Page 21 of Christmas By The Book

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s been jammed as long as I can remember.”

“Let me see if I can just...” he murmured, as he stooped down to get a better look at it. He reached out to run his fingers along the compartment, gently trying to ease it open. But it still wasn’t moving. I knew there was no way he would get it to shift. I had been trying for years now, and I still hadn’t managed to pull it off.

“I could try and pry it open, but I’d be worried about breaking it.” He sighed, shaking his head, as he straightened up again. “Best to leave it for now.”

“Yeah, I need to move it back to the house anyway,” I replied.

He frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s no point leaving everything in this store,” I replied gesturing around. “Not now that Wharton is going to own it.”

Just saying those words out loud made my breath hitch at the back of my throat. I couldn’t believe I was even having to contend with that reality, but what other choice did I have? He was going to have this place in his slimy little hands soon enough, and there would be nothing at all I could do about it. I didn’t know what chance I stood of actually stopping him. I could still remember, all too clearly, the anger in his eyes when he had threatened me the day before. He wasn’t going to forget that anytime soon. If anything, he would go even harder, just to make an example of me and make certain nobody else would dare stand up against him.

“You don’t have to talk like that,” he assured me. “We’ll find a way to keep this place, I promise.”

“I just don’t see how,” I replied. “I mean, with the blizzard coming in, it’s not as though anyone is going to be in a rush to come out here and get books, is it?”

“Maybe not, but there have to be other ways we can go about it,” he pointed out. “You don’t have to be defeated. Not yet.”

I stared down at the music box as it finished up playing the song. The last notes lingered in the air for a moment. Normally, they would have filled me with a flood of Christmas spirit, but today, they just felt sad.

“Do you have a Christmas tree up at your place yet?” he asked suddenly.

I frowned, glancing up at him. “What do you mean?” I replied, nonplussed.

“I mean, maybe you need a break from this place,” he replied, gesturing around. “Let me get you a tree.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t, I want to,” he replied. “There’s still time to get one before the blizzard comes in. Is there a Christmas tree farm around here somewhere?”

“A few miles east of town,” I told him. “But—”

“No more buts,” he replied, pointing to his car. “We’re going. Come on.”

I locked up the store and let him drive me to the Christmas tree farm just outside of town. I didn’t know what I was doing, what I intended to achieve with this, but he had sounded so certain, I wasn’t going to argue with him.

And the sweetness of this moment wasn’t lost on me. That he was going out of his way to get me this tree, when he didn’t have to, but he was insistent on doing something for me, something to lift my Christmas spirit. I wasn’t sure what I would have been doing if it hadn’t been for Seth. Sitting around at home, waiting for Wharton to roll in, I guess?

“I’ve never had a real tree before,” I admitted as we stepped out of the car at the Christmas tree farm. The air was filled with the spicy scent of pine, and the snow sparkled on the ground below us. It was chilly, with the blizzard coming in, but it wasn’t so bad yet that you couldn’t enjoy the cold.

“Really?” he replied, raising his eyebrows, as he approached the owner.

“No, my grandmother always said they were way too hard to clean up,” I confessed.

“Well, they might be, but Christmas isn’t about convenience, is it?” he shot back with a grin.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s easy for you to say, when you’re not going to have to clean up after it!” I protested.

“Oh, I’ll stick around,” he replied. “If you’ll let me. Hey, excuse me, can you show me your biggest tree?”

The owner of the place showed us a few trees. The biggest one wouldn’t even have fit through my front door, but the next one down seemed a better fit for me. I didn’t know how I felt about him paying for it, but he insisted.

“I can’t fit one in my apartment this year,” he replied. “So you should have it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m certain.”