Deck the Shelves: A Women's Fiction Holiday Romance by Joelle Cullen

Author:Joelle Cullen [Cullen, Joelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lower Mountain Publishing
Published: 2024-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

My Favorite Things

(and Nana’s too)

Lucky for him, it wasn’t Mum. “Why, hello.” I greeted the family at the door with a big, genuine smile. I felt a bit lighter now that I had finally disclosed my relationship status and the secrecy that accompanied it. A beautiful black woman in her early thirties with short, curly hair stood at the front of the store, holding a wiggly toddler in her arms. “Here, Mummy,” the young girl standing beside her said as she slipped off her jacket and held it out for her mother to add to her already overfilled arms.

The girl bounced over to me, her pigtails bobbing up and down with each movement. She looked to be about six or seven. She reached into the unicorn rucksack she held in her hands and removed a purple pencil and a pad of paper. “Hi, I’m looking for…” Her eyebrows scrunched in deep concentration as she flipped through the pages of her notebook for her answer. “A Miss Alice. Would that be you?” She looked up at me like she was about to give an interrogation about a neighborhood crime.

I replied with all the seriousness I could muster. Clearly, this girl was on a mission. “That would be me. How may I be of help?”

She tapped the pencil on her chin. “Yes, I was told that you would be able to find a suitable present for my nana. Here are her interests: bird watching, baking pies, knitting—quite terribly, but don’t tell her I said that— and vacuuming. Do you have anything that fits these descriptions?”

I pretended to give it some thought, then finally answered, “Why, yes. I believe I do. Why don’t you follow me?”

I met her mum’s gaze and smiled as she mouthed back, “Thank you.”

“So, is this a gift for your nana? Is it for Christmas or a birthday, perhaps?”

“Christmas,” she responded. “I have only two people left on my list.” She looked back to make sure her mother wasn’t too close and then whispered, “I already got my mum an assortment of tea. She loves to drink a cuppa each morning while making me breakfast. It has so many flavors: peach, mint, mango, green…”

“Sounds like it has all the flavors of the rainbow. I think your mum will be so surprised.” The precocious girl marched behind me like a proud soldier as I led her back to the bookshelf filled with an assortment of non-fiction titles. Her mum followed a bit behind, letting her little boy toddle around the rows of shelves. “Here are a few books about bird watching, and over here is a wonderful cookbook filled with dessert recipes for every day of the year.”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Oh, wow. I think she’d love that. I’m her taste tester, you know. I have a notebook where I rate everything she bakes from one to ten. Most everything is a ten, except for when she puts raisins in the mix. Then it’s an immediate two.”

I knelt and pulled the cookbook off the shelf.

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