“One of the reasons,” Ivy said from where she crouched in front of Kringle. “The other one being that I wanted to do something with my business degree that wasn’t soul-sucking. A pet store was the closest thing.”
“That,” Malcolm said, “and turning our house into a menagerie.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a cat?” Julie was only half joking.
Malcolm raised his hands. “Please don’t encourage her.”
Ivy made a face at her husband, but it was all in good fun.
They left Kringle inside and ventured out into the winter air. The wind was still today, and the sunlight sparkled off a fresh dusting of snow. Some of the footprints she’d left had been filled in entirely; others were now shallow depressions.
“The spot where my grandfather usually cut the trees is toward the back of the property.”
Malcolm crossed his arms and looked dubiously at the height of the snowbank. “Am I going to be able to fit my truck out there? I have four-wheel drive, but I’ve gotten stuck in drifts like these before. It’s not pretty.”
Julie bit her lip. “Maybe not. I think Gramps always managed by tying the tree to an old sled. It might still be in the shed.”
“Let’s see the tree first. Then we’ll figure out how to get it inside.”
Malcolm fetched a chainsaw and some bungee cords from the back of his truck then took up the rear as Julie led the way. She was traipsing through the snow, some places coming up as high as the tops of her boots. On the way, she teased Ivy by telling Malcolm stories of when they were kids. Some of these, Ivy must have told to Malcolm already. But others, he clearly hadn’t heard, judging by the way he laughed. By the time they reached the stream, Julie was warm from exertion, from being with friends, and from the nostalgia of simpler times. It shouldn’t feel as novel as it did.
“Here,” Julie said. It was difficult to tell, what with all the snow and the younger trees popping up, but she thought she’d found the right place. A swath of bare, frozen ground marked where the stream would be in the spring and summer. On her side of the property, the trees were receded a good six feet away from the banks of that stream. On the other side, presumably the Millers’ side, the trees hedged in closer. All except for a path leading over the stream on a wood-plank bridge.
She and Ivy argued over which tree to cut while Malcolm tried his best to steer them away from getting something too big. “If we cut a small one, say, no taller than six feet, we can probably manage to drag it back to the inn with or without a sled.”
Ivy propped her hands on her hips. “Six feet, Mal? This is going to bethe lastChristmas Eve party at the Cozy Holly Inn. They need a tree bigger than six feet!”
“But maybe one small enough to actually fit in the house?” Julie said gingerly. “The inn has regular ceilings, so anything over eight feet is out. And I need room to put on the tree topper.”
“You could always trim off the top branches if it winds up being too tall.”
“That sounds like it would make it look weird.”
“Well, I don’t have a measuring tape. I’m just trying to look out for the best tree!”
After some good-natured bickering, they settled on a tree. It was taller than Julie but not much taller than Malcolm, who was a bit over six feet tall. He marked out where he was going to cut and how the tree would fall and asked them to stand back.
As he started up the chainsaw, someone shouted behind them.
“Hey! Hey, what are you doing?”
Malcolm shut off the chainsaw. In the sudden silence, Julie’s ears rang. She and her friends turned to look into the furious faces of two older men. One, Gram’s age and moving with slow precision, must be Klaus Miller. His son looked similar, but twenty-five years younger. An older, less-friendly version of Nolan. Julie found herself glancing behind them for Nolan, but he didn’t appear.
“What are you doing?” Klaus demanded. He stepped onto the plank bridge, shaking his fist.
“We’re cutting down a tree to bring inside. For Christmas?” Julie’s voice lost its bravado at the last syllable. She hated confrontation. She fought the urge to bow to shoulders.
“From my property.” Klaus stopped in the middle of the plank bridge. Despite his age, he looked formidable. The lines of his face were as severe as his compressed lips.
Julie glanced at this side of the stream. She remembered the plank bridge from her childhood. The trees here had clearly been cut back. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I… I thought this was our property. Gramps used to cut down trees here every year.”
“Frommyproperty,” Klaus all but snarled.
“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know. Gramps never said anything about that. We’ll cut down from somewhere else.”
Nolan’s father stood with crossed arms on the far bank of the stream. He looked as angry as Klaus. “The boundaries should have been marked a long time ago.”
Klaus took a forbidding step forward. “It doesn’t matter. This willallbe my property in a couple weeks.”
