CHAPTER 1
FRANK
Frank Barrie liked coffee more than he liked most people.
He knew coffee. How to roast it, blend it, and brew it. Coffee made sense.
People, though? People didn’t make a lick of sense. Especially concerning matters of the heart. He should know. He’d turned stark raving mad the day he met his lovely bride, Beverly.
“Ow!” Frank jerked his hand away from the blazing-hot bread pan. Oven mitt! He needed an oven mitt. How long had it been since he’d baked something?
He fumbled through the drawers and cabinets, grumbling to himself. Beverly assured him the organizational system she’d implemented in their snug farmhouse kitchen was the most logical layout, but even after three years of marriage, he wasn’t convinced. What was wrong with the way he had it before? Didn’t everyone have a kitchen drawer filled with dead batteries and ketchup packets?
Aha!There it is. She’d hidden the oven mitt in the drawer by the stove.
He removed the bread pan from the oven and set it on the counter.Huh.That doesn’t look right.The fruitcake in the photoin Beverly’s cookbook didn’t have charred edges and a gooey center, did it?
He squinted at the open book on the counter. The photo on the page blurred into an indiscernible blob. He supposed his fruitcakecouldlook like the picture. There was no way to know for sure without putting on his reading glasses. Maybe he should’ve worn them to read the recipe? Oh, well. It was too late now. He nudged the pan with the oven mitt and the loaf jiggled.Hmm. Perhaps he could pass it off as Christmas pudding instead?
“Who am I kidding,” Frank muttered, ready to scrap the whole foolhardy idea.
He’d wanted to surprise his wife with a cozy Christmas evening when she returned home from her shift at the library. He’d planned every detail, from her favorite Nat King Cole record to a slice of fruitcake waiting for her on a fancy china plate to the crystal goblet of chilled eggnog. The kind made from scratch, not the congealed glop in the carton.
It was all part of Operation Give Beverly the Best Christmas—the Christmas she deserved but never quite got to experience since she’d married her very own Ebenezer Scrooge.
Well, to be fair, he considered himself areformedScrooge. He’d spent most of his adult life secluded in his own bitter world, hidden from every reminder of the happiness he’d lost when he went off to war. It had taken years—and the kindhearted community of Poppy Creek—to thaw the frozen barrier around his heart. But even now, as he turned over a new, albeit slightly crusty leaf, he found it difficult to change his ways.
The Grinch’s heart may have grown three sizes in a single day, but in his late eighties, Frank found the endeavor a little slow going. Sometimes tedious, if he were honest.
But Bevy had put up with his bah-humbugs for long enough. The last few years, he’d tried to go along with her holiday shenanigans, but not without a grumble or two. Or six or seven.
Not this year, though. This year, he was a whole new man. Like good ole Ebenezer, post haunting. Although, so far, he wasn’t off to a great start.
He glowered at the offending fruitcake, as if it had purposefully plotted against him. What would it take to conjure a couple of Christmas ghosts to help him make a festive fruitcake? It was the first day in December, and he’d already failed. How could he give his wife the perfect Christmas when his personality seemed to repel all things merry and bright?
He needed a cup of coffee.
Maybe two.
He poured velvety arabica beans into the burr grinder, admiring their deep chocolatey-brown hue. He may not be able to bake a fruitcake to save his life, but he could still roast the best cup of coffee on the West Coast. Probably both coasts and every state in between, but he didn’t want to brag.
The metal gears of the grinder emanated a pleasant whirring sound, followed by the crackle of crunching beans. A much more enjoyable melody than any rendition of “Jingle Bells” he’d ever heard.
Eyes closed, he inhaled the earthy aroma, already feeling a sense of calm slip over him.
Then the phone rang, and the shrill squawk cut through his brief moment of serenity.
Frank groaned.
The grinder rumbled to a stop.
He glanced longingly at his French press, and the phone screeched again.
“Hold your horses,” he grumbled, shuffling toward the landline secured to the wall.This better be important.
“What?” he barked into the receiver, not one for pleasantries.
“Hi, Mr. Barrie!” The unnaturally chipper contralto of Susan Hiesman filled the speaker. The director of Forgotten Heroes, a veterans’ homeless shelter in San Francisco, called Frank frequently, but he still wasn’t used to her inhuman energy levels. He suspected that out of all the coffee he donated to the shelter, she consumed more than half of it.
