Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The sun slanted across the snowbanks, bright enough to sting. Holden sat beside Megan, one hand on the strap overhead, watching the land roll past.
They hadn’t spoken since leaving the store and underneath the silence, he recognized something in the way she held herself too tight, like a rope pulled taut. A woman carrying a heavy burden.
He looked past her, out toward the long sweep of white ahead. A hand-painted sign poked through the snowbank.
Cut Your Own Christmas Tree. Warm Up with Hot Apple Cider.
He thought of her house. No tree. No decorations. Like she gave up on Christmas somewhere along the way, or maybe didn’t have time for it.
“Slow down.”
She glanced at him. “What? Why?”
He pointed. “There. Turn in.”
She scowled at the sign and back at the road. She kept driving. “We don’t need a tree.”
“You do.”
“Holden, I have things to do—“
“Won’t take long.”
Her fingers tightened on the wheel. The turn was coming up fast. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Do it for me. I won’t be home for Christmas.”
“Oh.” She sat up straighter and her face rearranged into something softer, more agreeable.
He waited. The sign was right there now, the gravel drive beside them.
She muttered under her breath and swung into the entrance. The car bumped along a rutted lane. Evergreens lined both sides, and strings of colored lights looped between posts. A boy in a red scarf stood by a plywood booth alongside a basket of handsaws.
Megan stopped the car. “This is silly.”
“Could be.” He opened the door and stepped into the cold. “Or maybe it’s fun.”
She sat gripping the wheel, looking like she might back out and leave him there.
He grinned, motioning for her to follow.
The boy at the booth waved. “Help you folks?”
Holden strolled over. “We need a tree.”
“Sure thing. Forty to seventy-five, depending on the size. Pick whichever one you like, cut it down, and bring it back here to pay. Saws are free, but return them when you’re done.”
“All right.” Holden took a saw from the stack and handed it to her.
She stared at it.
“I don’t know how to cut down a tree.”
“You’ll learn.” He started toward the rows. “Ain’t hard.”
They walked between the pines, boots sinking deep. Branches slapped against his coat, scattering ice that caught the light. Megan sounded breathless, her cheeks flushed pink. She didn’t say much, simply walked beside him.
The rows opened up. Trees everywhere, all sizes. He stopped and eyed them. “What about that one?”
“It won’t fit in my living room.”
“Sure it will. Plenty of room.”
“It’s still too big.”
“Are you gonna argue with every tree I pick?” he asked.
Her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but almost. “Probably.”
“Then I’m picking this one.”
“Fine.” She expelled a big sigh.
He brushed snow from the base and dropped to one knee. The bark was rough, the sap scent sharp. Healthy tree. Strong. The kind that make it feel like Christmas.
She hushed up after that.
He bent to the base, and held out his palm. “Saw.”
She slapped into this hand.
Holden set the blade and pulled the first stroke. The blade bit clean, and he sawed smooth. The rasp of metal on wood filled the air.
After a minute, she crouched beside. “What can I do to help?”
Ahh, she was coming around. “Hold the tree steady while I cut.”
When she gripped the trunk, her gloved hand touched his. He glanced up. Their eyes met for a quick second. She appeared uncertain, like she had forgotten how to do something for the fun of it.
“It’s only a tree. It ain’t gonna bite you.”
She nodded and held on tight.
He kept sawing. The work was simple, the kind of thing a man could do without thinking too hard. But he was thinking. About the way her house felt empty. About how a woman who spent all her time proving herself needed someone to do something kind for her without believing she must earn it.
The trunk cracked and the saw cleared the bark. “Easy now. Don’t let it fall on you.”
Together, they guided the fir down into the snow. The needles shimmered where the sun hit, and the scent of fresh pine rose up strong. He stood and brushed ice from his knees.
Megan did the same, a soft smile on her face. She stared at the tree. “It’s beautiful.”
“Told you.”
“I didn’t say you were right.”
“Didn’t have to.” He hoisted the tree onto his shoulder and stalked back to the car.
At the booth, the boy fed the tree through some kind of metal contraption. It buzzed loudly, and netting cinched tight around the branches.
“What’s that doin’?” Holden asked Megan.
“Wrapping it so it fits in the car.”
“Huh. What do you know?”
Megan pulled out her folding pouch, took out that plastic card again, and paid for the tree in a way he didn’t understand.
The boy came over carrying a rope. “I’ll help you wrangle it on the roof.”
“Obliged.” Holden bobbed his head.
Between the three of them, they hoisted the tree onto the car roof. The boy showed him how to thread the rope through the doors and tie it secure.
Holden tested the knots. “That’ll hold.”
They waved to the boy and climbed inside.
“That wasn’t so bad.” She dusted off her hands.
“Told you.”
“Stop saying that.”
He smiled. “When I stop being right.”
Inside, the aroma of pine cut through everything else. It smelled like Christmas. He leaned back, satisfied.
Megan pulled the strap across herself and sat looking out the window. “Buckle up.”
“Oh yeah.” He pulled the strap across him and clicked it into place.
She started the engine. “Thank you.”
“Nothin’ to thank me for.”
“You made me buy a tree I didn’t think I wanted.”
“But did you want it?”
She was quiet for a minute. “Yes.”
* * *
By the time they got home, it was early afternoon. Megan’s fingers ached from the cold, her hair reeked of pine, and her living room floor resembled a lumberyard. But she’d had fun.
Holden leaned the tree in the corner near the window, studying the angle like a carpenter proud of his work. “Needs trimming.”
“It’s shedding half a forest on my floor.” She peeled off her boots.
He crouched, adjusting the stand she dug out of the hall closet. “The spirit of Christmas.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the words snagged. The living room appeared different already. She blamed the pine fragrance and the shock of green against the beige carpet. It tugged at something she buried last December along with her mother. Happiness.
“You got decorations?” he asked. “Back home we make our own, stringing cranberries and popcorn.
“We won’t be doing that. I have decorations in the attic.”
Last year, she shoved them up there, not organizing them like she would have, desperate to stow them away. “I’ll fetch them. How do I get to the attic?”
“Through the hall closet. She followed him, torn between protesting and letting him take charge.
He found the closet, glanced up at the pull-down stairs in the ceiling. “Is this it?”
“Yes.”
He tugged on the cord. The stairs unfolded with a creak. He climbed up, and a minute later came back down carrying the dusty plastic bin labeled in her mother’s handwriting.
Christmas
She stared at it like it might explode. “You don’t have to—“
“I know.” He lugged the bin into the living room and plunked it down in front of the tree. Megan tagged after him. “But I’m gonna anyway.”
He opened the lid. Inside lay a jumble of lights and ornaments. Tissue-wrapped ones with:
Delicates from Grandma Murray.
Megan touched the note, and her throat tightened.
Holden didn’t say anything. He took the string of lights, sat on the floor, and started untangling with a patience she associated with surgeons and saints. His hands were strong yet gentle against the fragile wire.
“You’re good at that.”
“Got plenty of practice. Knots, reins, fences. It’s all the same principle. Don’t fight it. Follow where it leads.”
She watched him coil the strand into a loop. “That’s philosophical.”
“Practical. Most things untangle easier when you’re kind to ’em.”
Something in her chest unknotted.
He strung the lights around the tree, working from bottom to top with careful hands. When he finished, she plugged them in. The bulbs blinked to life, golden, soft, warm. The room changed. Shadows softened. The branches caught the light, and for a breath, she stood frozen.
“Pretty.” He stepped back to admire it.
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Her mother’s tree. Her mother’s lights. But somehow, with him here, it didn’t hurt quite as much as she feared. She turned before he could see her misty eyes. “The glass ornaments go next.”
In companionable silence, they hung the ornaments, his movements reverent as if he sensed her mood. She could feel his body heat when he reached to hand her an ornament, the brush of his fingers against hers sending a small current through her.
He lifted a porcelain dove, its wing chipped. “Guess this one’s got a few memories.”
“Yeah, some happy, some not so.” She fell silent.
Holden waited before asking, “You’ve always lived here with your mother until she passed?”
“Except for when I was in college.”
He picked up another ornament, turning it over in his big hands. “You never married?”
She paused, a silver glass ball suspended between her fingers. “No.”
“How come?” Most people didn’t ask. They danced around it, made assumptions, or worse, pitied her. But Holden asked, like he genuinely wanted to know.
She hung the ornament before answering. “I was busy. School, then my master’s degree, then working my way up to vice principal. There was always something more important.”
“More important than what?”
“Getting married.”
He was quiet for a moment, unwrapping another ornament. “Where I come from, a woman your age unmarried, folks call that unusual.”
“They call it that here too. Just more politely.”
“Don’t sit right.” He hung a silver bell. “You’re smart, capable, beautiful—“ He stopped, cleared his throat. “Strange is all.”
Heat crept up her neck. “I had goals. A career to build. My mother’s legacy to live up to.”
“Is that why you became a principal? For her?”
The question cut deeper than she expected. “I—“ She stopped. Was that why? “I wanted to make her proud.”
“I reckon she was.”
“I don’t know.” She reached for another ornament. “She was the beloved principal. Everyone adored her. I’m trying not to mess it up.”
“That ain’t the same as livin’ your own life.”
She stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’ve been so busy proving something, you forgot about what you want.”
She glanced down at the ornament in her hands. “We should finish the tree.”
He nodded but something shifted between them. When they finished, he stepped back beside her. The lights reflected in the window, turning the glass into a mirror of color and motion.
“Looks beautiful.”
She nodded, but her heart didn’t believe it. It felt too right. Too alive. She didn’t expect that warmth to come back, and not just because of the man who appeared out of nowhere and unsettled every safe boundary she had built.
He glanced down at her. “You’re quiet.”
“I was thinking about how much I hate vacuuming needles.”
He laughed, and the sound hit her like a touch.
“C’mon. We earned somethin’ sweet after all that.”
She hesitated. “Sweet?”
He tilted his head toward the kitchen. “We should bake cookies.”
The look in his eyes wasn’t a suggestion exactly, but it had weight. Heat. The kind that made her wonder what else those hands could coax into life.
She turned before he could see her face. “Fine. Cookies.”
In the kitchen, she flicked on the light. Holden followed, sleeves rolled up, the top button of his flannel open. He looked too at ease in her space, like he’d been stepping into kitchens his whole life and making them warmer by standing there.
“Four?” he asked.
She pointed. “Middle cabinet, next to the sugar.”
He found it, pulled both down without asking, and began scanning the counter for a bowl. His sheer confidence sent her pulse skittering.
“You ever made cookies before?” she asked.
“Sure.” He poured flour straight from the bag. He grinned, disarming her.
She preheated the oven, then pulled out measuring cups and spoons. They worked side by side, her following the recipe, him taking direction. He cracked an egg too hard, scattering shell into the bowl, then scooped the pieces out with surprising delicacy.
“Now half a cup of sugar.”
He measured it out and dumped it in.
She added vanilla and handed him the wooden spoon. “Stir.”
He did. When the dough came together, he said, “You make this easy.”
“It’s just cookies.”
“I wasn’t talking about the baking.”
Her breath caught. The words weren’t flirtation; they were observation, gentle, sincere, far too close to something she wasn’t ready to explore.
She cleared her throat and reached for the cookie sheet. “You like chocolate chips?”
“Don’t know.”
“You’ll love them. Trust me.”
She cleaned up while the cookies baked. Holden leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching the timer like it was a slow fuse. When the bell chimed, he moved first, sliding the tray out with an oven mitt.
The cookies came out golden brown. He pulled one off the sheet, juggling it between his hands. “Hot.”
“Don’t pick it up yet, silly.”
He bit into it, chewed. “Delicious.”
She took one for herself. Still warm, the sugar crisp on top. Her mother’s recipe.
He leaned against the counter, eating his second cookie. “You make these often?”
“Not since Mom died.”
He nodded, didn’t press. Just reached for another cookie.
She made cocoa, heating milk on the stove the way her mother taught her. They carried their mugs to the living room and sat on the sofa in front of the tree. The lights blinked slowly. She sipped her cocoa, watching the colors shift across the branches.
“You ever think about how strange this is?” she asked.
“What part?”
“You. Here. In my house.”
He stretched his legs out, crossed his boots at the ankle. “Reckon the whole thing’s strange. Christmas cards that pull a man through time, a world that runs on lights, stores more massive than cattle barns.” He beamed at her. “But sittin’ here with you ain’t strange at all.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just kept quiet, thinking how, in the end, it had been a very lovely day.