“Those have got to be some big olives,” she said with a laugh.
The tension in his shoulders drained away. He smiled back. “Imagine the martini glass.”
She laughed again. He liked the sound, and the way her eyes lit up from this distance, reflecting the twinkle of the Christmas lights wrapped around the railing.
Don’t get too friendly.She wasn’t staying in town. He would probably never see her again after Christmas.
And yet, here he was with an enormous Christmas tree. He fiddled with the hat covering his ears. “I heard you needed a tree.”
“I do.”
Her voice was small.
“How’s this one?”
“If you can get it into the house, it’s perfect.”
He grinned. “That sounds like a challenge.”
* * *
Challengewas an understatement.Nolan must have been superhuman or something because just trying to help him made Julie’s arms weak and her back ache. In the end, they had to trim a bit off the bottom in order to stand the tree upright. The one saving grace was the fact that she had already brought down the tree stand in preparation for Ivy’s visit.
Once upright, in front of the window and far enough from the fireplace not to be in danger of catching aflame, the tree was a sight to behold. The air smelled fresh with the scent of it. She would have rushed upstairs to get the decorations for the tree if Nolan hadn’t reminded her that the branches needed to settle for a day or two. In her apartment in Boston, she only had a small artificial tree, which didn’t need the same care.
This, she had to admit, was much better.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Julie asked. She and Ivy had finished the wine.
Nolan hesitated a moment before he nodded. “Thanks.” His hands were stuffed in his pockets, and his shoulders hunched. He looked slightly out of place.
“You can bring Snowball inside if you’d like.” The dog had waited obediently on the porch, her nose pressed to the window, watching them.
Relief flashed across his expression, but he asked, “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Kringle can stay out of the way if he knows what’s good for him.” Historically, he hadn’t shown that amount of common sense, but she hadn’t seen him since she and Nolan had finagled the pine tree into the house.
As she made the coffee in the kitchen, she glanced out at the path the tree had made in the snow. How funny that only hours earlier, his grandfather and father had yelled at her for trying to cut down a tree. And now Nolan had shown up with one. She doubted the older Miller men had had a change of heart, which meant that Nolan had heard about the incident and gone against their wishes to make it right. That said a lot about him.
When she returned, mugs in hand, Nolan had taken Gram’s chair. Snowball lay on the floor at his feet, panting happily. She still had a scratch across her nose, but it didn’t look bad. The clumps of ice in her fur were an entirely different matter. Nolan was slowly picking them out and turning them into a swiftly melting snowball on his knee.
“Here. I’ll get a bowl or something for that.” She thrust both cups into his hand and returned to the kitchen. She scouted for the cat—not present—before she found the bowl. The kitchen table and countertop were heaped with the still-drying ornaments. With her luck, Kringle would find his way in here and knock them off and she’d have to start all over again. She and Ivy had chatted while they worked, catching up with a decade of life’s gossip, as they painted the wordsCozy Holly Innin gold and added small holly sprigs in red and green at the corners. The name on the opposite side of the clear glass ornaments was also in gold with holly berries. When they dried, maybe tonight, Julie would fill them with ribbons of red and green.
She brought the bowl to Nolan, who awkwardly handed a cup of coffee back to her in exchange. Julie took her customary spot on the couch, curling her legs up to one side. She looked at the Christmas tree and smiled.
“Your grandfather told me not to cut down any trees.”
“I know.”
The two words were clipped. When Julie glanced at him, she found his jaw tensed. He continued to pick at Snowball’s fur, even though it looked mostly clean. The dog clearly loved the attention.
“Then why…”
“I’m not my grandfather.” Nolan straightened. He still had the coffee cradled in one hand, but he hadn’t taken a sip. With the tree blocking a lot of the ambient light from the window, his gaze was shadowed when he turned it to her. “I cut it down from the same area where your grandparents always did.”
Julie found it suddenly hard to talk. She took a sip of coffee to ease the tightness in her throat before she whispered, “Thank you.” She looked at the tree again, feeling all the more grateful that it was here. If Gram had only one last Christmas in this inn, she wanted it to be the best.
Even if Gramps was no longer with them.
