Jack peers up at me, looking sheepish. “Sorry I tried to grab a cookie.”
“That’s all right,” I tell him as I crouch so that we’re eye level. He seems like he’s in elementary school, but tall for his age. Smiling, I offer him my hand. He smiles back, then gives my hand a firm shake. “I’m Gabby.”
“Jack,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise, Jack.”
He tips his head. “You like the holidays, huh?”
I wiggle my jingle-bell earrings and adjust my reindeer-antler headband. Jack eyes up the reversible white sequin snowflakes on my red sweater dress. “What clued you in?”
He laughs. “You’re funny.”
“Aw, thanks.” I tip my head toward the pastry table. “If Liz is all right with it, you’re welcome to have that cookie you wanted.”
He glances up at her and earns her smile. “Mommy? Can I have it?”
“Yes, you may.”
With his mother’s approval, I pass Jack a small recycled-paper plate that I hand-stamped with snowflakes. Jonathan definitely almost burst an organ not teasing me for working on them every spare minute I had when a customer wasn’t around, and the weirdest part is I missed his heckling.
Using the tongs expertly, Jack slides the cookie onto his plate. “Mint chocolate’s my favorite,” I tell him.
He grins up at me, mouth already full of cookie. “Mine, too.”
His eyes wander the store as he chews his bite, and then they widen as he spots a book in the children’s section that I keep on lower shelves so kids can access them. Gasping, he drops the cookie plate on the pastry table and runs toward it.
“Jack, wait!” his mom calls. “Use a…” He’s already tugged the book off the shelf and dropped to the floor, flipping through the pages. “Baby wipe,” she says helplessly. “We’ll buy that, I promise.”
“I wasn’t worried in the least. Would you like coffee?” I ask her, pointing to the carafes I set up. “Or tea? We also have hot cocoa and spiced cider.”
Before Liz can answer me, Jonathan’s voice cuts in, chilly as a blizzard. “This isn’t a library, kid. You browse it, you buy it.”
I whip around, scowling at him from across the store. “Jonathan Frost! Don’t be such a Scrooge.”
He arches an eyebrow at Jack, who’s glaring up at him and says, “Bah humbug.”
Rage pulses through me. I storm toward Jonathan, prepared to give him a piece of my mind. But suddenly Jack’s face breaks into a grin, and he leaps from the floor, launching himself at Jonathan.
“Uncle Jon!”
Jonathan sweeps him up and hikes him high in his arms. “Hey, bud.”
“Throw me!” Jack says. “Come on, throw me!”
Rolling his eyes like I’ve seen him so many times, Jonathan sighs. “Ah, I don’t know.”
“Do it, do it, do it!” Jack yells.
Jonathan tips his head side to side, like he’s deliberating. Then, catching Jack completely off guard, he tosses him high up into the air, making his nephew shriek with happiness.
I watch them with a growing sense of panic. I can’t take this, watching Jonathan so confident and capable with his nephew, playfully tossing Jack higher and higher, before hugging him tight. My heart’s melting like hot caramel, warming every corner of me.
After one last toss that earns his nephew’s shrieking laughter, Jonathan sets Jack on the ground, not the slightest bit winded, a faint flush of pink on his cheeks the only clue he just threw a sixty-pound kid into the air a half dozen times. Our eyes meet.
“Liz, Jack,” Jonathan says, eyes on me as he wraps an arm around Jack’s shoulders, “I’m assuming you’ve met Gabriella. Gabriella, this is my sister, Liz, and her son, my nephew, Jack. Who I did not know were coming.”
He gives her some kind of censorious sibling glare, but Liz only grins at him, a look that’s downright disarming. She has deep, long dimples in both her cheeks, and her dark blue eyes sparkle. It makes me wonder if Jonathan becomes even more stunning when he smiles, too.
“We’ve met,” Liz says. “Gabby was very gracious about our less than smooth entrance.”
Jack tells him, “She gave me a cookie and let me look at books. And she’s really pretty, just like you said—”
Jonathan’s hand claps over Jack’s mouth, his cheeks turning an even deeper pink. “Ever heard of a secret, Jack?”