Chapter Eleven
Her parents and Barb were gathered in front of what looked like a parcel of forest tucked into the end of the main street.
Sameera and Tom joined the trio, and Naveed immediately reached for the white paper pastry bag in her hands.
His sweet tooth was infamous. When she was younger, he had instituted a “dad tax” on all dessert, which he still enforced to this day.
“Where’s Rob?” Barb asked Tom.
She could feel Tom standing behind her, the rumble of his deep voice as he answered. “He’s not with us,” he said. She tried to ignore him.
Sensing her tension, Tom laid a warm hand on her arm, making her feel even more jittery than she already did.
“Do you need to leave?” he whispered, and though she was still annoyed at him for the scene in the bakery, she was grateful for this moment of care. She nodded, and Tom turned to make their excuses.
Just then, Rob pulled up in the black pickup truck, and Esa and Cal emerged. Her brother was beaming with excitement and even seemed happy—or at least, not annoyed—to see her.
“We have to go,” Tom said abruptly. “Sameera has a lot of work to catch up on, and I’ve already taken up enough of her time by dragging her on a tour of Wolf Run. You all have fun with the Christmas tree scavenger hunt.”
Instantly, Esa’s smile dimmed. She could feel her brother’s disappointment radiate off him in waves, and her heart clenched. She put her phone away.
“It’s okay. We’re already here. A scavenger hunt sounds .
. . fun,” she added weakly. Esa’s expression immediately brightened, and Sameera breathed a sigh of relief.
Staying here was the right call, even if she had no wish to spend more time with Tom.
She mentally resigned herself to the prospect of working all night to make up for this sojourn.
Even if it might be too little, too late at this point.
“Do we . . . hunt the trees?” Esa asked, jumping to the ground from the truck. He turned to Sameera and stage-whispered, “They know conifers can’t fight back, right?”
She smiled at him, grateful he was joking with her, and Esa gave her a small smile back.
“It’s a Cooke family tradition, a scavenger hunt to find the perfect Christmas tree,” Rob said, waving behind him at what was clearly a Christmas tree lot. “Tom’s mother, Pamela, ran the game every year, until she passed. We looked forward to it every year.”
“Even though Mom mostly just made up the rules,” Tom said. He cast Sameera a quick glance, as if to reassure himself that she was still on board. “We had to find every item on her list in the tree lot. The list changed every year, of course. It made picking out a tree feel like an adventure.”
“What do you win?” Esa asked. Sameera recognized the glint in her little brother’s eyes. Her entire family—herself definitely included—was a tiny bit competitive, even her mild-tempered father. As in, they would mow each other down if there was a plastic trophy on the line.
Tom seemed at a loss. “I mean, the person who won got to pick out the tree,” he said.
“Which means there’s a winner and seven losers, right?” Esa said, eyeing their group of eight. When Tom nodded, he yelled “First tree choice is mine!” and ran into the tree lot without looking back.
“We already have a tree set up at home. This is just for fun,” Rob said, puzzled.
“I should have warned you not to mention the c-word in front of my family,” Sameera said to Rob. She leaned forward and whispered, “‘Competition.’”
Tahsin, ever the teacher, took charge and suggested they break off into pairs: herself with Barb, Rob with Naveed, Calvin with Esa, and the happy couple would of course want to work together. Sameera tried to hide her wince.
Barb handed out sealed envelopes, each containing a paper with the names of random items chosen for the scavenger hunt this year.
With a smirk, Sameera realized that Esa’s head start wouldn’t do him any good.
He must have realized the same thing, because he sheepishly returned and stood peering at the paper beside Calvin, the two young men already talking strategy.
“This is a friendly competition,” Barb reminded the group, eyes lingering on Esa.
“We’re going based on the honor system.” Her tone implied her misgivings about this particular group’s honor, but she soldiered through.
“Whoever finds the items has to ring a bell.” She handed out red-ribboned cowbells to each couple.
“Our volunteer judge will decide which team gets the point, and any arguing with the judge will get you immediately disqualified. And this year, the prize isn’t only the honor of picking out the tree.
There will also be a special treat from Hilda’s Bakery. ”
Esa fist-pumped, and everyone laughed.
“Who’s the judge?” Sameera asked.
“That would be me,” a voice called behind the group.
Sameera turned around and came face-to-face with a beautiful blond woman, eyes crinkled in a welcoming smile, windswept hair loose around her shoulders.
With her sharp features and blue eyes that shone turquoise in the weak afternoon light, she looked like she belonged on a holiday movie set.
She was dressed in soft-pink fleece leggings that hugged her shapely legs, a white parka, and an oversize woolen scarf snug around her neck.
Sameera had to stop herself from looking around for the camera crew following Margot Robbie’s doppelg?nger.
Next to her, Esa’s mouth hung slightly open.
“Hi, Tom,” the vision said shyly.
“Hello, Emily,” Tom answered.
“We’re searching for a diamond, a star, something golden, a familiar tune, good luck, and Santa’s helper,” Sameera said, squinting down at the list. “Are you sure your stepmom doesn’t have a side hustle making cryptic puzzles? I have no idea what any of these clues mean, or where to find them.”
Sameera and Tom were walking around the large tree lot, their steps muffled by a dense undergrowth of snow and pine needles, and it felt like they were all alone in a forest. So far, Sameera had managed to stay focused on the task at hand.
She could hear Esa’s whoops faintly to the left, but no one had rung the bell to summon the goddess Emily.
Knowing that Tom had an ex-girlfriend in Wolf Run and coming face-to-face with the stunning reality were two different things.
Not that Sameera was jealous. You had to care to feel jealous, and she was entirely without care.
Completely careless. She flipped her heavy wool scarf over her shoulder to demonstrate her carefree attitude, and ended up stumbling.
“All right?” Tom asked, helping her up.
“I’m perfect,” she said, hoping the red on her cheeks would be attributed to the chilly temperature, and not embarrassment.
“I was just . . . thinking really hard. About the scavenger hunt. I think we’re looking for a piece of coal.
Coal makes diamonds, right?” She checked beneath a tree for a bag of coal, because why not?
She looked up to see that Tom had stopped following her, and was standing still in the middle of the path. “Did you find something?”
“I’m sorry,” Tom said.
She stood up, uncertain. “About Barb’s cryptic clues?”
“For behaving like an ass,” he said. “You were right to call me out. I had no right to introduce you as my girlfriend to Hilda. And I should have talked to Barb about our real arrangement. I’ve been acting like a spoiled toddler ever since you got here. No, I’ve been behaving like Blake.”
She gasped. “Not Blake!”
“I’m really sorry, Sameera,” Tom said. “Can you forgive me?”
Sameera wasn’t used to people apologizing to her.
Blake constantly took jabs at her, and Hunter had never said sorry for committing credit fraud and ruining her life, and Sameera had been too brokenhearted to legally do anything about it.
At work, her entire job revolved around neither admitting nor accepting culpability.
Even her parents had never acknowledged the role they had played in their estrangement, how their inability to adjust their strict expectations, combined with an overall lack of communication, had contributed to her yearslong deception.
“Never apologize” was practically a mantra in her life.
It was strange to have Tom, a near stranger, admit he was wrong, to take responsibility for his mistake, and to ask for her forgiveness.
She wasn’t quite sure what to do, actually.
Tom took a step closer, then another, and then that intense gaze was examining her as if she was the most interesting thing in the tree lot, and possibly the entire town.
Which couldn’t be true, because Miss Alaska was nearby, keeping a well-shaped ear out for any ringing cowbells while presumably dodging a barrage of marriage proposals from passersby.
Which made her wonder if Tom had ever proposed to Emily.
Focus, Sameera, she told herself. A gorgeous man was apologizing to her. Also, of course, he had proposed to Emily. Hell, Sameera had just met the woman, and she wanted to get down on one knee, too. Or at least, get some skin care tips because Emily’s skin glowed.
“Thank you for admitting you were acting like a big dumb toddler,” she said, and his lips twitched in that half smile she was starting to get addicted to.
“You’re so different here.” She shouldn’t invite his confidence, but despite her firm reminder to herself to remain impartial, she couldn’t help but wonder about Tom Cooke.