Edith implicitly, but I don’t think much of a man who can’t be bothered to keep his commitments.”

       He meows in agreement, and I glance back at my laptop screen. I’ve gotten carried away at estate sales lately, hence my Santa-overflow problem.

       The thing is…after my grandmother died, I’ve had a hard time saying no to elderly dead women.

       That probably came out wrong. What I mean is that I feel a gush of emotion whenever I go to an estate sale and see a woman’s holiday treasures collected into plastic bins or falling-apart boxes, unwanted by her survivors.

       This creates an irrepressible need in me to rescue them.

       The problem is that most of this stuff really is junk—plastic Santas without the correct number of fingers and toes, Santas dressed in hula skirts, or Santas who dance drunkenly to music if a sticky button is pressed. Ornaments that are cracked or should be. Sometimes I can reuse the parts to make a better whole, and sometimes I have to admit that I have trash on my hands.

       Which doesn’t make it easier to let it go, because each of these things was treasured by some little old lady, who would pack it lovingly into its box every holiday—only for one of those holidays to end up being her last.

       It’s been a month, today, since my grandmother died of heart failure. Of course it was heart failure. If she’d needed a kidney, I would have given her one. Bone marrow, too. I’d have given her half my heart if it would have done any good, but much to my disappointment, science and medicine have not progressed that far.

       Grandma Edith died on a mild day—a high of 60 degrees, even in November. After we left the hospital, my parents offered to buy me lunch, but I turned them down. Instead, I parked in Colonial Williamsburg and walked down DoG Street in a haze. Everywhere I looked, there were people outside going on strolls and kids playing with those purposeless hoops and sticks the stores market to tourists who feel obligated to buy them.

My grandmother, who’d had a love for efficiency, would probably have approved of life moving on so quickly, but it had felt like an affront to see such normalcy. So much so that I asked one woman, who was drinking a boba tea in a disposable plastic container, “What’s wrong with you?” in a shaking voice.

       She dropped the boba tea, the little tapioca pearls bouncing slightly on the cobblestones. But either she hadn’t been taught to clean up after herself or she thought I was mentally imbalanced, because she hurried away, leaving the mess.

       I cleaned it up as best I could, because Grandma had always believed in leaving a place better than you found it. I’d started crying while I was doing it, which had felt like a relief—yes, you have emotions, Anabelle, and someone just gave Sadness the wheel.

       “Oh, it’s only spilled tea,” said a woman with puffy curled hair and an overpowering scent of pumpkin spice. “No use crying over spilled tea, sweetie.” She clucked her tongue as she hovered a couple of steps from where I was trying to collect the tapioca pearls.

       “My grandmother died,” I said through a sudden torrent of tears. “She died, and now I’m alone.”

       The sliminess of the tapioca added to my grief, because what in the world was I doing, anyway? I hated touching slimy things, and that woman’s saliva was probably all over it, and everything was a mess.

I cried harder. 

       In response, the stranger moved closer as if she was about to hug me, which was enough to jolt me out of my meltdown. I backed up several paces, clutching the cup to my chest. “Oh, please don’t do that.”

       “Are you okay, dear?”

       “No, I can’t hug a stranger.”

       She gaped at me. I was used to people gaping, though. That’s what happened when you were a weird person who said weird things—a revelation I’d had years ago, which had made life a lot simpler for me. So I walked off, barely aware of my surroundings until I found myself at the door of Grandma Edith’s inn. Using the key she’d given me years ago, I let myself in. Went to her desk. Sat in her chair and breathed in the smell of her. Lavender and a hint of vanilla. I had the aching awareness that it would fade soon and then she would fade—only in my own memory would she remain sharp, because I was Anabelle Whitman, and I never forgot anything that had ever happened to me.

       Ask Rob Mertz, who’d pushed me into a pile of horse poop on our third-grade field trip to Colonial Williamsburg.

       I know. How wildly exciting for a class of kids who live in Williamsburg to go to Williamsburg. But I digress…

       I’m fairly sure adult Rob regrets his behavior on that fateful day, but only because he had the audacity to ask me out a few years ago, as if a woman could forget and forgive such a thing.

       Sitting in my grandma’s chair, I tried to catch my breath, slow inhales, slow exhales, but then I noticed the envelope lined up with the corner of the desk. Anabelle Edith Whitman.

       In her handwriting.

       “Oh, I don’t think I’m ready for this,” I said to no one in particular, rapping my fingers against the desk’s surface.

       Sucking in a breath, I opened the letter. It was thick, and there was another, smaller, envelope inside of it.

      

       Anabelle,

       Everyone will know soon enough, but the inn is yours. So is everything else I have left.

       It’s not a lot.

       You know, of course, that I gave the sunburst ornament away, and I’d do it again to keep your father from selling it the instant my body turned cold. There are a few other things you might be able to sell online to raise money, should you decide to keep the inn open. The armoire in my bedroom is an original, and so is the drinks cabinet in the parlor. Some of my jewelry has also been passed down and might be worth a penny or two.

       It’s all yours, my dear. Do what you like with it. I only want you to be happy.

       The one thing I will ask is that you never, ever give or sell the inn to Weston. The Crooked Quill is and always has been a family place. For it to be owned by a corporation that buys paper-thin sheets and doesn’t believe in deep cleaning or unprocessed breakfast foods is unthinkable.

       I also ask that you reserve the enclosed envelope for a man who’s calling himself Ryan Reynolds. You can expect him to arrive on December 1st of this year. He will likely want to book a room. I put him in Room B last time. But if you decide to close the inn, you can refer him to The Peddler and the Pig across the way. The boy may be upset, so try to be a friend to him, Anabelle. He will need one. YOU will need one.

       Most of all, I hope you will be a friend to yourself, my dear. Your light shines brighter than you know.

 

With all my love,

Grandma Edith

        

       Did this send me down a fruitless research black hole to try to find out who Ryan Reynolds could be?

       Absolutely.

       I learned more about Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place than I ever wanted to know, and it turns out that there are many people named Ryan Reynolds. There’s probably one in every town in the United States. Five in every town in Canada.

       I could have opened the mysterious letter, of course, but it would have felt like an affront. It may also be a federal crime. She wrote his name on it, after all, and asked me to deliver it.

       In any case, despite Grandma Edith’s assurance that I could sell the B&B if I wanted to, I’ve kept it open. I had to. Consenting to close it would have been like kicking those boxes full of other people’s beloved treasures. Never. Not on my watch.

       To be frank, I’m not very good at running an inn, a fact my parents enjoy pointing out to me every time they see me. I like most people individually, but in groups they can be overwhelming. Loud, demanding, pushy.

       My boyfriend, Weston, also enjoys pointing out my inadequacies to me, and has made eleven and a half offers to buy the inn and absorb it into his hotel group, Comfort Zone.

       The one-half offer is due to me cutting him off and telling him that I would never kiss him again, ever, if he let the rest of his sales pitch leave his mouth.

       There are only two people who support me. One is Cynthia, who worked part-time for my grandmother and now does the same for me. I’m immensely grateful that she makes breakfast for my guests, since I am an appallingly bad cook.

I’ve never understood why. I’m good at following instructions, and do it to the letter, but what I make never turns out the way it’s supposed to. It’s like there’s a magic to cooking that I just don’t possess.

       Sometimes I think there’s a magic to life that I just don’t possess, which is why I’ve chosen to find it in Christmas.

       The other person who supports me is my good friend Jo, who runs an online Christmas shop for vintage holiday finds: Santa Knows. We met while bidding against each other in an auction, and now we talk multiple times a day, every day. Of course, Weston would say we don’t actually talk every day—we write. But for someone who thinks best in written words, it’s the best kind of friendship there could be.

       Sighing, I lean back in my chair. I’m about to get up to look at my collection of spare Christmas parts to see what I can create, when the front door creaks and then opens with a gust of cold air, the bell above it ringing.

       The man who just stepped inside is objectively handsome, with wavy light-brown hair, hazel eyes that look like sunbursts, and a leather jacket that looks…well, cool (although my friend Jo says that calling something cool immediately makes you less cool). He’s carrying a leather duffel bag.

There’s a something look in his eyes as they move over me.

I know it’s Ryan Reynolds.

       I know it instantly, in my gut.

​

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