Rachel DelGato glanced out the window as she rang up her latest customer.

Lazy snowflakes fell outside, kissing the sandstone sidewalks and melting before they could accumulate. The tiny downtown of Tarker’s Hollow looked like a snow globe, yet the residents were still out in droves doing their holiday shopping. If anything, the hint of snow seemed to be helping to get people in the holiday spirit, which was always good for business.

Across the counter from Rachel, Jasmine Williams crowed about her lucky find for the third time. The young woman sounded as if she had gone on an expedition up a mountain or something to find the glass charm she was buying, instead of just wandering into a shop on her way to pick up dinner.

“My mom is going to flip,” Jasmine leaned in to tell Rachel.

“That’s nice,” Rachel said with a smile she hoped was cold enough to discourage further conversation. It wasn’t that she had anything against talking to customers, more that she just didn’t see any reason for it after a transaction.

Or during one, really.

Jasmine was leaning on a cabinet that held gorgeous miniatures on chains hand made by a local artist. The little animals were exquisitely carved and had lower price tags than the popular mass-produced glass charms Jasmine was buying. But since they weren’t advertised in the pages of In Vogue magazine most of the customers ignored them.

“Well, thanks,” Jasmine said, snagging the bag. The bells over the door jingled as another woman came in just as she was going out.

“Do you have the new shipment of Love Charms?” Minna Randolf asked, huffing and puffing a bit. The team of reindeer on the bosom of her sweater looked like they were about to take flight.

“Sure,” Rachel said, lifting the heavy box out of the locked cabinet where she had just stowed it.

“Ooh, is that the new Love Charms?” Liz Baffles cried as she came in the door, sending the bells jangling again.

“I was here first,” Minna said. She followed it with a laugh that said she was kidding, and a look that said she definitely wasn’t.

As the women pawed through the new inventory, exclaiming over the various options, Rachel allowed herself a moment to fantasize.

Love Charms had launched her little shop into the kind of business that could afford to expand. She’d been on the fence about becoming a distributor since she preferred the earthy, rough-hewn jewelry her grandfather used to make. But the store had suffered in the recession and she had no intention of closing up shop and working for someone else. Besides, she’d seen what selling those trendy sheepskin boots had done for the guy who had the small shoe store in town.

Rachel fully expected to have customers coming in from Springton and other areas specifically to buy Love Charms, but she found it sad that even the Tarker’s Hollow ladies seemed to prefer them to her other wares. Rachel had always dreamed of selling interesting local handicrafts like the animal carvings made by Andrew Falling Water, and she’d expected that folks in town would want to support that. But she supposed in this economy she’d better be grateful to have a moneymaker like the charms.

Of course the real money was in fine jewelry. But a small shop like hers didn’t sell enough diamonds to stay on the map.

Some stores made a decent profit buying back unwanted rings and reselling them. But when Rachel DelGato sold a diamond, it didn’t get returned.

Just then the bell rang again.

She looked up to see a young couple come in.

Speak of the devil.

The man held the door open for the woman.

She smiled at him and dashed inside as if she were afraid he was going to change his mind.

They looked around as if expecting Rachel to run over and say Welcome to Sticks & Stones, how can I help you?

Well that wasn’t going to happen. Rachel hated being bothered when she went to a store and she assumed her customers felt the same. Besides, she preferred to observe them from afar before helping.

She studiously ignored the two newcomers, pretending to stare blankly out the window into the snow.

The woman walked right over to the diamonds, planting her hands on the clean glass and ogling the larger stones.

The man stopped to admire the knives and antique swords on the wall before joining her.

Those were the “sticks” in Sticks & Stones. Rachel figured anything that helped get a guy into a jewelry store was a good thing. It seemed to work too, though she sold very few knives and had never sold a sword. Nervous guys could come in, pretend to look at Swiss Army knives and then ask for help.

“What do you think, babe?” the girl asked her boyfriend.

He shrugged and squinted at the diamonds as if there might be a message in them.

Rachel knew what the message should say if there was one.

Get out.

These two were going nowhere. They were one drunken-class-reunion away from an ugly public break up. They were not wedding material.

“Hey, um, can we see some of these?” The girl sounded nervous.

You should be nervous.

Rachel pretended not to hear her and looked over to where Minna was clearly agonizing over whether to buy the only mistletoe charm in the box, just because she could tell Liz wanted it.

Human nature was rotten.

“Excuse me,” the boy said loudly. “My, um, girlfriend and I want to look at some rings.”

Minna and Liz looked up and smiled at the couple.

“Sorry,” Rachel said and shook her head.

“What?” The girl’s voice was snotty already. Nice.

“I can’t help you,” Rachel said firmly.

“We want to buy a diamond ring,” the guy said loudly.

“Believe me,” Rachel said. “It is not a good idea. Why don’t you get to know each other a little better first?”

Minna hissed in a horrified breath.

In her periphery, Rachel could see Liz grab Minna’s arm in scandalized delight.

“How dare you judge us?” The girl’s voice had gone shrill.

“Bill said she does this sometimes,” the boy told his girlfriend quietly. “Let’s just go.”

“You have no idea how well we know each other,” the woman continued.

“Caitlyn,” the guy said pleadingly, “don’t get upset. We’ll just go somewhere else.”

“Don’t you Caitlyn me,” she retorted immediately. “Are you going to let her treat me this way?”

“Everything in here is too expensive anyway,” the guy said, looking embarrassed.

“Seriously, Jayden?” Caitlyn’s face turned red with fury. “Two months’ salary for you is less than this cheap crap? Or you just don’t want to spend your money on me? Why am I even marrying you?”

Jayden turned helplessly to Rachel. “Can’t you just show us some rings? We’re serious about each other.”

“Serious? You won’t even make it back to the car,” Rachel said coolly.

“Oh fuck this,” Caitlyn said and stomped out, banging the door so hard the bells sounded frightened.

Jayden stood there a moment staring at Rachel like a deer in the headlights.

“Well, go on,” she said, gesturing him toward the door.

The last thing she needed in here was a bunch of stupid drama. He could cry on someone else’s shoulder.

When he was gone, Minna approached the register with a handful of charm boxes.

“Oh, Rachel, that was Harold Watson’s boy,” Minna said, shaking her head sadly.

“Yeah?” Rachel asked politely as she rang Minna up.

“Did you have to do that?” Minna asked.

“The boy just lost his uncle,” Liz put in. “Harold’s brother Clint died last week.”

“Well, Harold should thank me,” Rachel said matter-of-factly. “He would have lost his son in the same week if I hadn’t put my foot down.”

“Jayden would have died?” Liz asked, mystified.

“No, you idiot,” Minna said. “She means that Jayden would have been unhappy if he’d married Caitlyn, that’s all.”

“No he wouldn’t have,” Liz retorted. “Caitlyn’s alright. Besides, you aren’t allowed to discriminate, right?”

Rachel fixed Liz with a chilly gaze.

“I’m allowed to refuse service to anyone I want,” she said pointedly.

Liz looked slowly down at the boxes of charms she clutched in her hands. Then she looked up at Rachel and nodded. “Oh.”

Rachel held her gaze a moment longer, then went on placing Minna’s items in a bag.

When she was finished, she checked Liz out too.

The two women left quietly but she was sure there would be some whispered judgment and eye rolling.

Rachel didn’t care. The rumor in this town was that her rings were enchanted, because the people who wore them always had happy marriages.

That wasn’t magic. But it also wasn’t an accident.

Rachel’s grandpa had taught her to respect rocks and minerals. And Salvador DelGato always said that diamonds were serious stones, not to be passed around lightly.