Page 10 of Fa-La-La-La Faking It
Belle gave her a sidelong glance. “You can’t just snap your fingers and make them go away.”
“Watch me.”
Adaline drew herself up to her full height and stomped across the emerald-green grass of the square until she spotted one of the tree-wielding men. This one had a blue spruce balanced on one shoulder and an axe propped on the other. From behind, he looked an awful lot like the Brawny paper towel guy. Or a Hemsworth brother in a woodsy Ralph Lauren ad.
A waft of evergreen scent enveloped Adaline as she closed in on him, and just as she gave the man a stern tap on the shoulder—the one with the axe—a memory from the day before came flooding back.
You smell like a Christmas tree farm.
She’d uttered those exact words, hadn’t she?
To Jace!
Dread snaked its way up her spine as everything suddenly began to move in slow-motion—the gentle wind rippling through the man’s hair, the languid turn of his body as he moved to face her, the tantalizing flex of his forearm as the axe slid from his shoulder.
A rush of warmth washed over Adaline, as if she’d been baking in a hot Texas kitchen on a late July afternoon. But this wasn’t summertime. It was December in the Hill Country, and she’d been in such a hurry to see what the Comfort Paws girls had been so worried about that she’d dashed out of the bakery without a jacket. She should be freezing right now.
“Adaline.” An easy smile came to Jace’s lips.
It was him. What had Adaline done to deserve this? She was beginning to feel like she wasn’t on Santa’s nice list after all. It felt more like her name occupied the top spot on the naughty list.
And every other spot as well, all the way down to rock bottom.
“Can I interest you in a Christmas tree?” Jace winked at Adaline, who looked awfully flushed, considering the chill in the air. “For putting up with Uncle Gus yesterday, I’ll give you the friends and family discount—one hundred percent off.”
If Gus had been there, he would’ve chastised Jace for giving away his profits. His business wasn’t exactly year-round. Once the holidays were over, Jace would have to stretch whatever he made all the way to the following Christmas.
But Gus wasn’t there. It was just him and Adaline and a few hundred evergreens. Plus, a trio of women and their dogs who were watching them with rapt interest from about ten yards away.
“Friends of yours, I presume?” He arched a brow toward their audience.
“Yes,” Adaline said, frostily enough that Jace got the impression she was the source of the chill in the air, rather than anything to do with the actual weather.
If she weren’t so doggone cute, it might’ve been more irritating.
“Yes to the tree?” Jace tilted his head. “Or yes, you have something to do with the dog walkers who currently look like they just found lumps of coal in their stockings on Christmas morning?”
“Noto the tree. I don’t need a Christmas tree. Although, the offer was...nice, actually.” She frowned as if it pained her to admit he had a decent bone in his body. “I meant yes, those are my friends. But they’re not dog walkers.”
“You sure about that?” Jace aimed a meaningful glance at the three dogs—a golden retriever, plus two little spaniels who bore an uncanny resemblance to Fuzzy, minus his felt reindeer antlers.
“The four of us are the board of directors for Comfort Paws. We’re a community outreach organization that trains, certifies and places therapy dog teams throughout the Texas Hill Country.” She swallowed, and Jace traced the movement up and down the slender column of her throat. “We will be, anyway, once we get our training program off the ground. Which is whythis”—she flailed her arms around, encompassing the entirety of the Christmas tree lot he’d just spent the past two hours setting up—“cannot be happening.”
Jace had no clue what the connection could be between his trees and her therapy dog organization, but if she thought he was dismantling the lot, he had some bad news for her.
“Oh, it’s happening.” He rolled the blue spruce off of his shoulder and it landed on the ground with a thunk. This chat was clearly going to take more time than he’d anticipated—time he didn’t have if he was going to finish everything he needed to do before the lot opened at ten o’clock.
“Hey, Jace? We’re finished unloading the truck.” One of the workers he’d hired hitched a gloved thumb toward the empty flatbed, parked adjacent to the town square. “So we’re going to take off unless you need anything else.”
As per his written contract with the mayor’s office, Jace needed to get the truck out of the way before the businesses on the square opened. Which meant he really needed to finish the wackadoodle conversation with Adaline.
“That’s it. Thanks for your help!” Jace lifted his hand in a parting wave toward his modest crew.
“What are you doing? They can’t leave. They need to get all of these trees out of here,” Adaline said, eyes widening with panic. More arm-flailing ensued, along with some jumping up and down. “Come back!”
The dog walkers starting heading their way. Jace felt a headache coming on in three, two, one...
“Adaline, why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Clearly, there’s a problem, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.” Honestly, who didn’t love Christmas trees?
