I feel as if I’m on an emotional roller coaster. One moment I’m feeling as low as I can get, and the next I’m soaring into the clouds. Just now, I’m in the cloud phase. Thom found the picture of the tea set! We’re determined to locate one as close to the original as possible. As I said to Thom, I’m hoping for a Christmas miracle. (I never knew I was such a romantic.) Normally I scoff at things like miracles, but that’s what both Thom and I need. We’ve already had one miracle—we have each other back.

Before we parted this morning, Thom said he loved me. I love him, too. I’ve always loved Thom, and that’s what made his deception—or what I believed was his deception—so terribly painful.

Now all we’ve got to do is keep our mothers out of the picture until we can replace the tea service. I know it’s a challenging task, but we’re up to it.

As of right now, we each have our assignments. Carley’s using the computer for ten more minutes and then it’s all mine. My job is to scan in the picture he found at his parents’ house and send it to as many online antique dealers as I can. Thom is off checking local dealers and has some errands to run. We’re going to meet up again later.

I had to cancel a lunch date with Kristen and Jonathan, but my sister understood. She’s excited about Thom and me getting back together. Apparently she’s had more of a hand in this than I realized. I really owe her.

Finding a tea service to replace the one that was stolen is turning out to be even harder than I expected—but we have to try. I believe in miracles. I was a doubter less than a week ago, but now I’m convinced.

Chapter Seven

“How many turkeys did you say we had to buy?”

“Six,” Mary said, checking the list to make sure she was correct. December twenty-third, and the grocery store was a nightmare. The aisles were crowded, and many of the shelves needed restocking. The last thing Mary wanted to do was fight the Christmas rush, but that couldn’t be helped. Next year, she’d leave the filling of these Christmas baskets to someone else.

“Get six bags of potatoes while you’re at it,” she told her husband as they rolled past a stack of ten-pound bags.

“Getting a little bossy, aren’t you?” Greg muttered.

“Sorry, it’s just that there are a hundred other things I’d rather be doing right now.”

“Then you should’ve given the task to Sarah McDowell. Didn’t you tell me she offered?”

Mary didn’t want to hear the other woman’s name. “I don’t trust her to see that it’s done properly.”