Chapter 11
ELEVEN
“Hot date?”
Pete caught Mike’s reflection in the small bathroom mirror and shot him a steady look. “Who says things like that anymore?” He shook his head as he rinsed his razor in the equally small sink and then ran it over his face one more time, careful to be sure that no strips of shaving cream remained.
Behind him in the trailer, Mike just grinned. “Someone with a hot date, that’s who.”
As the water drained, Pete grabbed his collared shirt from its hanger and shrugged into it. “Oh? Someone you met at the tree lot?”
Mike shrugged. “What can I say? Turns out she’s interested in more than just my knowledge of holiday greenery.”
“And here I thought you’d won her over with your bad jokes.” Pete laughed as he pushed past his cousin and pulled his coat from the hook on the back of the trailer’s door. He opened it against a gust of biting wind and stood in the cold night air while Mike stepped out, hoping to avoid mentioning where he was headed this evening, but it was no use. Mike was feeling chatty, and it wasn’t often that Pete went out after he’d finished up a workday. In Timber Valley, he was happier to kick back at home with a beer and a ballgame than sit at a bar table, chatting with a pretty girl, thinking of the one he’d left behind.
“So where are you headed?” Mike wanted to know, but Pete didn’t feel like getting into details.
He locked up the trailer and then double-checked it for good measure. The last thing he needed was the cash box to go missing. Mike was watching him steadily, no doubt waiting for his curiosity to be satisfied.
“Oh, just thought I’d explore the city a bit.” Pete was decidedly vague, and sure enough, Mike shot him a look from the corner of his eye that showed he wasn’t buying it.
“Thought you did that last weekend,” Mike observed.
Pete shrugged. “Well, there’s more to be seen.” They pulled the fence gate closed behind them and Pete secured the padlock.
Not that a Christmas-tree thief was his biggest concern right now. At best, they’d get one, maybe two. And he had plenty of spares.
And only a few days to sell them all. Pete’s stomach clenched at that thought but worrying wouldn’t change anything, and tonight was supposed to be an escape from his troubles.
It was supposed to be fun and celebratory.
Who was he kidding? He didn’t know what tonight was supposed to be. But he knew that it would be a special sort of torture. The kind that would linger with him, long after he’d left this sparkling city.
One that would fill his waking hours and his sleepless nights for months after he’d gone.
“Looks like the café is closed,” Mike said, pointing toward the storefront, which was dark like all the others on this block.
“It’s eight at night,” Pete said, trying to ignore Mike’s real meaning, but knowing that it was no use. His cousin had a gleam in his eyes, and it had nothing to do with the twinkling lights all around them. “Nothing’s going on with Hailey and me.”
“So this is a business meeting tonight then?” Mike struggled to keep his face straight. “Just some talk about hot chocolate sales and brownie orders?”
Pete flashed him a warning look. There was no use denying that he was meeting up with Hailey. But not yet. He still had more to do before that happened.
“It’s exactly that,” he said. Even though it didn’t feel that way. And even though he didn’t want it to be that way.
“So why don’t I believe you?” Mike chuckled.
“Since when don’t you believe me? You know I’m always straight with you.” But it wasn’t true, and the words fell flat. Pete regretted saying them at all.
“It’s okay if something is going on with Hailey, you know,” Mike said. “I mean, she was your first true love and all. She did break your heart. Ruin you, in my opinion.”
“Ruin me?” Now it was Pete’s turn to laugh.
“Let’s just say I’ve never seen you change your sweater three times for anyone back in Timber Valley,” Mike said. “And then settle on a dress shirt.”
“You haven’t been back for long,” Pete replied.
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Long enough to know that you’re not interested in the women there. Because the one you are interested in is right here.”
Pete blew out a breath; it lingered in the cold air like a cloud. “It doesn’t matter what I want. She wants this life and I…can’t give that to her.”
Even Mike knew not to push that comment, and for the first time, Pete wished he would, that someone would tell him how to make this work. How to save the farm. How to save what remained of his relationship with the only girl he’d ever loved.
“Can I give you a lift?” Mike asked as he raised his hand to signal for one of the many passing cabs.
Pete wasn’t going far enough to need a car, and he shook his head, not wanting to give more details of his plans for the night and grateful that Mike was more interested in his own romantic life than Pete’s.
Not that what Pete was doing today was in the least bit romantic. It was just two old friends having a nice night out.
Another nice night out .
Making the most of the moment.
Of their last Christmas.
Maybe, if the farm survived another year, he’d be back at this same corner next year and the year after that. But how long could he keep tempting himself, and how long before he returned only to find that Hailey had moved on, gotten engaged, and started a family?
And who was he kidding? The thought of the tree farm lasting another few years felt impossible.
Almost as impossible as the thought of having to explain that to Mike. His other cousins. His mother.
“No, I’m fine,” Pete told his cousin quickly, even though he didn’t feel fine in the least. He felt restless, anxious, full of regret and remorse, and paralyzed to do anything about it. Every time he thought of giving up on the farm, he thought of his mother, still grieving his father. And then he thought of his father and his final words. His expectations. And the relief he’d felt knowing that Pete would take care of everything.
“Have fun tonight,” Pete told Mike.
“You can bet I will.” Mike grinned widely, and Pete chuckled to himself, hoping the same could be said for himself.
There was a small grocery store only a few blocks south, and Pete figured he’d walk, take in the surroundings, and clear his head. He took his time, walking past the tall brownstones behind iron gates, most with big, artificial trees gracing their front bay windows. Back in his Wisconsin hometown, you’d never see anyone with a plastic tree—not unless they were allergic to the real thing, and even then…who wanted to give up the smell of Christmas?
That’s what his dad had always called it. The smell of Christmas. Only this year it didn’t feel like Christmas, and not because he was in the city, far from his childhood home and all its annual traditions.
This would be the first Christmas his family had without his father. But so help him, this wouldn’t be the last Christmas they had in their home.
With his groceries purchased, he walked purposefully back to the tree lot and opened the gate. In the dark of night, the holiday shop looked like nothing more than a garage, and he quickly turned on the Christmas lights that edged the roofline, transforming the industrial-looking space into something that could almost pass for charming. Inside, he turned on the electric heaters and tree lights, deciding to leave the overhead lighting off. In the center of the floor, he set down a thick wool blanket and then began unloading the paper bag.
He assembled the cheese on a wooden board and sliced the bread, realizing that he was recreating one of their favorite summer rituals.
He stared at the picnic he’d set up on the blanket, wondering if he should just abandon the idea and take Hailey out for dinner instead, when he felt something rustle behind him.
He looked up, his gaze trailing long legs all the way up to windblown hair, and felt his gut tighten. “I made a picnic for us,” he said, pulling himself up from his knees until he was standing at full height, looking down at her slightly from his four-inch advantage.
Her eyes drifted over the offerings, and he balled a fist, wondering if he’d sent the wrong message, or if it was exactly what he had been trying to say all along and never could. He still wanted her. Always had.
“Wine and cheese.” She gave a sad smile as her eyes floated to his. “You remembered.”
“We could go out if you prefer. Or order a pizza. It’s—”
“It’s perfect,” she said firmly.
“You’re perfect,” he said before he could stop himself. He saw the surprise in her face, but he didn’t apologize, couldn’t take back his words if he wanted.
“Should I sit?” She motioned to the blanket.
“Not so fast,” he said. “You gave me a tour of your life the other night. Tonight, it’s my turn.”
She looked intrigued. “Okay, then. Where are you taking me?”
“On a walk through the forest,” he said.
“The forest? You do know that we’re in the middle of a city, right?” Hailey looked skeptical now.
“It’s Christmas,” he told her. “It’s the time for magic. So, forget the world around you for a minute. The lights. The noise. Even the café. For tonight, it’s just us. No troubles. No past.”
No future either, he thought, with a catch in his throat.
He reached down and quietly slipped his hand into hers, his nerve endings tensing with the pleasure at the once so simple gesture. Her fingers were bare and cold, but they warmed quickly in his.
The lot was large, maybe too large in retrospect, considering their poor sales, but it certainly helped create a sense of escapism, especially at night, when the shops were closed, the traffic stilled, and the sidewalks all around them were empty.
He took her the long way around the densely filled space, starting with the farthest aisle from the holiday shop, careful to point out all the characteristics that made each tree unique, just as his father had done with him when he was just a kid.
She looked at him in wonder as they reached his favorite: the Douglas fir. “You really know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, I should hope so!” he remarked with a laugh. “It’s the family business, after all.” He dropped her hand to crouch down on the snow-covered pavement.
Hailey gave a whoop of delight. “What are you doing?”
He unzipped his jacket and laid it on the ground next to him. The wind tore through his sweater, but he didn’t mind. Besides, it had nothing on the Wisconsin winters he’d grown so used to. “Sit,” he said, patting his jacket.
She hesitated for a moment before joining him. “What are we doing?” she whispered, nudging him with her shoulder.
He leaned in until her hair brushed his cheek, until he could smell that sweet, indescribable scent that brought back a hundred wonderful memories and none of the bad ones. “Look up.”
As instructed, she lifted her chin, and when he was finally able to tear his gaze from hers, he did, too. All around them were treetops of every shape and size and shade of green and silver, some covered with snow, some shaken free.
“Wow,” she murmured. “I don’t even feel like I’m in the city anymore!”
“This is my world.” He inhaled the sweet smell of pine. “When I was young, this was my view of it all. But my dad…My dad would drop to his knees, right beside me, and look up, and he’d say, See these trees? These aren’t just any trees. These are Christmas trees. These are the trees dreams are made on.”
His smile faded when he thought of how long ago that was. He leaned back, until he was flat on his back, the snow in his hair, the trees tall all around him.
He felt Hailey reach over and take his hand again, and he squeezed it tight, and for the thousandth time in the eight years since the night she’d broken his heart, and he hers, he made a Christmas wish on these treetops, and dared to hope that this year, it might just come true.
Years ago, Hailey had shunned this exact image. Of nothing but the sky and the trees and his hand in hers. She knew that back in the holiday shop a beautiful picnic of wine and cheese was waiting for them, but lying here in the snow next to Pete, she couldn’t think of anywhere she’d rather be.
Maybe it was because she knew that it wasn’t forever but just for one night. One perfect moment to share. And hold onto. This time not to try to forget.
Tearing her eyes from the stars and snow-covered trees, she craned her neck to study his familiar profile, her heart twisting at the sight.
“I can see why you love this so much. Why you chose this over med school.” Over me , she finished to herself.
“It’s not what I chose,” Pete said gruffly, still staring at the night sky.
She frowned at him. “How can you say that? You made the decision to go back to Wisconsin.”
“It was never that simple,” he said, his expression pensive. He hesitated before turning to face her. “Hailey, there’s something you should know. Something I never told you. I couldn’t back then but now you need to hear it. I need you to understand.”
“Understand what?” she asked, her heart picking up speed.
“Why I left. Why I had to leave,” he said with a deep sigh. He pulled himself up onto an elbow, and she did the same. “The reason I went back to Timber Valley wasn’t because I’d had a change of heart about moving here with you.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Now I see that. But back then, I was just so hurt.”
“I mean, it wasn’t just because my help was needed at the farm. It was, just not in the way I described it.” He stopped talking and she waited for him to continue, her heart hammering again, wondering what he might have kept from her when they’d once shared everything.
“My dad had a stroke, Hailey,” he said bluntly, letting the words hang there, in the cold night air. “That’s why I went back. That’s why…I stayed.”
Hailey stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying, to go back in time and fill in this missing piece. It was the part she’d never understood, why he’d want to go, why he’d put her in that position.
Why he’d walked away.
All this time she thought he’d chosen something else, but he’d chosen someone else.
Or maybe, he had no choice at all.
For a moment it felt like the world around them had gone still, that everything she’d ever believed or thought to be true had been pulled out from under her. She sat up quickly, staring at him. “A stroke! But you never told me.”
She pictured Pete’s dad, always so happy to see her, always setting up the chess board in anticipation of her visit, how they would sit, just the two of them, near the fireplace, strategizing the game, talking about school, the farm, her plans.
What must he have thought of her when she didn’t join Pete? When she stopped visiting? When she never saw him again and now never would?
“You should have told me,” she ground out. For so many reasons. He should have told her.
Pete shook his head as he sat up now, joining her. “I didn’t want you to come with me for the wrong reasons. I was already giving up my dreams. I didn’t want you to give up yours, too. I wanted you to do what you really, truly wanted.”
“Even if that wasn’t to move with you to Wisconsin.”
Pete nodded sadly. “Even if that wasn’t to move with me, yes. If I’d told you—”
“I would have said yes,” Hailey said before she could think it through. But she didn’t need to. She knew exactly what she would have said all those years ago, if the man she’d loved, the man who shared her dreams and her laughter, had come out with the whole truth. She wouldn’t have hesitated then, just as she didn’t now.
Pete looked shell-shocked as he stared at her but then shook his head. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you, Hailey. If you’d come…You wouldn’t be happy.”
“But how do you know that when you didn’t let me make the decision?” she cried.
“I did let you make the decision,” Pete said slowly.
Understanding set in while they sat in silence, each no doubt replaying the past, imagining how things might have been if… Always an if .
“Coming with me out of guilt or hope that it would only be temporary wouldn’t have been fair to you, and it wouldn’t have worked,” Pete finally said.
“Maybe not,” she admitted, thinking of how badly she’d wanted to do right by her family, too. To spend her small inheritance on her grandmother’s dream.
Even if it meant losing another one .
“But maybe—” Hailey stopped when she saw the sadness in Pete’s face.
“You didn’t want to come, and that’s okay. The reasons behind it don’t matter,” he said.
“But they do,” she insisted. She pushed out a long sigh, filled with years of hurt and unanswered questions. “I never understood why you turned your back on our plan. On me. Why you put me in the impossible situation of having to choose between you and the life I wanted to have. I thought I knew you, and all these years I wondered if I ever really did.”
“You always knew me,” Pete said with a little smile. “There was just that one thing I didn’t want you to know.”
Hailey closed her eyes as she looked down at the ground, but it did little to stop the tears that were prickling the back of her eyes.
One slipped free when she looked up at him again. Sweet, loving Pete. The man who had asked her to marry him. The man she had turned down. The man she had tried to forget and never could and now, never would.
She didn’t want to forget him anymore. Or miss him. She just wanted to stay right here, like this, forever.
Silently, he brought his hand to her cheek and brushed away her tears with the back of his thumb. His hand was warm, smooth, and tender. She licked her bottom lip, feeling something cold prick it.
She blinked, looking up as all around them, huge flakes of snow fell softly.
“It’s snowing!” She leaned her head back onto the blanket to look up at the sky, where white flurries danced across the darkness, glittering in the glow of the lights. The world around them was huge and quiet, not even a train could be heard in the distance, and for a moment she could almost believe that she was on Cameron’s Tree Farm in Timber Valley, not in Lincoln Park, Chicago, with her long-dreamed-of café just a few hundred feet behind her.
And she was happy. Really, truly happy.
She just might have needed to try things on her own first to realize that.
“Do you remember all the summer nights when we’d drive out to some rural spot and put down a picnic and look up at the stars?” she asked, holding her breath when she realized that he might not remember it at all. That the memory, both cherished and banished, rested solely in her heart.
“Of course I remember,” he said quietly. “I remember everything, Hailey.”
And so did she, even when she didn’t want to, even when she wanted nothing but to forget, she couldn’t. And now, looking at his familiar face, she didn’t think she ever would.
Her mouth went dry as their eyes locked, his drifting only slightly to look down at her lips.
“I have a confession to make,” he said, his voice scratchy and deep.
“Another confession?” she whispered, but she could tell by the teasing smile of his lips that there were no other secrets .
“You know, last week when we took that ride through the park, I wanted to kiss you.”
Her heart skipped a beat as she searched his face. Once it had been so natural to lean in, brush her mouth to his and taste him, but now, it felt new and uncertain and…exciting.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked quietly.
He gave a bashful smile. “I guess I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”
Her heart swelled as she stared at him, her body warming beside his, needing him. Wanting him. Not just tonight but always.
“I never wanted you to stop kissing me,” she said, as he leaned in to brush his mouth with hers, as if no time had ever passed at all.