Gloria

After building a gingerbread house that looked astonishingly like Franklin’s cabin, Gloria made dinner for the two of them. She insisted, telling him it was her turn, and Franklin begrudgingly agreed. She played another movie while they ate—she stopped being subtle and purposely chose a movie called A Christmas Carol for him to see—before walking him to her door when the movie was over.

In her doorway, as Franklin struggled to come up with another reason to linger, Gloria tucked one of her lovely curls behind her ear. “So, um, if you don’t have work tomorrow, or if you do and want to stop by after, I was thinking maybe we could do watch another movie, maybe make some hot chocolate.”

“Are you still trying to make me like Christmas?”

“Depends,” she said, peeking up at him with a sly look in her eyes. “Is it working?”

It… it was. And that just made him more frustrated.

He managed to avoid the temptation that was Gloria Watson for more than two weeks—a lifetime when it came to just how really, really tempting his blonde dynamo was—only to take the first opportunity to insert himself into her life.

The accident was an accident. He never would’ve wanted to see her hurt, and his heart just about stopped when she stumbled off the ladder and landed with a thump on the ground.

Still, he couldn’t deny that he’d been happier these last few days than the last fifteen Decembers combined.

“We’ll see,” he said after a few seconds. Because he didn’t want to see the flash of disappointment, he turned to look outside. The moon above glittered on the last of the snow. “I should head to the garage tomorrow. If it doesn’t snow more overnight, that is.”

She giggled. The sweet sound twisted something inside of Franklin. “It does snow a lot in Hamlet, doesn’t it?”

“The snow can be a bit much,” he agreed, “but it’s beautiful in the spring.”

“I’m glad I’ll still be here then.”

Franklin turned enough so that he could look at her out of the corner of his eye. Gloria was staring in front of her, peering at the snow, smiling as she imagined what the mountain would look like in the springtime. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he liked the idea of standing next to her when the grass was vivid and green, and the flowers started to bloom.

But why did she make it sound like it wasn’t a given she’d be staying in Hamlet?

“What… what do you mean by that?” he asked carefully.

“I’m gonna be here until at least next January. It’s what my great aunt said I had to do to get the inheritance.”

“Inheritance?” Why did that ring a bell? Franklin almost thought he remembered hearing his sister saying something about that. Or maybe it was one of the other Hamlet gossips…

“Well, yeah. It’s why I had to move in so quickly. Great Aunt Patti put it in her will that I have to live in the cabin from January to January to earn my inheritance. I can sell the cabin if I want, but the rest of her estate goes to me if I stay for a year.”

Why did it feel like the casual way she talked about leaving at Christmastime hit him like a slug straight to his chest?

Simple. Because it’s exactly what his mother did when he was fifteen.

Why was it that everyone always seemed to leave?

He ran his fingers through his hair, looking anywhere and everywhere but at Gloria. “So, next January… you’re moving out? That it?”

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to get through this January, right?” When he didn’t say anything, Gloria glanced up so that she was looking straight in his face. Her expression turned concerned. “Hey. You okay, Franklin?”

“Huh? Oh… yeah. I’m fine.”

A couple of days after her fall, about ten days before Christmas, Gloria’s wrist was feeling so much better. The bruise on her behind was healed.

The one on her heart, though? That one was only beginning to throb.

It took Gloria until the first evening without Franklin’s company to realize that maybe she might’ve opened her mouth and stuck her foot inside of it when she admitted the reason why she was giving Hamlet a try.

She didn’t think it was a secret. It seemed as if everyone in the village knew that she’d moved in because Great Aunt Patti had left the cabin to her. A couple of locals had asked when she would be willing to sell, and nearly all of them were aware that she had to make it at least a year to earn her full inheritance.

Franklin was Great Aunt Patti’s next door neighbor. She just assumed that he knew the stipulations, too.

His reaction told her that she was way wrong.