Read Love Finds You in Frost Minnesota for Free Online Page A

the way,” Jack said, gracefully changing the subject, “who is Greta? I noticed you prayed for her during grace.”
    “Greta is a little girl in my class. She and her family are in financial trouble and currently homeless. Greta comes to school in worn-out clothing. She’s also a very cheerful, friendly child who doesn’t seem to have emotional problems as a result. They are trying to find her grandmother who is supposed to live in this area.”
    Jack sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He was silent for a long time before saying, “We so easily get caught up in our own issues that we forget we could have it so much worse.” He surprised her by adding, “Is there anything I can do?”
    “Unless you can conjure up a grandmother out of thin air or a free house, I don’t think so.”
    Jack didn’t say any more, but he looked thoughtful.

Chapter Five
    • • • • • • • • • • • •
    On her way home from school, Merry stopped at the bank to deposit the previous day’s checks.
    Penny Barlow was at the teller’s window. When she saw Merry approach, she waved her over. Penny was what Merry called a professional gossip. Though she was a relatively new resident of Frost, by working where she did, Penny could keep her fingers on the pulses of several small communities in a rural radius of thirty or forty miles. If something happened anywhere in Penny’s realm, Merry knew she’d hear about it on her next visit to the bank. Sometimes downloading all her information took Penny a long time. That’s why Merry chose to use the drive-up window whenever she could.
    “So you have a B-and-B guest at your house.” Penny’s nose twitched delightedly. “A tall, dark, and handsome stranger too.”
    “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I suppose you could say that.” The conversation made Merry uncomfortable.
    “I think he’ll be there for a while,” Penny whispered. “Good luck, because I don’t think he’s happy about it.”
    Merry thought back to Jack’s reference to the state of his family affairs. “Should you be telling me this?”
    Penny waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s not about bank business. My friend at the Register of Deeds office in Blue Earth said—”
    “Don’t tell me. She’s not supposed to be talking about Mr. Frost’s business either.” It was the one thing about small-town life that Merry had never quite grown accustomed to. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. Sometimes it seemed that others knew her business before she herself did. In Minneapolis people sometimes didn’t know their own neighbors. Here, only a hundred miles away, it was a completely different story. Still, she didn’t regret opening her Christmas store in a town so aptly named. It was as if it were meant to be. She’d been hired for her teaching job the same week she’d decided to make the move.
    “And that’s another thing! Isn’t it crazy? Jack Frost ! In Frost. Now, right before Christmas!” Penny’s brow furrowed. “He’s gorgeous, of course, but kind of grumpy according to my friend. He doesn’t seem to like his relatives very much. Or Christmas either. I thought a guy with a name like that would be crazy about the season. He made some disparaging remark about Frost turning into a Christmas carnival. He’s like the Grinch!”
    Merry managed to excuse herself before Penny could reveal more unwelcome gossip and escaped into the street.
    A cloud of gloom descended upon her as she drove the nine and a half miles toward Frost. Jack and little Greta Olson were two complications she hadn’t planned on.
    Greta was such a sweet, happy child despite her family’s current circumstances. Joy in the face of discouragement—that was Greta. And Jack . . . he was the picture of discouragement about what she would have thought of as a blessing. He didn’t seem to want what had fallen into his lap—the quaint little town she loved. Both people, for very different reasons,