“Then we’ll make it perfect for her.” Angi reached forward and cupped his face in her hands. She held steady until he finally met her gaze. “This isn’t about your mother or the future. It’s about you and your grandmother.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, and Angi realized there was no place she’d rather be than in this moment, decorating for the holidays with Gabe Carlyle.

CHAPTER TWELVE

BY THE TIME Friday night came, Angi was running on adrenaline, caffeine and very little else. The week had been a whirlwind of activity.

The afternoon at the flower shop, she’d spent several hours helping Gabe with his grandmother’s vintage Christmas knickknacks and trimmings. He’d turned the shop’s sign to Closed, put on a classic holiday playlist, and they’d unloaded all of Iris’s decorations—from families of plastic snowmen to an original color wheel to boxes of tinsel—to transform In Bloom into a retro festive extravaganza.

Time had flown by in the blink of an eye. She’d gotten used to the hours dragging at the restaurant, a thought that left her unsettled and a little melancholy. Unpacking boxes of glass ornaments had brought back memories from when her dad used to close down the restaurant for a few days over Christmas and drive up the coast in the old minivan to visit her nonna in Connecticut.

She remembered her parents laughing and singing carols—alternating between English and Italian—while her brothers played on their Game Boys in the third row of the big Suburban. Angi loved to look out at the houses she could see from the interstate and draw designs on the car windows when they frosted over.

At that point, she couldn’t have imagined living anywhere other than Magnolia.

Sorrow lanced across her heart at the memories of how much her father had loved this time of year. She added one more item to the list of ways she was failing. She’d been so busy subtly resenting having to return to the restaurant full-time and the burden of taking care of her mother that she hadn’t considered how her mother was dealing with this first Christmas without her beloved husband. Angi missed her father and his calming presence in all of their lives.

She wished she could talk to her mom about her feelings, to share in their grief and also hopefully grow closer by looking to the future.

Unfortunately, the only future Bianca seemed to care about when it came to Angi was seeing her married. In that respect, her mother would be disappointed when Angi and Gabe broke up in the new year, as was the plan.

A plan she was quickly coming to detest.

“Everything looks beautiful,” her mother said. She came to stand next to Angi looking out the front window of Il Rigatone as shoppers began to crowd Main Street. The weather for the evening was perfect, with temperatures hovering in the midforties and clear skies that showed off a swath of stars above them. Angi had asked Malcolm if the town would cordon off the streets so that the shops could spread their displays onto the sidewalk and leave more room for pedestrian traffic.