Page 19 of The Christmas Tree Farm
He did. This end of Main Street had been closed off to traffic and was filled with people milling around, stopping at the booths along the way. It was already getting dark, even though it was only late afternoon, but the glow of the lights made everything cheerful and warm.
‘Do you want some help?’ he asked, even as he bumped into Logan who was filling cups. There wasn’t exactly a lot of space inside the booth.
‘No, no. We’re good. My baristas, Joe and Crystal, are coming to relieve us in about an hour. We’ll track you down then. They light the tree at six.’ Jeanie smiled at him. ‘Go enjoy the festival. Maybe buy your favorite sister a gift. I really liked the scarves at Bernadette’s handicrafts a few booths down. If you need a starting place.’
Bennett laughed. ‘Okay, noted. See you later.’
Logan nodded his goodbye in the middle of explaining to someone for the twelfth time since Bennett had been there that cocoa was free, all other drinks were three dollars, even though that same message was clearly written on the sign out front.
‘It’s right there, clear as day,’ Logan pointed down at the sign and the older woman at the window slapped a hand to her forehead.
‘Oh, would you look at that! If it was a snake it would have bitten me!’
Logan grumbled under his breath and Bennett stifled his laugh.
‘Good luck!’ he called as he ducked out of the booth and back into the chilled air.
He didn’t really have a plan of where to go first, so he decided to just let the crowd pull him along. Besides Jeanie’s booth, he spotted Annie’s bakery, at least five crafters selling handmade scarves, a soap maker, a candle maker, and an artist painting miniatures of the festival. And that was just what he could see in his first scan.
But it was the delicious smells wafting by that made up his mind on where to go next. Just past a crafter selling personalized ornaments and Christmas stockings was a booth with a giant waffle sign posted out front. The air around it smelled like waffle cones and caramel and the line in front was longer than any others. That was enough to convince Bennett that this was the place to be.
He got in line behind a figure in a familiar olive-green parka as he debated if buying personalized stockings for the dogs would be cute or one step too far, even for him.
Kira turned around, her face peeking out from her fur-lined hood. She narrowed her eyes when she saw him, and he couldn’t help but smile at her reaction. It made her scowl deepen.
‘Of course, you’re here,’ she said. He knew she was trying to sound like she was annoyed to see him, but he would swear he heard something else, too. Something that said she was glad to not be alone in the crowd anymore, like maybe she was relieved to have someone to talk to.
‘I think everyone in a fifty-mile radius is here.’
‘Well, I don’t need any rescuing at the moment so you can go on your merry way.’
Bennett raised an eyebrow as she tried to dismiss him.
‘How cocky of you to assume that I’m here to see you,’ he said.
Kira scoffed. ‘You’ve shown up at my house multiple times now. It’s not cocky, it’s just pattern recognition.’
He laughed and took secret pleasure in the fact that Kira bit down on her bottom lip to suppress her smile.
‘Actually,’ he said, peering over her shoulder. ‘I’m a big fan of’—he read the sign above the booth but there was no way that word was a real word—‘of these … waffles?’
‘Stroopwafels.’
‘What?’
Kira rolled her eyes. ‘Stroopwafels. That’s what they’re called.’
Bennett grinned. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘You’re impressed that I can read the sign? Or that I know that they’re thin waffles with caramel sandwiched between them and that they originate in the Netherlands?’
All of it. He was impressed with all of it. With her.
‘Impressed that you can say that word with a straight face.’
She did smile then, brief and bright, and Bennett immediately wanted more. But before he could figure out how to make her do it again, he was jostled by the crowd and knocked into her instead.
‘Oof.’ She let out a small puff of air against his neck as his body collided with hers.
