“Noelle shops here?” Miriam asked, looking around at the racks of skirts and heels.

“Nah, she hangs out, getting her ass kicked at Spite and Malice,” Marisol said. Miriam smiled at that picture.

Marisol had met Cass in a cafe in Zurich. Cass had stopped her and said, “I have a feeling we’re meant to travel together. Do you like Christmas?” And now here Marisol was, in Advent.

“Is this Collin’s love?” she whispered as Hannah looked through a rack. Hannah dramatically shushed her, which Miriam took as a yes.

“Sooo,” Hannah said to Marisol, “Miriam and I are cooking up a plot to do more year-round events at Carrigan’s, including partnering with Advent businesses. What do you think? Fashion show in the barn?”

“Anything you can do to bring in more tourists throughout the year, with more money to spend in town, I am on board with,” Marisol said, leaning against the counter.

“Good! We’ll keep you in the loop. Also, my poor cousin needs clothes. Everything she owns is for a South Carolina winter and I’m tired of her complaining that she’s cold.”

After sorting through the racks, Hannah handed Miriam several very soft sweaters, in flattering colors that showed off a little cleavage. Miriam suspected Hannah had ulterior motives that included matchmaking.

“These make me look heterosexual,” she complained.

Hannah looked at her cuffed overalls and backwards floral snapback and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure that’s possible,” she said skeptically. “You’ll end up bedazzling them in a way that somehow screams ‘No one confuse me for a straight person.’”

So Miriam bought them, because her bedazzler could use some action, and because she wasn’t opposed to new clothes that made her boobs look great.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Noelle

That Wednesday, they sent the official business plan for Carrigan’s All Year to the Rosensteins. Now they were only waiting to hear what the answer would be.

With only three weeks until Christmas, guests were arriving, sad about the loss of Cass, but looking for the full Christmasland Experience. Most of the families had been coming all their lives. Hannah was committed to making it feel like a Carrigan’s Christmas, which meant all the regular activities.

“The gingerbread is fresh baked, and it doesn’t behave the way graham crackers do,” Miriam complained while Noelle laughed.

The Carrigan’s guests took their Gingerbread House Competition very seriously. Miriam was trying to build a house, and Noelle had decided to help by offering gently mocking commentary.

“I was, once upon a time, a master of gingerbread house construction,” Miriam observed, as the roof slid off her current structure and fell with a crack. “When I was eight.”