Page 2 of Cabin Fever Baby

Soldit!

I wasn’t bitter—nope.

Not at all.

And I simply had dust in my eyes—they weren’t stinging with emotion.

Nope.

My breath caught as the tree lot came into view. The web of lights that canopied over the space drew me closer. I could hear the whir of power tools over Mariah’s impressive pipes.

A massive school bus was stationed a bit away from the bustling people prepping trees to be sent off to their forever homes. A black lab was bounding around from station to station, looking for trouble.

I parked, stepped out of my car, and I couldn’t help but grin like a lunatic.

Okay, this was exactly why I was in this Christmas Tree Farm right now. The hope and happiness of the holiday season dusted the air with pine and fresh cut wood.

I’d been longing for family togetherness. So much so that I’d rented a massive cabin on Crescent Lake and convinced my siblings to come out to have a family Christmas, dammit.

It helped that my brother, Quentin Hawkins, was a worldwide superstar musician and had more money than he was even aware of.

I was aware, because taking care of my little brother was my job.

Literally.

I never thought I’d be putting musician wrangler on my resume and yet here I was, four years deep.

I would never have picked this particular spot on a map if my brother’s producer hadn’t talked up the town every minute of the day.

Quentin and Rory Ferguson had spent exhaustive months in the studio for his last album—the one that we’d just spent eighteen months on the road promoting. My brother only cared about the stage, so I’d taken care of the tangle of scheduled interviews to make his management happy.

Even at the height of burnout and exhaustion, I’d remembered how fondly Rory had spoken of Crescent Cove and his ginger fairy wife, Ivy, as well as their daughter…some song name.

Right! Rhiannon.

How could I forget that name? Fleetwood Mac was a staple of my brother’s pre-show playlist.

Anyhow, Rory and his family split their time between Los Angeles and the Cove these days, but he still called the bucolic small-town home.

And home was what I needed.

Finding out my parents had sold ours had been a blow I hadn’t expected.

I shook back my blond hair and pulled the squishy wine-colored hat I’d bought at the gift shop over my wild hair.

Now I was going to find a tree to go with all the ornaments I’d just bought to create a kickass family Christmas.

The gravel and pine needles crunched under my boots as I walked toward the lights. It was a week before Christmas, and I wasn’t the only one buying a last-minute tree.

There were at least a dozen people doing fresh cuts on the array of trees. I didn’t know anything about the kinds of trees I was looking at, but some were a deep evergreen, while some had an almost blue silver tone. Some were incredibly densely full,and still others were immensely tall and so perfect, it seemed like they couldn’t possibly be real.

Then there were Charlie Brown trees pre-lit and tucked into gorgeous little pots.

I was definitely getting one of those for each bedroom.

But as gorgeous as the trees were, the lure of the Cocoa Bus had me veering over to the edges of the lot. I was delighted to see photo stations near the bus. One with a VW Bus decked out in holiday finery that had a long line of customers waiting as a stunning redhead took photos. There was a smaller area with an arbor that reminded me of something that might be in a winter wedding.

I wandered over to that and snapped a selfie, sending it to my sibling chat.

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