My ex-husband tried, but now that we’re on the other side of things, I can admit to myself that I was never actually attracted to him. I married him because my family needed something good after so much bad, and he was a good friend. We were both relieved to go our separate ways.
Noelle rolls her neck, her eyes closed, and my gaze snags on the dips of her collarbone. I swallow, my cheeks warming.
“Who has the time, indeed,” she says, and this might be the first time she’s ever willingly agreed on anything with me. “Butdating is more of a time commitment than a casual hookup. Not that I have enough time for either, these days.”
Her lips lift in a wry smile as she opens her eyes, and I swallow, my cheeks warming.
“Anyway,” she continues. “All of that to say, if you re-download the app, it was Sunny. Not me.”
And just like that, her smile is gone, and frosty Noelle is back.
I open my mouth to reply, but the loud clip-clop of heels sounds on the café’s hardwood floors, and we both turn to see the mayor. She smiles widely at the sight of us.
“Excellent. You’re both here. Let’s get started.”
3
NOELLE
It’s a fundamental rule of staying in your hometown that the people who watched you grow up will never truly see you as an adult. Even Rora, who’s a mom herself, still has people telling her how tall she’s gotten when they haven’t seen her in a while—a bold-faced lie, considering she’s not even five feet.
I’m thirty years old, and Angela Blackwood still treats me like the teenager whocorruptedher perfect daughter.
“Please, call me Angela,” she tells Shay as they shake hands, mere seconds after I greeted her as Mayor Blackwood and she said nothing of the sort.
“Shuffle along, Noelle,” Mayor Blackwood says, flicking her hand in my direction.
I grit my teeth and slide over on the bench so she can sit beside me.
Shay narrows her soft gray eyes, glancing between me and the mayor, the dismissiveness not escaping her notice.
I’ve been dreading this meeting since Mayor Blackwood called yesterday. We’ve never seen eye to eye, and I do my best to avoid her. Shay showing up in my kitchen when I was already in a shitty mood really was the icing on top of the cake. But she was frazzled—spilling your last bottle of red food color in a Christmastown will do that to you—and it’s so rare to see her shaken, that it knocked me off my axis.
I know very little about Shay, other than she moved here a few years ago to be close to her brother, who lives in a cabin on the mountain, she’s a baker, she’s into women, and she’s divorced—the last two are recent revelations. It’s not like I’ve ever had much of a reason to pay attention to her over her business. I’d guess she’s somewhere in her early to mid-forties, given the fine crinkles around her gray eyes and the smile lines that frame her face. She has long blonde hair that she sometimes wears in a French braid when she’s baking, fine pink lips, and very white and straight teeth. She always wears a gold heart-shaped locket with a swirly G on it, and she toys with it constantly.
If the Wintermore whispers are anything to go by, she could be from California, New York, Michigan, or Colorado. California would be my guess, if the rumor mill is correct, but the rumor mill is rarely the most accurate source of information. I once heard through the grapevine that my parents were getting a divorce because someone supposedly heard them arguing over which kind of peanut butter to buy at the grocery store. Mom’s a crunchy person, Dad’s a smooth guy, but it’s all a moot point, because Felix and I are both allergic.
I grab my latte and take a sip just as Shay says, “So, Mayor Blackwood—” and almost spit it out.
For a brief moment, I actually like her. It’s gone as soon as I feel it, though.
“What is it you wanted to talk to me and Noelle about?” Shay asks, and I appreciate her not beating around the bush.
Mayor Blackwood looks mildly affronted, but she shakes it off quickly. “Well, we have an exciting opportunity that I think would be beneficial for both our town and our residents, but Ineed your help to make it happen. Both of you. Shay, are you familiar withA Christmas Wish in the Mountains?”
Shay nods, and I’m not surprised. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Wintermore who doesn’t know the movie that made us famous like the back of their hand.
“Excellent,” the mayor says, clapping her hands. “As I’m sure you both know, the tourism the movie brings us is vital to this town, but it has dwindled over the past couple of years. The more Christmas movies that release, the less relevant we become.”
We first noticed the drop in the run-up to Christmas last year. My brother did, anyway. The Enchanted Workshop usually sees a spike in sales from September, but it was a slow start last year. In an unusual move from Felix, he had a good idea and started pushing the online store. He hired his best friend’s sister, Abigail, to run the online side of things and push the store on social media, and profits actually increased last holiday season—and they’ve stayed steady since. And, of course, my bakery has been as busy as the day it opened.
From what I’ve heard, the rest of the town hasn’t been so lucky.
“I’ve been in contact with the network,” Mayor Blackwood continues. “I asked if they’d be interested in filming some kind of sequel here, and we’ve been in talks over the past few months, but I wasn’t expecting anything to happen for years. However…” She leans in, beckoning us closer and lowering her voice, like she’s sharing a secret. “They were supposed to film a fall movie up in Maine this year, but the town flooded. So they’re pivoting. They’ve pulled together a script that works as a sequel, with the actors they have, and want to film a fall movie here, to release next year.”
I narrow my eyes. “A fall movie in a Christmas town?”
The idea sounds stupid, but I can’t deny that it might be nice to spread the busy season out a little. We get an influx everyChristmas, and the truly Christmas-obsessed folks visit year-round, but, for the most part, the rest of the year is pretty normal for a small mountain town in Wyoming.
