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“Butterflies. Not hornets.” Sarah slapped his arm but couldn’t quite smother her laughter. “Surely you aren’t afraid of them?”
“Those butterflies of yours aren’t the gentle, fluttery kind. They’re more like wasps with colorful wings.”
Sarah laughed. “They’d love that you said so.”
“Just in case, don’t tell them. They might hurt me,” he said with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah. I saw how you had them eating out of your hand at Harvey Farms,” she reminded, handing him another ornament.
“Ho, ho, ho,” Claudia said, spreading more Christmas cheer as they neared the booth.
“Afternoon, hun.” Maybelle stepped up to Sarah, leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Looks like you have everything in the Christmas way, here.”
Maybelle’s gaze went to Bodie as she said the last.
“Not everything,” Sarah admitted. “But we’re working on it.”
One of the teens who’d been patiently standing beside the live, balled tree, pulled out his cell phone. Maybelle was having none of it.
“Boys, set that tree up at the end of this table and go back to get the other one for the opposite side,” she ordered, motioning for the young man to put his phone away. “You have the lights, Sarah?”
She nodded. “Thanks to Bodie. He helped carry everything and is going to help with the ornament hunt.”
Rosie reached out and squeezed Bodie’s upper arm. “Good thing you’re here to save the day after Sarah’s help cancelled on her.”
Bodie shot Sarah a see, I told you look. Wasps with colorful wings. With the way her friends had been behaving, the description semi-fit. She’d often thought of them as bees over the years. Hard workers, full of energy, and always buzzing around.
“Rosie, behave,” Maybelle ordered, clucking her tongue at the other woman. “Claudia, you have the tree skirts?”
“Like you’d let me forget.”
“I just don’t want to have to walk back to our cars this quickly after arriving.”
“Admit it. You’re getting old,” Claudia accused.
Maybelle’s brows touched the tips of her dyed hair. “Old? Me? Over my dead body.”
“Something like that,” Claudia said under her breath, winking at Sarah.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Claudia denied, taking the Christmas tree skirts the Butterflies had hand-quilted years ago from a bag and shaking them out. “Nothing at all.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Sarah covered her mouth to stifle a smile.
Despite Claudia’s digs, Maybelle started whipping out orders again, telling the boys to adjust where they’d put the tree and having Claudia wrap the skirt around the ball base. “Mr. Lewis, grab the box of lights and do the honor of putting them on the tree.”
“Me?”
“You have a problem with that?” Maybelle’s narrowed gaze said he’d best not.
“No, ma’am. Just that having never put lights on a tree before, I’m getting ample experience while in Pine Hill.”
“Well, it was high time you learned, son.” Maybelle’s drawn-on brows rose as she gave Sarah a look that told her she’d realized that Bodie had just admitted he’d helped decorate Sarah’s tree.
Sarah just smiled, refusing to say anything that might give the Butterflies something more to latch onto.
