Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by Myracle, John (good book club books TXT) 📕

safe place. It was also my sad place, since it housed so many Jeb memories.

Even so, I found solace in its smells and routines—and especially its music. Call it “corporate” or “canned” or whatever, but the Starbucks CDs were good.

“Hey, Christina,” I called, “care for a little ‘Hallelujah’?”

“Heck yeah,” she called back.

I stuck in the Lifted: Songs of the Spirit CD (which, yes, Dorrie gagged at) and selected track seven. Rufus Wainwright’s voice filled the air, and I thought, Ah, the sweet sound of Starbucks.

What Dorrie failed to appreciate—along with the squillions of other Starbucks scoffers—was that the people who worked at Starbucks were still people, just like everyone else. Yes, Starbucks was owned by some hotshot Starbucks daddy, and yes, Starbucks was a chain. But Christina lived here in Gracetown just like Dorrie did. So did I. So did the rest of the baristas. So what was the big deal?

I walked out of the back room and started unpacking the pastries left by Carlos, the food-delivery guy. My attention kept getting pulled to the purple chairs at the front of the store, and tears made the reduced-fat blueberry muffins go blurry.

Stop it, I commanded myself. Get a frickin’ grip, or it’s going to be a very long day.

“Whoa,” Christina said, her feet appearing in front of me. “You cut your hair.”

I lifted my head. “Um . . . yeah.”

“And dyed it pink.”

“That’s not a problem, is it?”

Starbucks had a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell appearance code that prohibited nose rings, other facial piercings, and visible tattoos—meaning you could have tattoos and piercings, you just couldn’t show them. I didn’t think there was anything in the guidelines that said you couldn’t have pink hair, though. Then again, the topic had never come up.

“Hmm,” Christina said, studying me. “No, it’s fine. Surprised me is all.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said under my breath.

I didn’t intend for her to hear me, but she did.

“Addie, are you okay?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

Her gaze shifted to my shirt. She frowned. “What pig are you not supposed to forget?”

“Huh?” I looked down. “Oh. Uh . . . nothing.” I suspected that pigs were probably prohibited in Starbucks, too, and I saw no reason to get Christina all worked up by explaining the whole story. I’d keep Gabriel hidden in the back room after I picked him up, and she would never have to know.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she said.

I smiled brightly and peeled off the sticky note. “Never better!”

She went back to prepping the coffee station, and I folded the note in half and stuck it in my pocket. I lugged the pastries to the glass case, put on a pair of plastic gloves, and started loading the trays. Rufus Wainwright’s cover of “Hallelujah” filled the store, and I hummed along. It was almost pleasant, in a life-sucks-but-at-least-there’s-good-music sort of way.

But as I listened to the lyrics—truly listened, instead of just letting them float over me—the almost-pleasant feelings went away. I’d always thought this was an inspirational song about God or something, because of all the hallelujahs. Only it turned out there were words before and after the hallelujahs, and those words were hardly uplifting.

Rufus was singing about love, and how love couldn’t exist without faith. I grew still, because what he was saying sounded way too familiar. I listened some more, and was horrified to realize that the whole song was about a guy who was in love, only the person he loved betrayed him. And those heartbreakingly sweet hallelujahs? They weren’t inspirational hallelujahs. They were . . . they were “cold and broken” hallelujahs—it said so right there in the chorus!

Why had I ever liked this song? This song sucked!

I went to change the CD, but it switched to the next track before I got there. A gospel version of “Amazing Grace” filled the store, and I thought, Well, it’s a heck of a lot better than a broken hallelujah. And also, Please, God, I sure could use some grace.

Chapter Eight

By five A.M., our morning prep was done. At 5:01, our first customer rapped on the glass door, and Christina walked over to officially unlock it.

“Merry day-after-Christmas, Earl,” she said to the burly guy waiting outside. “Didn’t know if we’d see you today.”

“You think my customers care what the weather’s like?” Earl said. “Think again, darlin’.”

He trundled into the store, bringing with him a gust of frigid air. His cheeks were ruddy, and he wore a red-and-black hat with earflaps. He was huge, bearded, and looked like a lumberjack—which worked out nicely since he was a lumberjack. He drove one of those semis you never wanted to get behind on one of the many mountain roads around here, since, first of all, the weight he pulled meant he maintained a speed of a rip-roaring twenty miles an hour, and, second of all, the back of his open trailer was filled with logs. Massive logs, stacked five or six high. Logs, should the trailer restraints snap, that would roll off the truck and smush you as flat as a crushed to-go cup.

Christina crossed back behind the bar and got the steamer going. “Must be nice to be needed, though, huh?”

Earl grunted. He tromped over to the cash register, squinted at me, and said, “What’d you do to your hair?”

“I cut it,” I said. I watched his face. “And dyed it.” When he still didn’t say anything, I added, “Do you like it?”

“What’s it matter?” he replied. “It’s your hair.”

“I know. But . . . ” I found I didn’t know how to finish my sentence. Why did I care if Earl liked it or not? Eyes down, I took his money. He always got the same drink, so there was no further discussion required.

Christina swirled a generous galaxy of whipped cream onto Earl’s raspberry mocha, drizzled the cream with bright red raspberry syrup, and topped the whole thing off with a white plastic lid.

“Here you go,” she announced.

“Thank you, ladies,” he said. He raised his cup in a toast, then strode