“You’re the best, Lauren. I know Mom will be so happy with this gift, and warm, too. Is it okay if I tell her you gave this to me?”

Lauren grinned. “I think that can be your secret. You decide what you want to tell Lee. My lips are sealed unless I hear otherwise.”

When the girls finally left, Lauren saw it was after five. She hadn’t had any more customers, and just then, she was perfectly fine with that. Undecided if she would tell her mother what she’d done with the afghan and scarf she’d knitted, she figured that if the topic came up, she would simply tell her the truth. That had always been her way with her parents and friends—at least, it used to be.

She knew she was deceiving them, in a sense, at least as far as the store’s sales went this Black Friday weekend, but she’d call her bank first thing in the morning and have some funds transferred to the store’s checking account. When her mother questioned her about it—as she knew she would, because she examined the monthly bank statements—she’d tell her it was her way of . . . investing in the family business. That had the virtue of being the truth, too.

She rushed around the store, making sure the gas fireplace was turned off, then went to the office and turned the rest of the lights off with the remote she kept on her desk. Only the lights in the front window remained on. She turned the heat down several degrees, knowing she’d be freezing when she returned tomorrow morning, but she’d dress warm.

Jimmy’s had also tuned up her car, and she was grateful when she turned the key and the engine came to life. “Nothing like a purring engine,” she said, her breath visible in the freezing temperature. She checked the digital reading on her car’s panel. Twenty-eight degrees. She felt every bit of it, too, as she waited for the engine to warm up so she could turn the heater on. Once she flipped the switch on to HIGH HEAT, she delighted in the warmth as she directed the vents toward her hands. She’d left the house this morning without gloves. Knowing the temperature was predicted to be well below freezing, she’d try to remember to stuff her gloves in her coat pocket before she left the house in the morning. Along with a note to herself to remember to place a call to Roger Riedel to set up a bank transfer to Razzle Dazzle’s business account.

She drove down the long drive leading up to the house. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was almost 6:00. Unsure how the time had gotten away from her, she hurried inside and was greeted by the sumptuous smell of her mother’s pot roast.

“I’m home,” she called out as she headed upstairs to change. When she’d moved back into her childhood home three years before, she’d returned to her childhood room, and with her mother’s help, they’d redecorated it in cool grays and whites, a décor that a thirty-five-year-old woman was comfortable with. While she appreciated her mother’s keeping her room as it had been, she couldn’t imagine living in her former girlish room after living on her own since she had left for college. They’d packed the memories away, and Lauren had thought at the time that maybe someday she’d share the mementoes with her own daughter. But at the rate she was going, she’d be too old to remember them herself. Smiling at her own silly thoughts, she undressed and took a hot shower. As the water slid down her back, easing the stiffness in her muscles, she felt the tension of the day wash away. She hadn’t washed her hair, but she did re-braid it in a long French braid. She didn’t bother with makeup but added a touch of mascara to her blond lashes.