“What?” Her voice is light, but there’s a defensive edge in her eyes. “Sound lame, Mr. Hollywood?”
After a hard swallow, I clear my throat. “Not at all.” My voice is steadier than I expect, softer too. But inside, the words slam into me. Because Audrey Nouel is sitting across from me, confessing her Hallmark-movie dream, and I know damn well that’s not me.
I’m not flannel and PTA meetings. I’m Hollywood contracts and cross-country flights. I’m the very life she left behind.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, focusing on finishing the cookie I’m too preoccupied to taste. But when the cookie is gone and the silence between us grows, I have a sneaking suspicion I’m lying.
I grit my teeth,the saw biting into the trunk with slow, steady strokes. “You sure this is the one?” My voice is muffled under layers of tree branches.
“It’s straight. It’s full. It’ll fit in my apartment without bringing down the ceiling. Checks all the boxes.” She sounds smug as hell, while I’m crouched under a fat Douglas fir with snow seeping into my gloves, sawing away like a man auditioning for Lumberjack of the Year.
So much for all those action-hero workouts with Felix and his six-figure personal trainer. Wilderness survival training would’ve been more useful than the six-pack I developed.
“You sure you still want to do it all yourself?” She sounds more amused than impressed.
Notthat I’m trying to impress her.
The saw slips forward, and I have to reseat it into the pathetic excuse for a cut I’ve managed in ten minutes. “I got it.”
I don’t, but I’d never disclose that to someone with a Christmas-Tree-Farmer-Hero complex.
Besides, Audrey brought me here for the whole “cut your own” experience. It would be ungrateful not to follow through.
Snow shakes off the branch above me, melting on the exposed skin at my neck. I shiver, the saw slipping again.
Cursing under my breath, I admit that maybe part of the reason I’ve insisted on doing this alone is to prove I can. As if a clean cut through a ten-inch trunk might magically qualify me for the Norman Rockwell painting Audrey wants—one I have no intention of delivering.
“Fine.” Audrey’s tone sounds suspiciously amused. “But if that tree falls on you, you can’t hold me legally liable.”
I swallow back a sarcastic retort and get to sawing.
Another ten minutes later, with Audrey having wandered off to refill our hot chocolate, I’ve got a pain in my back that I’m pretty sure only Lars, the masseuse at The Haven, can fix—but at least the tree is finally about to give way.
That’s when something sharp jabs me in the ass.
“Um, Audrey?”
No answer—unless you count a deep huffing and the sound of snow being pawed.
The jab comes again, harder this time, knocking me sideways out from under the tree. I sprawl into the snow, and when I look up, I come face to face with antlers. Two sets of them, one reindeer snuffling aggressively at my coat, the other circling like backup muscle.
“Uh—Audrey?” I repeat, my voice cracking.
“Oh my god.”
I tip my head to the right, just enough to see Audrey halfway up the hill, thermos in each hand, eyes wide.
“Um, stay still, Jack.”
Duh. But I don’t say it. Because I’m pretty sure I once saw a documentary about reindeer that emphasized how aggressive they could be.
A giant snout nuzzles the side of my neck.
Or was that a moose documentary?
Well, whatever it was, these two didn’t get the memo because my playing-possum strategy is met with two of Santa’s wingmen deciding I’m their new human lollipop.
Blitzen, by the name tag jangling from his harness, begins snuffling lower.
