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

so hard, I don’t even know if I could find it again.”

As he peeled off the bags, the guy turned out to be very normal-looking, with damp and dark curly hair, kind of skinny, jeans a little too big for him. He looked at the counter, then headed over to me.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” he asked in a low voice. He nodded slightly in the direction of Tinfoil Guy. Obviously, he didn’t want to sit over there, either.

“Sure,” I said.

“He’s harmless,” the guy said, still very quietly. “But he can talk a lot. I got stuck with him for about a half an hour once. He really likes cups. He can talk about cups for a long time.”

“Does he always wear tinfoil?”

“I don’t think I’d recognize him without it. I’m Stuart, by the way.”

“I’m . . . Julie.”

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“My train,” I said, pointing to the vista of snow and darkness. “We got stuck.”

“Where were you going?” he asked.

“To Florida. To see my grandparents. My parents are in jail.”

I decided it was worth a try, just slipping it into the conversation like that. It got the reaction I half expected. Stuart laughed.

“Are you with anyone?” he asked.

“I have a boyfriend,” I said.

I’m usually not this stupid, I promise you. My brain was on a Noah track. I was still thinking about my idiotic message.

The corners of Stuart’s mouth wrinkled, like he was trying not to laugh. He beat a little rhythm on the table and smiled as if trying to blow my awkward moment away. I should have taken the out he was giving me, but I couldn’t just leave it. I had to try to cover.

“The only reason I said that,” I began, seeing the doomed conversational path open wide in front of me and getting myself into sprinting position, “is that I’m supposed to be calling him. But I don’t have a signal.”

Yes. I had stolen Jeb’s story. Sadly, though, when I spoke, I didn’t take into account that my phone was sitting in front of me, proudly displaying a full range of bars. Stuart looked at it, then at me, but said nothing.

Now I really had something to prove. I would never be able to let it go until I showed him just how normal I was.

“I didn’t,” I said. “Until just now.”

“Probably the weather,” he said charitably.

“Probably. I’ll just try now, really quick.”

“Take as long as you like,” he said.

Which was fair enough. He’d only sat with me to escape a long conversation about cups with Tinfoil Guy. It wasn’t like we were accountable to each other’s schedules. Stuart was probably glad that I was breaking off this conversation. He got up and took off his coat as I called. He was wearing a Target uniform underneath, and even more plastic bags. They came tumbling out of the inner folds of his coat, about a dozen of them. He gathered them up, completely unfazed.

When I got Noah’s voice mail, I tried to hide my frustration by craning my head to look out the window. I didn’t want to leave my pathetic follow-up message in front of Stuart, so I just hung up.

Stuart gave me a little “nothing?” shrug as he sat down.

“They must be busy with the Smorgasbord,” I said.

“Smorgasbord?”

“Noah’s family is tangentially Swedish, so they put out an amazing Smorgasbord on Christmas Eve.”

I saw his eyebrow go up when I said “tangentially.” I use that word a lot. It’s one of Noah’s favorites. I picked it up from him. I wish I’d remembered not to use it around other people, because it was kind of our word. Also, when on a campaign to convince a stranger that you aren’t a few fries short of a Happy Meal, throwing around phrases like “tangentially Swedish” is not the best way to go.

“Everyone loves a Smorgasbord,” he said graciously.

It was time for a change of topic.

“Target,” I said, pointing at his shirt. Except I said, “Tar-shay,” in that French way that really isn’t very funny.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Now you can see why I had to risk my life getting to work. When your job is important as mine, you have to take some chances; otherwise, society doesn’t function. That guy must really want to make a call.”

Stuart pointed out the window, and I turned. Jeb was at the phone booth, which was surrounded by about a foot of snow. He was trying to force the door open.

“Poor Jeb,” I said. “I should lend him my phone . . . now that I have a signal.”

“Is that Jeb? You’re right . . . Wait . . . how do you know Jeb?”

“He was on my train. He said he was coming to Gracetown. I guess he plans on walking the rest of the way or something.”

“It looks like he really, really wants to make a call,” Stuart said, pulling aside the slippery candy cane on the window to get a better look. “Why doesn’t he just use his phone?”

“His phone broke when we crashed.”

“Crashed?” Stuart repeated. “Your train . . . crashed?”

“Just into snow.”

Stuart was about to press a bit further on the train-crashing subject when the door opened, and in they poured. All fourteen of them, yelping and squealing and trailing snowflakes.

“Oh my God,” I said.

Chapter Four

There is nothing about a bad situation that fourteen hyper cheerleaders can’t worsen.

It took about three minutes for the unassuming Waffle House to become the new offices of the law firm of Amber, Amber, Amber, and Madison. They set up camp in a clump of booths in the corner opposite from us. A few of them gave me an “oh, good, you are still alive” nod, but for the most part, they had no interest in anyone else.

This did not mean that no one had an interest in them, however.

Don-Keun was a new man. The moment they arrived, he vanished for a second. We heard muffled ecstatic screaming coming from somewhere in the back of the Waffle House kitchen, then he reappeared, his face shining with the