Chapter 10
Ten
Holiday Pines
Wes Dalton had never been a gambling man.
He left the betting to folks who bought lottery tickets at the gas station or put money on the Falcons game every Sunday.
But sitting at his kitchen table, watching the two most important men in his life laugh over a shared bowl of mashed potatoes, Wes felt the urge to go all in.
“You’re telling me—” Henry said, his voice a little gravelly but stronger than it had been in days. He wiped a bit of gravy from his chin with a napkin. “—that she grew tomatoes in old tires?”
“Tractor tires,” Jake corrected. He was sitting on the other side of the round oak table, effectively sandwiching Wes between them. “Mrs. Henderson said the black rubber held the heat. Best heirlooms I ever tasted. Ugly as sin, but sweet.”
Henry chuckled, a sound that rattled slightly in his chest. “Your mother used to say something similar about Wes’s carvings. Said the wood was ugly until he found the shape inside it.”
Wes froze, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. He looked at his father. Henry hadn’t mentioned Linda’s musings or Wes’s carvings in years. Usually, both were subjects they skirted around, like a pothole in the driveway.
Jake caught Wes’s eye. He smiled, a small, private glimpse that warmed Wes faster than the heater venting at his feet. See? that look said. He’s tougher than you think.
The days following the three-spirits tour—as Jake called it—had been a blur of quiet productivity.
The panic that usually gripped Wes by the throat in mid-December had loosened its grip.
They were hitting their sales targets. Miguel was handling the lot with a military efficiency Jake had helped reorganize. And in the evenings, Jake was here.
Not as a consultant. Not as a guest. But as... Jake.
Wes set his fork down. The kitchen felt cozy, smelling of rosemary chicken and reheated apple pie. The wind was picking up outside, rattling the loose pane in the window frame, but inside, everything was steady.
Do it, a voice whispered in Wes’s head. Do it now.
It was perfect. Henry was in a good mood. Jake was right there for support. The secret Wes had been carrying for over a decade felt heavy, a physical weight in his gut. He wanted to put it down. He wanted to reach under the table and take Jake’s hand without fearing for his father’s health.
“Pop,” Wes started. The word came out thicker than he had intended.
Henry turned to him, eyes bright. “Yeah, son?”
Wes cleared his throat. “There’s something I’ve been needing to tell you. About me. And... well, about everything.”
Jake went still beside him. He didn’t push, didn’t interrupt. He just radiated a silent, steadying presence.
“Is it about the loan?” Henry asked, his brow furrowing. “Did the bank—”
“No,” Wes said quickly. “The farm is fine. Jake fixed the farm. This is about... us.”
Henry blinked. He looked from Wes to Jake, and for a split second, Wes thought he saw a flicker of recognition. A connecting of dots.
Then, the television in the corner, tuned to the local news for the evening report, let out a shrill, three-toned beep.
A red banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
WINTER STORM WATCH ISSUED FOR CENTRAL GEORGIA. SIGNIFICANT ICING POSSIBLE MONDAY THROUGH TUESDAY.
The air left the room.
Henry’s head snapped toward the TV. The color drained from his face so fast it was terrifying. His skin was the color of old parchment. His hand, resting on the table, began to tremble.
“Ice,” Henry whispered. It wasn’t a word; it was a curse.
“It’s just a watch, Mr. Dalton,” Jake said, his voice calm. “It might shift north.”
“It won’t,” Henry said. He wasn’t looking at them anymore. He was looking through the wall, staring at a memory. “Forecast says Monday. That’s... that’s exactly when it hit in ‘19. The snapping sounds. God, the snapping sounds. Like gunshots all night long.”
Henry’s breathing hitched. He grasped the edge of the table, his knuckles white. “Linda was so scared. She was already sick then, and couldn’t get warm. The power went out, and I couldn’t keep her warm.”
Wes felt his own heart seize. He saw the terror in his father’s eyes—not the stubbornness, not the pride, but pure, unadulterated trauma. Henry wasn’t a strong patriarch in that moment; he was a stroke survivor terrified of being cold and helpless again.
The moment to confess had shattered like a dropped Christmas ornament.
Wes couldn’t do it. He couldn’t add My only son is gay and dating the banker to the load of a man currently reliving the worst week of his life.
“It’s okay, Pop,” Wes said, reaching out to cover Henry’s shaking hand. “We have the generator. We have fuel. Jake helped me service the heaters in the greenhouse.”
Henry looked at him, eyes wet. “Don’t let the trees break, Wes. If we lose the trees again...”
“We won’t,” Wes promised, though the words felt hollow in his mouth.
Twenty minutes later, after getting Henry settled in his room with his meds and the heavy quilt, Wes walked out onto the front porch.
It was dark. The wind had teeth, biting through his flannel shirt. Jake was leaning against the railing, looking out at the swaying silhouettes of the pines.
“I couldn’t do it,” Wes said to the darkness.
“I know,” Jake said softly.
“He looked so scared, Jake. The storm... it broke him last time. It broke all of us.”
Jake pushed off the railing and walked over, stepping close to Wes. He didn’t touch him—too exposed on the porch—but the heat of his body was a comfort. “You protected him. I get that. That’s who you are.”
“I’m a coward,” Wes said.
“No. You’re a son.” Jake sighed, looking up at the clouded sky.
Tucker’s Tavern
Saturday, December 20
The tavern was loud, a dense mix of laughter, clinking glass, and the smell of fried pickles. It felt impossibly warm compared to the biting wind rattling the windowpanes outside. Spoon was doing what it did best: ignoring the impending doom by throwing a party.
Jake sat at a high-top near the jukebox, nursing a beer. Across the room, the dart tournament was in full swing. Wes was toeing the line, one eye squinted shut, a dart poised in his thick, calloused fingers.
He threw—a sharp, practiced movement of his forearm—and the board gave a rapid-fire bleep.
“Bullseye! Double out!” Chuck shouted, slapping Wes on the back hard enough to make him stumble.
Wes smiled. It wasn’t the guarded, polite twitch of lips he gave customers at the tree lot. It was a real smile. It crinkled the corners of those dark chocolate eyes and showed teeth. He high-fived Brody, then looked across the crowd, scanning until he found Jake.
The look he gave Jake was warm, heavy, and possessive. It sent a jolt of heat straight to Jake’s groin.
I could get used to this, Jake thought. I could really get used to being the person he looks for.
“He looks good on you.”
Jake turned. Evan Harbuck slid onto the stool next to him, a vodka soda in hand. He was wearing a deep V-neck sweater that showed off the ink on his chest—comedy and tragedy masks peeking out.
“Excuse me?” Jake asked.
“Wes,” Evan said, nodding toward the dartboard where Wes was now pulling his darts. “He used to come in here, drink bourbon, stare at the floor, and leave. Now? He’s winning tournaments and closing the place down. That’s the Jake Effect, handsome.”
Jake took a sip of his beer to hide his grin. “I think the threat of impending bankruptcy helped loosen him up a bit, too.”
“Maybe. But fear usually makes men smaller. Wes is getting bigger. Taking up space.” Evan swirled his straw. “It suits him.”
The jukebox clicked. Cal had fed it another quarter.
The opening notes of Dave Matthews Band’s Crash Into Me drifted across the tavern—slow, sultry, aching with want.
Jake looked up sharply. Cal was back at his usual spot near the bar, nursing his beer, eyes forward, innocent as could be.
“Goddamn, he’s good,” Evan muttered, shaking his head. “Scary good.”
“Does he always do that?”
“Last year, Tucker and I had a huge fight about my considering an audition in Atlanta. Cal played ‘I Will Always Love You.’ The Whitney version. I ugly-cried into my nachos.”
Jake chuckled. “What happened?”
“I didn’t try out. And the show? It tanked. Closed in less than a week.”
“Wow.”
“It would have meant a month away from my leading man… for nothing.” Evan’s expression softened. “Sometimes, the life you’re supposed to have isn’t the one you planned, Jake. Sometimes it’s better.”
Jake watched Wes laughing with Miguel. The scene was idyllic. Small-town, good people, Christmas lights blinking above the bar. It should have felt perfect.
“I worry about what happens when the dust settles,” Jake admitted, surprised by his own candor. “If I have to go back.”
Evan turned fully to him. “Do you? Have to go back?”
“I’m a senior loan officer, Ev. My life is in Atlanta—my apartment, my clients, my terrifying boss. I’ve been working for ten years to get a corner office.” He gestured helplessly at the tavern, at Wes. “I can’t run a regional division from Barb’s breakfast table.”
Evan hummed, looking over the rim of his glass. “I was on my way to Atlanta when I met Tucker. My friend, Tyke, has close connections to the Alliance Theatre there. He was arranging for me to become a company member.”
Jake looked at him. He knew Evan ran Spoon’s Black Sheep Community Theatre, but he hadn’t realized the pedigree. “You gave up a serious career,” he said.
“I traded it.” Evan glanced toward the opposite end of the bar. Tucker was there, shaking a cocktail shaker with unnecessary vigor, arguing loudly with Cal about whether Die Hard was a Christmas movie. Tucker looked up, caught Evan’s eye, and winked.
A flush spread across Evan’s cheeks, soft and instant.
“See that?” Evan asked. “The Alliance couldn’t give me that. A TV pilot couldn’t give me that.”
“But the ambition,” Jake pressed, needing to understand. “The drive. Where does it go?”