“Thank you, Mr. Finch.” Maurie Ledbetter pressed END on her cell phone and collapsed onto the ratty floral couch. In two weeks, she’d be the new owner of the shop on the corner of Main Street in Pine Valley. She could hardly believe this was finally happening. Fourteen days. 336 hours—but who was counting?
Maurie dialed the number at the top of her contacts list, calling her best friend and one and only employee, Taffy.
“What’s new?” Taffy answered, not one to stall with chitchat.
“We got it!” Maurie said. “We’re about to open the bricks-and-mortar version of Every Occasion.”
Taffy hooted, and Maurie laughed. Her heart seemed to be beating a mile a minute as the news finally sunk in.
“When do you close on the property?” Taffy asked.
Maurie rose from the couch and walked around the boxes strewn about the living room, her mind reeling with all the to-dos. “Two weeks. The realtor said it was unusual to have such a quick closing period, but the seller agreed.”
“Wow,” Taffy said. “Who would have thought two years ago that your little online hobby of selling gift baskets would turn into this?”
“I know, right?” Maurie peered out of the newly scrubbed living-room window. The neighborhood beyond was the same quiet neighborhood of her childhood. “When are you coming? We need to get the signs ordered and decide on a grand opening date and print off a million fliers—”
“Whoa,” Taffy cut in with her bubbly laugh that seemed to complement her curly blonde hair and energetic personality. “Last I googled, Pine Valley only has twelve hundred residents. And even with the tourist ski crowd, our customer base wouldn’t come close to a million.”
Maurie released a breath. “You’re right. I’m just up to my armpits in boxes, and I need to make a list of stuff to do now that the offer on the shop was accepted.”
Outside, two little girls rode along the cracked sidewalk, one on a red bike, the other on a blue one. They were laughing at something, and Maurie’s stomach pinched. She’d once been a carefree kid like those girls, but that was before ... Well, the past was going to stay in the past, where it was meant to be. And the next step in Maurie’s plan was renovating this dumpy house of her mother’s. As soon as things at the shop were organized, Maurie would start with ripping out the carpets, then move on to burning all the furniture and—
“Hello?” Taffy said. “Are you still there?”
“Oh, sorry.” Maurie exhaled. “I’m already making more lists. You know me. When are you coming?”
“I just told you,” Taffy said, indulgent laughter in her voice. “I’m packing tonight and leaving first thing in the morning. Should make Pine Valley by dinner.”
Maurie turned from the window and the young, innocent, laughing girls. “Perfect. I’ll wash the new guest-bedroom sheets I bought, and I might even venture to the grocery store before you get here.”
“I can grab McDonald’s on the way into town,” Taffy said. “Want a cheeseburger and fries?”
“Don’t you dare,” Maurie said. “That stuff tastes like grease and bad memories.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Taffy quipped.
“Seriously,” Maurie said. “I’ll have dinner ready when you get here. I’d like to try a new chicken-salad recipe I found on Pinterest.”
Taffy gave a good-natured sigh. “You’re a nut, you know that? I mean, don’t you have enough to do? Cooking should be at the bottom of the list.”
“That’s why you’re coming to work for me,” Maurie reminded her. “To keep my priorities straight.” She eyed the boxes and a stack of wicker baskets.
“All right, Boss,” Taffy said. “See you tomorrow.”
Maurie was smiling when she hung up the phone. She pressed the phone against her chest and turned back to the window. She’d done it. She had returned to the hometown that she’d left ten years ago at the age of seventeen, moved into the house she’d inherited from the mother who’d disowned her, and now would be an official shop owner in Pine Valley.
She crossed to the tiny kitchen area, fired up the laptop she’d left on the counter, then googled handyman in Pine Valley. Several hits popped up—all in Pine Valley, Utah. Maurie refined her search to California. A couple of construction companies and their websites popped up. There were quite a few luxury cabins in the area, near the slopes, belonging to the who’s who crowd. These construction companies certainly catered to the wealthy, if their ten-thousand-square-foot cabins were any indication.
She hovered over one link and read aloud, “Briggs Brothers. Your hometown handymen. No job is too small.”
She clicked and opened the simple website. In the top left corner was a picture of two men. Both men wore baseball caps, shading their faces, so Maurie couldn’t see either of them clearly. Not that she knew a lot of people in Pine Valley anymore. And she certainly didn’t remember the name of Briggs.
Her mom had homeschooled her since middle school, insisting that the public system was failing her child—a notion which Maurie had allowed herself to believe for a long time. It wasn’t until she was removed from the home—after a raucous party her mother had thrown and was subsequently busted for—and placed in another city in foster care, that Maurie discovered she was academically nearly two years behind her peers. Maurie was never returned home because her mother had gone to jail for six months for possession of illegal substances and endangering a minor. And when she was released, she’d written a letter to Maurie saying she was relinquishing parental rights to the state.
Now, ten years later, the memory of the letter still stung, although it had long ago been destroyed. Fortunately, Maurie had landed in a decent foster home, and her foster mom, Gladys Ronning, had shown her what a real mother’s love could be like.
Thinking of Gladys still made Maurie emotional. Gladys hadn’t been perfect, but she’d been the best mom Maurie had ever had. Because of Gladys, Maurie had pulled her life together and discovered she could set and keep goals.
Maurie wiped a tear off her cheek and took a deep breath as she stared, unseeing, at the Briggs Brothers website. Gladys had died when Maurie was in college. A year later, Maurie had been notified by the state that her mother had died as well. Causes unknown. It had been several more months before Maurie was contacted by a Pine Valley lawyer about her mother’s estate. After hanging up from the phone call, Maurie had laughed at the news, and then she’d cried. Later, she’d called the lawyer back and told him to rent the house out. At the time she was still in college and wasn’t ready to change her life all over again and move back to her past.
That had all changed a couple of months ago, when Mr. Right had turned out to be Mr. Completely Wrong, and Maurie needed to start her life over ... miles and miles away from Irvine, where she’d been living. Miles away from Brandon.
Pine Valley had suddenly seemed a safe haven.
“Well, I’m here now,” Maurie said aloud to the empty kitchen. “And I’m about ready to be a store owner.”
Since the house had been paid off long ago by Maurie’s grandparents before her mother inherited it, the years of rent, minus upkeep expenses, had been accumulating in an account. Eventually, it had added up to a sizable down payment for Maurie’s new beginning.
She took a deep breath and dialed the number for Briggs Brothers. A woman answered—a secretary, it seemed. She took down Maurie’s address, then promised someone would be out that afternoon to evaluate her needs and work up a bid.
“This afternoon? That’s quick,” Maurie said.
“It is January, ma’am,” the woman said in a brisk tone. “Not much construction going on in Pine Valley this time of year.”
“Okay, that makes sense.” Maurie felt chagrined and annoyed at the same time, for being called ma’am. She was only twenty-seven. But the woman on the other end of the line had no way of knowing that. “Great, and thank you so much,” Maurie said.
When she hung up, she stood and stretched, then grabbed her notebook of lists and more lists. She turned to a fresh page and started planning for a visit from Briggs Brothers.