Page 305 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

Although it wasn’t much of a promise, it felt like it meant something. Hewantedit to mean something.

“Do you need help?” Maisie asked. “I may not have arms like tree trunks, but it’s not easy to pick up a hundred-pound dog.”

“No one would ever accuse you of being weak,” Jack said with a grin. “But I can do it. I’dliketo do it.” She looked at him for a moment, thinking, then nodded.

He got the ropes untied and pulled the tree off the roof, Maisie, Iris, and the dogs all watching him. After he wrestled it into the house, he carried it over to an empty spot in the corner by the front window.

The others trailed him inside, Chaco lying beside the tree and Einstein sniffing it suspiciously. He lifted one leg slightly, glanced at Maisie, and set it back down.

“I saw that,” Maisie said. “Don’t even think about it.” Turning to Jack, eyes dancing, she said, “Um, slight problem. My fake tree stand, which is indeed from the 1990s, doesn’t have a pan for water.”

“Obviously, you don’t know Jack very well,” Iris said. “He’s Mr. Prepared. The tree stand is in the car.” Then she bounded out the door.

As soon as the door shut, Jack closed the distance between him and Maisie. Before he let himself think it through, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

She didn’t respond at first, probably caught off guard, but it only took a second for her to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him back. With her body pressed against him, his fingers woven in her hair, he felt more alive than he had in…well, since the last time they’d done this. She nipped his bottom lip, and he pulled her closer, needing more. Needing everything.

Except then he heard the car door slam shut outside, and he reluctantly pulled away. Both of them were panting a little. “I’ve been wanting to do that all week.”

Maisie started to say something, her eyes full of lust, but Iris opened the front door.

“The guy at the lot promised this stand would work.”

Maisie shifted her attention to Iris. “You went to a tree lot? Those places are rip-offs.”

“And the trees in front of grocery stores are dry tinder waiting to shoot up in flames,” Jack said. “The only way to get a fresh tree is to chop one down yourself, and since we didn’t have time to go to a tree farm and our neighbor would hate us even more if we chopped her tree down, there were few options.” He leaned his head to the side. “Although I suspect we might have gotten away with it if we’d told her Jezebel was in the branches and refused to come down.”

Maisie laughed and the sound sank deep into his heart.

“Besides,” Iris said, “the lot was raising money for a veterans’ charity.”

“Fine,” Maisie said, rolling her eyes, but her grin let him know she was pleased. “Who am I to mock your gift? Especially when the profits go to a good cause.”

Jack attached the stand and unwrapped the tree, but before he stood it up, he said, “Now just remember, it’s only a few days before Christmas, so there wasn’t much of a selection.”

He lifted the tree, and the branches fell into place, revealing huge bare spots.

“You got me a Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” Maisie said as she broke into laughter.

“We tried our best,” Jack said, fighting his own laughter.

“Everything deserves to be loved,” Iris said. “Even scrawny Christmas trees.”

Jack heard the wistfulness in her voice, and his heart sank. Now he knew why she’d been so adamant it wasthe one.

Maisie pulled his sister into a sideways hug, keeping a hand on her shoulder. “Spoken like a fundraising chairperson.”

“You hate it?” Iris asked.

“No, just the opposite,” Maisie said with bright, shiny eyes. “I love it. It’s perfect.”

She’d already pulled multiple boxes of Christmas ornaments out of storage and stacked them on the sofa and coffee table. Iris pulled up some Christmas music on her phone, and the three of them began to string lights on the tree and fill it with ornaments. Some of them were handmade, and it was obvious a few had been made by the O’Shea girls when they were young. He felt another pang for Iris, who’d never done such a craft at home, but also for Maisie. For what she’d lost. Another ornament, which he hung, was a framed photo of the O’Shea family. Maisie stood in front with her sisters, their parents behind them. She looked a lot like her mother, but something about her father—the glimmer in his green eyes maybe, or the set of his jaw—reminded him of her too. He wished he could have known thepeople responsible, in part, for making Maisie the woman she was. He would have liked their approval.

When they finished, they stood back and studied their work.

“It’s the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen,” Maisie said with tears in her eyes. Chaco yipped as if to say she agreed.

“I like it,” Iris said with a soft smile and tears of her own.

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