Turning back to the espresso machine, she moved on to Juliet’s latte.
While they waited, Nate flipped through the Christmas Calendar, looking for the day’s task. Decorate the Tree. He’d have to ask Frank and Beverly, but it seemed doable. With a quick scan, he noted a few other activities. Bake a Mince Pie. WatchIt’s a Wonderful Life. Go Ice Skating. The book definitely had some good ideas. A vision of Juliet bundled in a winter coat, floating across the ice flashed through his mind. He slammed the book shut, dispelling the far-too-appealing mental image.
Today was a one-time event. They’d pick out a tree together, but after that, he’d keep his distance.
Cassie handed Juliet her latte, but before they could say their goodbyes, a petite blonde woman barged through a swinging door that led to the kitchen, her dark eyes brimming with distress.
“Help!” she cried. “We have a code red emergency!”
The panic in her voice shot straight to Nate’s heart. His pulse spiked, pumping too hard and too fast.
Adrenaline flooded his veins, sweeping through his body like a fire blazing out of control, igniting every battle instinct burned into his DNA.
He straightened, hands coiled, ready for action.
CHAPTER 10
JULIET
Juliet jumped at Eliza Parker’s dramatic announcement. The spunky blonde baker sure knew how to make an entrance. As kids, Juliet appreciated and admired Eliza’s outgoing, over-the-top personality. She’d made her feel welcome the very first time she’d visited her aunt in Poppy Creek.
But today, she wished Eliza hadn’t come on so strong. Poor Nate looked ready to barrel onto the battlefield. His hands balled into fists, and his blue eyes darkened like the ocean at nightfall. She’d never felt safer or more protected, and yet she suspected Eliza’s so-called emergency wasn’t really an emergency at all.
“What’s wrong?” Cassie asked calmly, confirming her suspicions.
“My mom just called with the worst news,” Eliza lamented. “The costumes for the Christmas pageant arrived, and instead of Victorian England, they’re Elizabethan.Elizabethan,Cass. It’s a disaster!”
Nate’s gaze darted from Eliza to Cassie then back to Eliza again, clearly confused. His shoulders relaxed slightly, and his fists unclenched.
“The middle school is performingA Christmas Carolat the end of the month,” Cassie explained.
“The whole play is ruined!” Eliza threw up her hands.
This time, Nate glanced at Juliet with an expression that asked,Do you understand what’s happening?
She gave him a reassuring smile, bolstered by her familiarity with flamboyant personality types like Eliza’s. While her mother rarely showed emotion, her father—the more artistic soul—had quite the theatrical flair. He’d once wept actual tears when a butterfly landed on the tip of his pen during one of his poem-writing sessions. Apparently, the butterfly had given his poem its approval. On another occasion, he’d flown into a state of panic when he received the wrong Moleskine notebook in the mail. Something about the margin size. It had taken her mother twenty minutes to calm him down.
When faced with melodrama, she’d learned it was best to remain calm and offer solutions. “What if you did a reimagining?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Eliza paused her frantic pacing, her curiosity piqued.
“You could do a mashup of Dickens and Shakespeare,” Juliet explained. “You could still performA Christmas Carol, just set it during the sixteenth century.”
“Huh. Could we do that?” Eliza frowned, as if she wasn’t quite convinced the idea would work.
“Sure! You’d have to make some adjustments to the script to account for the language differences, but you could keep the storyline the same.”
“I love it!” Cassie beamed. “It’s a unique and fresh take on a classic. It sounds like the perfect solution, don’t you think, Eliza?”
Her eyebrows knit deep in thought, Eliza ruminated on the suggestion.
Juliet held her breath, surprisingly invested in the outcome of a children’s Christmas pageant she’d probably never even see.Most adaptations of Charles Dickens’s masterpiece tried to stick as close to the source material as possible.A Muppet Christmas Carol—her favorite film version of the story—had added a narrator, but that was the biggest departure she’d seen. A change in the time period could be interesting. But would Eliza go for it?
“I guess it could work,” Eliza said slowly. “But rewriting the script seems like a lot of time and effort. And that’s assuming we can find someone who knows how to do it.”
“It shouldn’t take too long. Maybe a day or two,” Juliet offered, then realized her mistake.
Cassie met her gaze, her eyes shimmering and hopeful. “You’re a writer, aren’t you?”
