Page 45 of Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm
Instead of giving me a chance to push any further, he takes an empty jar from the bakery crate, fills it with water from a bottle, and picks up the bouquet of roses from the table where I’d put them down.
I decide it’s best to end this conversation here like he so clearly wants to do. ‘How do youaccidentallyeat tinsel?’
He lets out a bark of laughter without looking up from the paper wrap he’s trying to wrestle from the roses. ‘I love how you say that likeintentionallyeating tinsel is completely normal.’
I watch as he slices the bottom off the stems with a penknife on his keyring and puts an abnormal amount of effort into arranging the flowers.
‘You’re going to do it, right?’ I say quietly. ‘The tree thing, I mean. If it works out like we hope and other businesses go for it, you’d have a great chance of winning. Kids love Halloween and fairytales, and pumpkins are inherently fairytale-esque, and you’re so creative, and—’
‘Of course I’m going to,’ he cuts me off before I have time to turn that into a compliment. ‘And if I didn’t, then Mum would never let a chance to knit a pumpkin pass by. It’s a great idea. Genuinely.’
It makes me blush again because he sounds so impressed and for the first time in a long while, it makes me feel like something I do could actually make a difference.
I can’t help smiling when he looks up at me. His bright eyes twinkle as he holds my gaze, the corners of his mouth tipping up more with every second until he lets out a full laugh and ducks his head. It’s enough to make me forget about everything else.
The back table is still full of pumpkins, but instead of traditional Jack O’Lantern faces cut into them, they’re carved with swirl patterns and snowflakes now it’s November, their tealights blinking inside them. He walks over to sit against it, stretches his legs out and shakes his hair back, using his fingers to pull it out of his shirt collar and detangle it. He whips a black hairband from around his wrist and puts it up in a short ponytail, his forearm muscles moving as he works, and I think I might’ve accidentally started drooling.
I’ve never watched a man tie up his hair before, but I’m used to doing it with my long mane and generally I just get into a mess and spend most of my time trying to detach hair from my bra straps and untrap it from where it inexplicably gets caught in my armpit, but my breathing has sped up involuntarily at how insanely sexy he looks. I think porn companies should give up on all the sweaty nakedness stuff and just concentrate on men putting their hair up from now on. His dark lashes fall across his cheeks as he looks down and bites his lip in concentration.
He knows I’m watching him without looking up. ‘What?’
‘I like it,’ I say. I don’t know what elsetosay, because ‘you are the hottest man on the planet’ probably wouldn’t go down too well. ‘You don’t see many guys with long hair, but it suits you.’
‘Even though I’m not a hipster with skinny jeans and a man-bun?’
I smile at the thought. There’s no way his muscular legs could be vacuumed into skinny jeans, and a man bun would never work. His hair is so thick that it doesn’t sit nicely in a ponytail and a couple of the shorter bits have already sprung out, and there’s something questionable about my sanity given how much I want to go over and tuck them back.
Thankfully he speaks again before I have a chance to do anything that stupid. ‘Thank you. My mum thinks I’m an unkempt slob.’
My breath catches in my throat because there’s something in his voice that I haven’t heard before, a flatness, a resignation. A vulnerability.
Like he can sense how much it makes me want to go over and sit next to him, he looks up at me and our gazes lock and the air suddenly feels charged with expectation, like we’re both waiting for something to happen.
I take a step towards him and he suddenly launches himself off the table, making one of the pumpkins roll off and thud onto the floor. The flickering tealight inside it goes dark as he makes a show of checking his watch like it was the reason he got up so fast.
I bend down to pick the pumpkin up, turn the tealight back on, and replace its lid as I set it back on the table.
I can feel his eyes on me, and I’m blushing again for no reason. When I turn around, he’s got that soft smile on his face again and he’s shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other.
Thankfully Fergus and Fiona choose that moment to reappear, and we watch them tottering down the aisle towards us arm in arm.
‘We’re going to catch them snogging behind the bike sheds one day.’ Noel leans down to whisper like he can read my mind. ‘They nip off for coffee every morning and they always return ten minutes later, all giggly and clinging onto each other.’
It’s probably a good thing that we don’t have any bike sheds. Because I could easily imagine myself kissing Noel behind them.
I shake my head at myself. Lingering gazes, desires to touch, and kissing men behind sheds or in any other place … I don’t know what’s got into me lately.
Chapter 10
‘Not like that, like this.’
It must be the fortieth time Noel’s said it so far this morning, and I still haven’t got the hang of it. We’re out in the Balsam fir field below the stream, Gizmo’s safely at home with Glenna due to the proximity of sharp knives, and Noel’s trying to teach me how to shear a Christmas tree.
‘Did that tree drunkenly catcall you or something?’ He looks sorrowfully at the overgrown thing I’ve just wielded my knife at. ‘It’s obviously done something to make you hate it.’
I’d never seen a shearing knife up close until I spent an hour in the barn this morning trying to work out how to sharpen them and polish them. They’re like a cross between a sword and a massive knife, and I’d feel a bit like a swashbuckling pirate if it wasn’t for the fact he’s insisted I wear leg and arm protectors and goggles. I actually feel like a foam-coveredTransformeroff to a welding class, with protective plates covering my jeans from foot to knee, knee to upper thigh, and again from wrist to elbow. I’m not sure if they’re to stop me getting injured or just because he wants to see me look like an idiot.
Noel, of course, swishes two knives around like a cross between a master swordsman and Jack Sparrow. He walks around each tree, cocking his head to the side and looking along the edge of the knife to judge the angle, and then swish, swish, swish, like a better-looking Edward Scissorhands, and the tree in front of him has gone from an overgrown jumble of branches to a perfectly conical tree that would look good in anyone’s living room.
