Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
OLIVE
K ids are loud.
Before we even round the corner, we can hear them over the ATV. The field trip kids, fresh off the hayride, are standing in a small, bundled up clump, listening to a young guy wearing a Pine Creek hoodie under a work coat.
It seems to be Q&A time, but at the sight of the ATV, the staffer loses their attention, and they all start running toward us.
Liam brings the vehicle to a stop just as the kids circle around the four-wheeler. Their excited questions come out rapid-fire:
“Whoa! Why do you need a four-wheeler on a farm?”
“Do you need a license to drive one of these?”
“Can you jump that thing? I bet you could jump that thing.”
“Do you ever race them? I bet I could whip you in a race, Hunter!”
“Can we go for a ride?”
Liam removes his helmet and glances up at the staffer, who lifts his hands, helplessly. “This is the most excited they’ve been since they got here. ”
The kids’ teacher, a young, dark-haired girl who doesn’t look much older than a high schooler, rushes around, trying to corral the kids. “I’m so sorry,” she says to Liam. “Back up, kids. They’re just driving through.”
“It’s fine,” Liam says. I expect him to start the engine up and drive away, but instead, he gets out and walks over to the staffer, who has moved close enough that I see now his coat has the name Eddie embroidered on it.
While the kids chatter on, Eddie gives Liam a wide-eyed, I’m out of my depth here, kind of look. Liam glances back at the throng of third graders.
He sticks his fingers in his mouth and lets out a loud, ear-piercing whistle. The kids startle, but they go silent, all eyes fixed on Liam. I slowly slip off the ATV, moving to the back of the group as Liam calls out, “Who knows how many Christmas trees are sold every year in the United States?” He barks it, like a drill sergeant.
Nobody responds, but they’re all still captivated. I can’t blame them. Liam is captivating. Or, at the very least, he’s commanding.
He scans the crowd, then says, “Over 25 million trees. And most come from tree farms just like this one.”
He walks over to one of the trees. “Does anyone know what kind of tree this is?”
A little boy raises his hand. “Pine tree?”
Liam points at the kid. “Good guess, but this is not a pine tree. Anyone else?”
“Evergreen?” another kid hollers.
“This is actually a blue spruce tree,” Liam says. “You can tell by the diamond-shaped patterns in the needles, and if you get really close?—”
The kids lean in.
“—they’re actually a bit bluish green. ”
Some of the kids crowd in to get a better look, ooh’s and let me see’s smattered throughout.
He picks up a cut branch from the blue spruce and holds it up.
“These are some of the most popular trees on our lot. Every tree comes to us as a sapling, which is a really small tree?—”
“I thought they grew from seeds,” a little girl calls out.
“Or pinecones!” another kid shouts.
“Or Connor’s mom,” a blond kid smarts off from the back.
“Austin!” the young teacher snaps. Then, to Liam, “I’m so sorry.”
Liam smirks but continues without missing a beat.
“You’re exactly right, they do start small, from seeds, but we don’t start them as seeds here. Someone else does that, ships them to us, and when we get them, they look like baby trees.” He moves down the row, and the kids follow. “This one, you can see, is a lot younger than, say—” he moves toward a taller tree— “this one.”
“How old is that one?” one of the kids asks, pointing to the taller tree.
“Probably nine or ten,” he says. “I’m guessing about your age?”
“They have to be our age before they get chopped down?”
“Pretty much,” Liam says. “Takes a lot of time and patience to get them to grow. Probably how Austin’s parents feel.”
This gets a huge response from the group, and even Austin laughs, clearly up for the attention.
“Hey, hey, I’m just kidding. Austin, can you do me a solid?” He tosses the ATV keys to him. “Can you watch those for me? I don’t want to lose them.”
Now the kids turn toward Austin. “What?” “No way!” “Does he get to drive it?”
And with that simple move, Austin is now Liam’s biggest fan .
Liam points at a little girl and motions for her to join him near the tree. “What’s your name?”
The girl is a redhead with wide eyes and a bright smile. She grins at him, probably as smitten with him as I am right now. “Brynn.”
“Okay, Brynn,” he says. “Very carefully touch the branch of this tree and tell me what it feels like.”
The girl reaches out and taps the needles of the spruce. “Pokey.”
“Pokey, right,” he says. “What else?”
“Sharp.”
“Right,” Liam says. “The blue spruce trees have some of the sharpest needles of all the trees out here on the farm, but that makes them great for hanging ornaments on.”
Liam briefly meets my eyes, holds my gaze for a three-count, and then looks away. It’s long enough for me to marvel at this different side of him, the side that knows and understands—and even seems to enjoy—all the unique aspects of this tree farm. The side that can communicate that knowledge in a way that keeps small children engaged.
Liam tells a story about a time he was helping a customer cut down a small tree and it fell the wrong way and landed directly on the man’s wife.
They loved that story.
He doesn’t talk down to them the way a lot of people do—he talks to them like they’re people. And they’re completely into it.
The young teacher makes her way around the back of the group and stands next to me. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Oh, no,” I say, glancing at her. Her eyes are full of admiration. “We’re just friends.”
Her expression shifts. “Do you know if he’s single?”
I half-laugh. “They say he’s chronically single.”
Her face falls .
“He doesn’t live here,” I tell her. “He’s just home for the holidays.”
The teacher leans in. “That’s a Christmas fling I wouldn’t mind having.”
A wave of heat rolls through my body, and I recognize it instantly—jealousy. I force a smile, which I’m sure is awkward, and go back to listening to Liam.
He makes Austin his second in command as they set off to harvest a tree, using a small saw he had stashed in the back of the ATV.
He holds their attention so well, it’s like he’s cast a spell on them.
They’re not the only ones.
I watch as he interacts with these children with remarkable ease, thinking how nice it is that I can see a trace of the Liam Fisher I knew all those years ago. The one who used to geek out about the way things around here work.
By the time he’s done, the kids have completely forgotten that they wanted ATV rides and are now excitedly heading back to the main barn to plant their own tiny trees in buckets to take home after school. Before they go, several of the kids thank Liam. One little girl tells him she wants to be a tree farmer when she grows up, and when the boy standing behind her says it’s not a girl job, Liam sets him straight with a gentle reminder that girls can do anything boys can do, probably even better.
I smirk at that.
Austin runs up and tosses the ATV keys back to Liam, who gives him a high five and tells him to be nice to Connor.
I’m standing off to the side as the class makes its way back onto the trailer when the teacher walks over to Liam with a bright smile on her face.
I can’t hear what she says, but when she reaches out and squeezes his arm, I get a pretty good idea. She walks back toward the kids and hoists herself onto the trailer, and my insides burn.
What is my problem? Why am I so annoyed that she’s hitting on him right here in front of thirty-two nine-year-olds?
Liam glances at me, and I pretend not to have noticed any of this, waving at the group as they pull away.
He walks back to the four-wheeler and gets on.
I stand, unmoving, arms crossed over my chest and glare at him.
“Are you getting on?” he asks.
“Not until you tell me what that was.”
He frowns. “What?”
“You just taught a whole class of children about the different kinds of trees on the farm,” I say.
He only stares.
“You know a lot about the trees . . .”
That comment gets me a side-eye.
“You actually seemed . . . happy.”
He rolls his eyes. “Eddie was dying a slow death out there. I was just trying to help.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Well, I think you made quite an impression. On the kids and their teacher.”
He looks at me. “Are you getting on or . . .?”
“Did you get her number?” I feign excitement as I slide onto the seat behind him.
“No,” he says.
“Why not?” I ask, aware that I’m hoping he’ll say something romantic like, “Because I’m hung up on a girl I knew a long time ago,” which is totally stupid for so many reasons.
But as he starts up the engine, he says, “Because I’m going back to Indy right after the holidays. Be stupid to get involved with someone who lives here.”
“Right.”
Right .