Page 43 of Fa-La-La-La Faking It
“Close it down?” Her face fell. “Completely?”
“If I don’t, and the temperature falls as much as they say it might, the trees won’t survive. Freshly cut trees carry a lot of moisture in their limbs and needles. An ice storm wouldn’t just affect the exterior branches.”
Adaline’s hand fluttered to her throat. “You mean the trees could freeze from the inside out?”
“That’s one way of putting it, yes.” Jace dragged his hand through his hair. All that harvesting...all those trees. Half his yearly income was in danger of going straight down the drain.
“So what do we do now?” Adaline asked, eyebrows drawing together in concern.
We.Jace’s chest warmed. It was a wonder how a single syllable could make him feel a little bit better.
He shifted from one foot to the other. The reality of the situation hadn’t changed a bit. Having Adaline’s support was nice, but he was still looking down the barrel of an impossible task. “Well, we move the trees. I need to get them inside a proper shelter for the night.”
“The barn,” Gus said with a firm nod. “It’s old, but it’s still standing. And it’s heated. I haven’t turned the furnace on in years, but even if it doesn’t work, your trees would still be safer inside than they would in the square under tarps.”
The older man’s eyes fixed on Jace. Could he tell that Jace hadn’t set foot in the barn since he’d been back in Bluebonnet? Jace didn’t want to remember the day he’d hid away in the back stall, wishing and praying that he could stay. The wounded look in his father’s eyes when Gus had dragged him back inside had made him crumble inside. He’d felt like the world’s worst son. The day he’d said goodbye to Bluebonnet had been a nightmare—one that was still seared into Jace’s memory in shameful, ghastly detail. He didn’t want to relive any part of it.
But Gus was right. The barn was his best shot.
Hisonlyshot.
“Agreed.” Jace pulled the phone from his pocket to check the time. “If I start moving trees now, I might be able to save a third of them by nightfall. My pickup can only haul a few at a time.”
Adaline shook her head. “Wait, what about that huge truck you were using the day you unloaded all the trees at the square? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“It would, but that was a rental. I can’t get a flatbed of that size on such short notice—not way out here in the country and definitely not on the day before an ice storm.”
She popped out of her chair and planted her hands on her hips like she was Wonder Woman, coming to save the day. The glint of determination in her eyes almost made Jace believe it.
“It looks like we need to get started, then,” she said.
There was thatweagain. And this time, it seemed like she was dead serious.
They were in this together, for better or worse.
Chapter Fourteen
“Now I understand.” Maple aimed a wide grin at Adaline and spread her arms out wide, encompassing the entirety of Gus’s old red barn, now packed full of trees from the Texas Tidings Christmas tree lot.
Adaline dragged her gaze away from Jace as he methodically moved from tree to tree, adding water to their stands and gave her friend a curious glance. “What exactly do you understand?”
“Why everyone in Texas drives a pickup truck.” Maple nodded. “It all makes sense now.”
Adaline laughed. It never failed. Every time she started to forget that Maple wasn’t born and bred in Bluebonnet like the rest of the Comfort Paws girls, she gave herself away by sounding exactly like a city mouse, which happened to be the cute nickname Ford sometimes used for her.
“First of all, that’s a sweeping generalization. Second, I’ve lived in the Lone Star state all my life, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen a pickup truck convoy hauling Christmas trees from one end of town to the other. But clearly there’s a first time for everything.” Adaline looked over her shoulder at the line of Chevy, Ford and Ram trucks parked near the barn’s wide double doors. All it had taken was a few phone calls, and her friends and family had turned out in full force to help Jace.
Her brother had immediately volunteered his 1967 classic turquoise Ford pickup. Within minutes, she’d gotten Jenna’s boyfriend, Cam, on board too. Cam played professional football for the Houston Rattlers, but spent as much time in Bluebonnet as he could in order to stay close to Jenna, his sister and his twin nephews. During the offseason, he coached the twins’ peewee football team, which meant he knew a lot of dads...dads who drove trucks, because as Maple pointed out, this was Texas.
Not only had the cavalry shown up to help Jace save the Christmas tree lot, nearly every truck was now about to head home with at least one tree in tow. People had been buying trees as they were piling them into the truck beds. Loading up Jace’s inventory had been the most time-consuming part of the process, but even that went fairly quickly since so much of the town had turned out to help. Once every last pine, fir and evergreen had been placed in the back of a pickup, it had only taken the caravan one trip to transport them to Gus’s farm.
Adaline could hardly believe it. They’d done it, and without a second to spare. The sun had just dipped below the horizon when the line of trucks pulled up to Gus’s log cabin. Jace wasted no time unlocking the barn. The big double doors opened with a groan, and for an odd moment, he’d just stood there, staring into the darkened space like the hardest part was still ahead. But then a crack of thunder sounded, and a flash of lightning illuminated the empty building, revealing nothing but a vacant space. Jace had snapped back into action and hadn’t slowed down since.
“The pizza just got here.” Jenna peered at Adaline around the stack of flat cardboard boxes in her arms. “Where should I put it?”
“Oh, great. Let’s take it over to Jace’s truck. I’ve got a little tailgate station set up with some paper towels I grabbed from the kitchen.” Adaline took a few boxes from the towering pile and steered Jenna to Jace’s vehicle.
She hadn’t run the impromptu pizza party past Jace. He’d been moving around nonstop for hours, directing the helpers and organizing the trees in the barn so that it almost looked like a Christmas showroom. But if she knew Jace—and, crazily enough, she was beginning to feel like she understood him in a way she’d never really known her previousrealboyfriends before—she knew he’d want to properly thank the community for turning out for him. What else would a golden retriever do?
