Page 86 of The Christmas Yes List

I look around at the interior. A fresh leather interior. It smells of shampooed carpet. There’s a dangly tree thingy hanging from the mirror. And that’s it. It’s the cleanest, emptiest car in the world except for the clutter of a dangly tree thing.

And he got in my dad’s truck instead.

Scratch that. He LEFT THE CAR RENTAL at the airport?!

The lengths to which this man has gone for his little game . . . I’ll tell ya. It’s hard to process. “W-what about your sister’s car you drove us around in?”

“Well . . . I took her car instead so you wouldn’t feel weird about it.”

“You took her car instead when you had this car around all week? What happened at the airport? You just left this at the airport?”

He sucks in a breath. “Yes.”

“And you went back for it?”

His gaze averts mine most purposefully as he looks at a passing tree. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He laughs. “Because a once-in-a-lifetime situation arose where a beautiful woman asked me out of the blue if I wanted to take a ride with her. Why else?”

I am struggling for words here. Partly because it’s all so very confusing what to believe and what not to believe, and partly because this is just plain crazy.

“You can’t just leave a rental car mid-pickup at an airport.”

“You can when you explain the situation.”

“What did you say?”

“That a once-in-a-lifetime situation arose where a beautiful woman asked me out of the blue if I wanted to take a ride with her,” he repeats, and his tone adds, Obviously.

I laugh out loud, incredulously. “And he just let you?”

At this, James smiles, gaze fixed on the road. “He took one look at you and, yes, he let me.”

I hate that smile.

I hate the way a little dimple on his cheek turns my stomach over.

I hate that he called me beautiful. That he says it as though it’s the most natural, logical thing in the world, like calling rain wet and the sky blue.

I hate that I like it all.

“Well.” It’s all I can say. The only word to signify This conversational topic is over. I have nothing to add. Let’s let it lie.

We drive just to the point of Hollyhock Bridge before making an abrupt turn up a private driveway. When we are past the break of trees leading up to Nana’s farmhouse, flanked on each side by towering, snow-laden oaks, I realize he’s removed his gloves. He’s leaning forward slightly over the steering wheel, taking it all in.

Now it’s his turn to speak. “Well,” he says.

Yup. That pretty much sums it up.

Nana has lived on her farmhouse on the outer crest of Maple Hills for the past forty years, and before that, it was home to her parents, and before that, to her grandparents. The 350-acre spread of forest, river, and rolling hills has been used for several purposes over the decades. A Christmas tree farm. A homestead with two hundred head of cattle. A short stint as a cabin retreat for trout fishermen. It still serves the children of Maple Hills Chapel as the location of their weeklong summer camp.

The Hollis farm has been a treasure to countless white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, bears, cicadas, and of course people for as long as Maple Hills has been a town. It’s a staple. The star on the top of the Christmas tree that is Maple Hills, in my humble opinion, and the holder of a lifetime of memories. About one thing Čedomir didn’t exaggerate: The farm is special.

Several buildings dot the property, from a couple of rotting-down log cabins nestled beside creek beds, to barns, to hefty white farmhouses resided in by Nana’s kin. Nana’s farmhouse is the heftiest, a long stretch of white bordered on both sides by staggering stone chimneys where the smoke almost permanently curls. The wide wraparound porch is worn out and dips in many places, and no one seems to talk about it, and no one seems to mind. Adults unconsciously walk around the sagging boards; children, on the other hand, aim right for them on their tricycles and roller skates, giggling hysterically over the bumps along the way.

When we park on the grassy hilltop beside the others, James opens the door to a goose.