Chapter 8 Objection!
OBJECTION!
Audrey
The problem with good intentions is that they look suspiciously like dates when you’re carrying a picnic basket.
“When I said you could get the tab for the next business meeting, I didn’t know it was going to come with a side of tree.” Jack stands at the entrance to Pine & Dandy, one brow cocked, his breath fogging in the cold air like punctuation to his amusement.
I shift the basket to my other hand, the containers inside clattering like sleigh bells.
“Well, uh… I wanted to thank you for all your help.” The words sound lame even to my ears.
Who thanks someone with flannel-clad tree cutters, sleigh rides, and hot chocolate stands that smell like sugar and woodsmoke?
Me, that’s who.
This excursion seemed like a good idea this morning.
After three straight days of tourist buses slamming into Making Whoopie—customers either asking for whatever Felix Jones posted about on social media or trying to catch a glimpse of Amanda Willis mid-whoopie pie bite—plus prepping for the upcoming gingerbread competition, I’d also been replaying what Jack said at the Chowder House.
How Hideaway reminded him of his parents.
About how the town’s holiday magic may have initially stung, but it also sparked something unexpectedly good.
And I thought… maybe he’d like Pine & Dandy. The whole cut-your-own-tree experience complete with horses jingling past, tamed reindeer roaming the forest, and hot chocolate that tastes better because your mittens are damp. A small-town classic that might feel less like loss and more like home.
But now, standing at the entrance with Jack at my side, his amused expression melting into something softer, something dangerously more intimate, I’m second-guessing everything.
“Besides.” I tug my scarf tighter with my free hand. “You were the one who complained about my apartment being holiday deprived.”
He looks ahead to the clapboard barn decorated with swaths of pine garland, the corner of his mouth twitching. Not quite a smile but suspiciously close. “That I did.”
Stifling a humph, I shuffle forward across the snow dusted ground. Jack follows, catching up to take hold of the basket for me.
It’s nice. Not just his gentlemanly act but Pine & Dandy’s atmosphere. I remember it from when I visited Hideaway before I moved here. Before I opened my bakery and suddenly didn’t have time for the very things I moved here for.
The farm smells like every candle Yankee ever tried to bottle—pine needles crushed underfoot, woodsmoke from chimneys, sugar drifting out from the barn’s bakery counter.
Kids squeal as a pair of horses jingle past, pulling a sleigh heavy with bundled families.
Off to the side, a pen holds two of the farm’s reindeer, lounging like disinterested celebrities behind their wooden fence while children press mittened hands through the slats, begging them to “do the nose thing.”
Jack’s gaze lingers on the reindeer. “Tell me you don’t actually make people pay to see Rudolph’s understudies.”
“Only three dollars,” I say, straight-faced. “Five if you want a selfie.”
That earns me a low chuckle, warm enough to chase away the chill.
“So what’s the business angle here?” Jack shoves his hands in his coat pockets as we stroll past the rows of pre-cut trees, eyeing them like he’s ready to negotiate. “You’re going to write off a Douglas fir as a deductible?”
“No business.” The words almost stick in my throat for how unusual they are. “Just a well-earned, small-town thank you experience.”
Jack was right— I don’t partake in the local festivities that drew me to the town.
After Making Whoopie opened its doors, I kept saying I’d make time once that first crucial year of a new business’s first year was behind me.
Then it was once I’d paid off the equipment.
Then once I hit a certain follower count on social media.
All benchmarks I thought my mom needed before she’d finally admit I’d done a good thing by moving here—that she could be as proud of my little shop as she’d been when I worked at the Ritz.
Only then could I launch my main objective. Which, ironically enough, began with a Christmas tree farm. Just not this one.
Jack nudges my shoulder with his, guiding me back to the present. “Does that mean I’ve become baking assistant material?”
Between answering the phone, ringing up customers, and juggling his telework, he’s started sticking around after hours to ‘help’ me prep for the gingerbread house competition this weekend.
I smile remembering Jack’s expression when he finally got all four sides standing somewhat straight. “Getting there.”
He puffs out his chest as best he can in his new thick winter coat. “Nice.”
Having given up his city-slicker cashmere trench, Jack, in between lawyering and baking assistanting, managed to find a legitimately warm winter coat from a local shop.
It’s unnerving how good he looks in his small-town-guy uniform.
We shuffle forward in line at the hot chocolate hut, where a college kid in a knit hat and Dansby’s “Tree Crew” sweatshirt mans the pump-top thermoses. He perks up the second he sees Jack.
“Wait. You’re Jack Lourd, right?” He fumbles his phone out of his pocket, thumb already hovering over the camera app. “So, uh—does that mean Amanda Willis or Felix Jones are coming, too?”
Jack’s mouth flattens in a way I’ve started to recognize as his polite Hollywood no. “Not today.”
The kid’s shoulders slump. “Dang.” He slides his phone back into his pocket with a dejected sigh, like Jack just told him Santa wasn’t real. “Hot chocolate then?”
“Yes,” I answer for both of us, stepping in before Jack can reach for his wallet.
The kid fills the thermoses I brought from home, still craning his neck one way and then the other as if Jack was lying and a celebrity might suddenly appear out of the snow-dusted evergreens. I hand Jack one, my gloved fingers brushing his.
“Thanks.” He takes a sip, eyes on me, the whipped cream hitting his upper lip.
I stare a beat too long before jolting forward, waving toward the row of picnic tables set up between the hot chocolate stand and the barn glowing with white Christmas lights. “Come on. First, lunch. Then, spruce.”
Jack
The picnic basket has been raided down to crumbs and empty Tupperware.
Audrey fusses with the lids and napkins like she’s running quality control for NASA, while I lean back against the splintered picnic bench—full and content and watching the farm move around us.
A sleigh rattles past, pulled by two heavy horses draped in bells, the sound carrying across the field like someone pressed play on a Christmas soundtrack. The white clapboard barn nearly blends in with the snowscape if not for the Christmas light trim blinking against the winter gray sky.
It’s a scene straight out of Bing Crosby movie, and I like it. And yet—sarcasm comes easier than sincerity.
“I should tell Amanda about this place.” I sip the last of my cocoa.
“Pine & Dandy would make a killer set for her holiday film. Though honestly…” I gesture toward the barn, the sleigh, the kid now crying because the reindeer ignored him.
“It’s not like the world needs one more Christmas tree farmer romance.
Women flocking to the guy in flannel like he invented chopping wood? Bit overdone at this point, right?”
Instead of a shared laugh, I’m met with flashing eyes.
“I forgot—your idea of romance is a prenup and a nondisclosure agreement.” Her eye roll looks aspirin-worthy.
“God forbid anyone wants something simple, or”—she jabs a mittened finger toward the rows of evergreens, their branches glittering with snow—“something real.”
The jab lands square in my chest, sharper than I expected. I open my mouth, then close it again. For once, I’ve got nothing.
She notices. And instantly her shoulders drop, a guilty sigh slipping out. “Sorry. That was… uncalled for.”
The wind whistles through the rows of trees, carrying the faint scent of pine and woodsmoke. She reaches into the basket for the last cookie, fiddling with the wrapper.
“I might be a tad bit sensitive to the whole Christmas tree farmer trope.” She grimaces before dropping her eyes to her hands. “And I may not have been one hundred percent honest about why I moved to Hideaway.”
Fully invested, I lean forward, elbows braced on the picnic table. “Go on.”
She huffs a laugh at the exaggerated attention. “There might have been a week after Christmas when I was recovering from a busy holiday season at the Ritz, and I binge-watched a bunch of holiday romance re-runs.”
“And were there Christmas tree farmers involved?” I can’t help but tease.
Another eye roll, this one far less aggressive. “In about half of them.” She shrugs. “What can I say, it turns out I’m a sucker for a man in plaid wielding a saw and driving a vintage pick-up truck.”
Oddly, that bit of information stings. Because even in the new shapeless-yet-warm shearling lined coat I bought to replace my cashmere trench, I’m nothing like she’s describing.
Her cheeks flush pink, the kind of color I know isn’t from the cold. She sneaks a glance at me, embarrassed. “And I guess somewhere between the snowball fights and the inevitable barn dances, it hit me that a Christmas tree farmer was exactly what I wanted.”
I nod. “But why the big secret? As you’ve said, you’re not the only person intrigued by Christmas tree farmers—if the sheer number of movies featuring them is any indication.”
“Well…” She hands me the cookie. “I didn’t think my mom would understand.” Her lips twist to the side. “She’s kind of like you.”
Frowning, I tip my head. “Why do I feel like that’s not a compliment?”
Audrey shakes her head, laughing. “I respect my mom enormously for raising me on her own, but I think because of that—and my father leaving—she doesn’t put a lot of stock in the whole husband-two kids-dog-PTA-meetings lifestyle.”