Chapter 29
tate
I woke up with a start.
I’d passed out on the couch. Hell, I didn’t even remember closing my eyes. Rubbing my neck, I winced at every sore muscle. Then the day’s bullshit crashed in on me.
I’d never been so scared and mad in one day in my whole life. At least Valerie was no longer one of my problems. It hadn’t been a good scene, but it was over with and that was all that mattered. That stunt she pulled was beyond what I could find acceptable for my team.
I stood and saw Amber asleep at the kitchen counter. A notebook and several papers were spread under her cheek, her phone still in her hands.
I tucked her phone in my pocket then carried her to my room. She barely stirred. Exhaustion had hollowed out her cheeks and left her lips pale. I plugged both of our phones in, slipped off her jeans, shucked my own clothes, and tumbled us both into bed.
She pulled my arm around her sighed when I curled her closer into my body.
Tomorrow would still be there waiting for us.
Tonight, I just wanted to hold her tight
The next time I was aware, it was because she was sitting on the side of the bed, whispering into the phone.
“I know that, Stevie. I don’t care what they want.
I’m doing it my way, with my own money.” She paused as if listening with her hand rubbing her brow.
“If you don’t want to help, I’ll take care of it.
” She sighed. “I know and I appreciate you, but this isn’t about me.
It’s about more than a network spot that will screw it up.
We have the infrastructure to stream it and charge what we want for it. ”
I stiffened about to reach out to tell her no.
“All the money will be going to those artists. I don’t need any more freaking money. It’s a Christmas show, it’s supposed to be about giving, not corporate sponsors.”
I collapsed back on my pillows.
She looked over her shoulder, realizing I was awake. “Stevie, I have to go. Get me the numbers. If I have to talk to them, I will.” She made a non-committal sound then hung up.
“What’s going on?”
She rolled back under the covers and pulled them up to her ears. “That wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you. I swear, trying to do something that doesn’t have eight million strings attached is nearly impossible.”
I snuggled her in against my chest. “You want to play at the Wonderland?”
She nodded against my neck. “I’m having my team come to put it all back together.”
“What do you mean?” I leaned away to look down at her.
“You can’t afford for everything to be a mess for weeks while you rebuild the village. I have a team of fifty people who are geniuses at building and breaking down sets in under eight hours. They’re exactly who you need to fix what I did.”
“Amber, it’s not your fault.”
“Just let me help, Tate. You have been doing everything for people in this town. Let someone take care of you for once.”
It was what I did. From when my mother got sick, through after her death, I was the one who made sure things were taken care of. My father certainly didn’t know how to take care of a house while he was mourning. He barely had been able to tend to the animals.
When I won the lottery, I continued to do the same.
The Haven Wonderland really had been the only thing I’d ever done just for myself.
Instead of fighting her, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, until I felt her heartbeat against mine. “Thank you.”
She relaxed in my hold. “I’ll remind you of this moment when my team completely takes over your space in the next few hours.”
I laughed. “So that means we have a few hours?”
She kissed my neck. “Well, maybe half an hour.”
“I can work with that.”
Her phone rang again. She growled against my shoulder. “We can ignore it.”
I resumed stroking down her back, tangling our legs to draw her closer. When her phone started up again, she cursed and reached for it.
“Esther?” She sat up and held the blanket to her chest. “I’ll pay for your hotel upgrade in Hawaii if you come here and help me. Yes, bonus upgrade with a view. I don’t care. I just need your help with a Christmas set design that will blow everyone away.”
Knowing our slow start to the day was a pipedream at this point, I rolled out of bed and took a quick shower while she hatched whatever plans she had in mind.
I had my own fires to put out.
It wouldn’t do much good if they fixed everything in Haven Winter Wonderland and we still didn’t have internet for the retailers to check out people.
We both spent most of the morning on the phone then had to take a ridiculous number of photos for her designers. By mid-afternoon she had a diagram and a plan of attack.
Her team started arriving around lunch and the takeover was an understatement.
Power tools were at the ready, and even a guy with welding tools started in on the broken benches. They replaced the busted barrels with sturdy metal holders with frosted plexiglass that could be linked up to the lights so we could customize its look for years to come.
Everything they came up with was an iteration beyond what we’d started with. The retail storefronts were renovated to fix the structural damages and then also improved upon.
Even the lights didn’t go untouched. Amber was going to use it as a backdrop for her concert.
Experiencing her in her element was an education.
By the third day, we welcomed the retail artists back in to set up their wares once more. Rachel’s Cocoa Bus II arrived on Thursday night along with a logging truck full of Christmas trees from the Brothers Three Orchard.
Noah and the Roth Defense group made good on their promise of security.
This time I didn’t need to worry about protecting my girl.
I had to worry that she’d see that living in Haven was more trouble than it was worth.
And I wasn’t sure I could survive that.