“Anyway,” I said, “Now you see why I need to hire holiday staff to help with the registers. Especially around Christmas Fest.” Most of the year, I could manage the store myself, but not in December.
He nodded. “Well, your store certainly makes enough to justify the expense. Some of our smaller stores aren’t so lucky.”
“Luck?” Lyla snorted. “This has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with Avery Pinkerton’s managerial skills.”
Chris smiled, and his eyes briefly met mine. “After looking over the books this morning, I’d have to agree.”
Heat flushed my cheeks.
A moment passed between us as his jade eyes found mine. Though he wasn’t smiling, there was a crinkle in those eyes—the closest thing to a smile I’d seen from him directed at me yet. Then he opened his big mouth and ruined it.
“But there’s always room for improvement.”
I put a hand on my hip, taking a step back as Lyla gave a low whistle. “Improvement?”
“Oh, boy,” Lyla muttered beneath her breath and backed away from the conversation.
Chris shrugged. “Sure. Are you against improving and learning?”
I shook my head slowly. Oh, you think you’re so clever… thinking you trapped me. “Of course not,” I said carefully. “What I am against is an arrogant city boy who arrived wearing a suit that costs more than my car coming in for less than three hours and thinking he knows more about my store than I do.”
“Correction.” He held up a finger close to my nose. It took everything I had not to smack it away from my face. “My store.”
My lungs expanded around the deep, calming breath I forced myself to take. “All right,” I said carefully, looking around the store. “Why don’t you show me how it’s done? There’s a customer over there who’s been lingering for about thirty minutes but hasn’t bought anything yet.” I angled my chin toward old Ed Williams. He’d been coming into my store every week for two years—solely for the free cookies and coffee I put out for customers. He was a nice enough guy who had been surviving on pretty scant social security checks.
However, not once in two years had he ever bought anything from my store—and not for a lack of trying on my part.
“You want me to sell something to that old man?” he hitched his thumb over his shoulder, and I gave a single nod of my head.
“That’s right.” I looked down at the display beside me and grabbed a small snow globe, handing it to Chris. “This. Sell him this and get it out of my store. It’s only twenty dollars and should be pretty easy.”
Chris took the snow globe from me, examining it as he it turned it upside down, then flipped it back upright. Fake snow floated within the orb and landed in a glitter bomb over the two figurines of Santa and Mrs. Claus ice skating. “And if I sell him this snow globe… you’ll make the changes I suggest to this store?”
I nodded. “Sure.” Or, I’d at least listen to them.
His eyes narrowed impossibly more. “And if I lose?”
“You have to implement my ideas for changing the other stores.”
“You have ideas for the other stores?” He looked at me skeptically.
“That’s right. And you don’t have to sound so shocked by that. I have lots of ideas.”
His full, sexy lips pressed together as he examined me. Green eyes surveyed my face, and a quiet hm slipped through his closed lips. “I’d like to hear your ideas regardless of whether I win or lose…” Well, that caught me off guard. I’d never been one to hide my emotions well, and I gave a little gasp. “… but I’d also like you to hear mine,” he added.
The last thing I wanted was to reveal my ideas to Chris Pohle. I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I had a strong suspicion he would take my ideas as his own and tell his dad all about them at the next board meeting. Then, I’d be cut out, cut back, and eventually replaced. “Sure… after you sell that snow globe.”
He harrumphed. “But I’m literally here to have these meetings with you about improvements. I can’t just pack up and go home because I can’t sell a stupid snow globe.”
I raised a brow. “So you’re admitting you can’t sell it?”
He sighed. “I’m saying that I’m not willing to stake my job on it.”
We’d had that stupid snow globe for sale for at least three years. I’d tried everything to sell it to anyone, not just Ed Williams, with zero luck. Chris would have to be a retail genius to get the one man who never spends money to shell out twenty bucks on that.
He blew out a tight breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t not discuss my ideas with you. It’s the only reason I’m here—”
“I thought you were here to play Santa?” I whispered the last two words of the sentence in case any little ones were running around.
“Yeah, I am. But I’m really here to work. To have meetings with you about this store.”
I clicked my tongue. “Then I guess you better get to work selling that snow globe.”
Chris grunted a sigh and straightened the lime green sweater, smoothing it down over what I was sure was a six-pack underneath. “Fine. Here goes nothing.”
Chapter 4
Chris
“Stop following me!” The old man was running—actually running from me, hobbling around the crowded Christmas shop, perched on his cane to avoid my snow globe sales pitch. He paused at the cookie tray, grabbed three decorated sugar cookies in the shape of snowflakes, and pointed a bony finger in my direction.
“Sir, I assure you, I’m not following you. I haven’t moved from my spot right here. There’s no pressure to buy anything—”
“What is this? I’m being forced to spend my hard-earned money! I thought this was America… land of the free!”
I set the snow globe down on the table beside me and glanced at Avery—her lips pressed together tightly, hand covering the snickering mouth behind it and her eyes sparkled with mischief. Why that little…
She set me up. She knew this old curmudgeon would never buy a pencil, let alone a snow globe.
“No one is forcing you to buy anything,” I lowered my voice, hoping that the crowd of shoppers staring at us would soon mind their business and go back to browsing the hideous sweaters. “I, uh…” I looked around for inspiration. I knew there was no hope of selling that snow globe… at least not today. Right now? I was just trying to save face. In a small town like this, soon the story would spread far and wide about the city boy outsider who came in and screamed at the sweet old man who only wanted some cookies. I was quickly realizing, if I wanted to win Avery over… get her to hear my ideas and implement them, I had to win the town over first.
“Sir, what’s your name?”
“Why? You want to steal my identity too while you’re at it?”
I wanted to laugh, but held it in. Something told me this guy wouldn’t exactly appreciate that. “Not at all… I want to tell you you’re our hundredth customer today.”