Page 36 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
I rolled my shoulders, stretching my neck from side to side. “Sorry. Weddings are a sore spot.”
She eyed me. “I want this tree.”
“What? You’re not going to pry?”
“It’s none of my business. I can’t pry in your life after telling you yesterday that you have no right to do that to Beth.” She turned her attention back to the tree. “This one.”
I stepped forward and put a sold tag on it with her initials. “Next?”
“Hmm.”
We perused every tree in the line until she’d found the ones she wanted, then moved to the next size on her list. We looked at literally every tree in this area of the farm until all she needed was the four-feet ones. I took her into the barn to see all the potted trees, and she chose them one by one until they were all ticked off her list.
“Are you sure that’s all the trees? You’re not missing a, oh, twenty-foot tall one for outside the old town hall building?”
Sylvie shot me a dark look. “Donotsay that in front of my sister. She does not need any more ideas. Getting her down to twenty-two was hard enough. She wanted the bridesmaids to carry a bloody mini tree instead of flowers, for goodness’ sake.”
I grimaced. “Christ. That would have been like something out of a horror movie.”
“You’re not kidding,” she replied, following me to the side of the barn. “Thank you for this, by the way. I know it’s a big ask.”
I raised my hands just before I pulled off my gloves. “Hey, if she wants twenty-two trees, she can have twenty-two trees. I’m not going to turn down money.”
Sylvie’s lips twitched into a tiny smile. “I can’t wait to decorate those.”
“Well, if you do feel the need to let a kid loose, you can borrow Danny.” I pulled down the commercial order book from the shelf and put it on the worktable. “When do you want them delivered?”
She smacked her lips together. “Um. The wedding is Christmas Eve, if I allow four days to decorate, three extra in case of emergencies… so like ten days?”
I leant over to the calendar and counted days. “The sixteenth?”
Sylvie stared at a random spot of the barn and wiggled her fingers one by one, her lips moving. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. In the morning though, please.”
“To the old hall?”
“No, Thomas. Deliver all twenty-two trees to my grandparents’ house. I thought we could all grab a tree and drag them across town to the venue one by one like a parade.”
“Your choice.”
“Yes, the bloody town hall!”
Laughing, I opened the book and scanned the orders. “I can’t have them delivered that morning. We’re already booked for wood and coal deliveries out of Castleton. It’s going to takemore than one truck and probably two trips. I’m gonna need the fuel trucks so… The fourteenth? About dinnertime?”
She sighed. “Yes. I guess that’s going to have to do if that’s all you’ve got.”
“It is, sorry. I’d reschedule the fuel orders for you, but we only go out of the village once a week, and these Christmas ones are all pre-booked.”
“No, it’s fine. Thank you. I’ll make sure I’m there to take the delivery.”
“Do you have tree stands for all the taller ones?”
She pressed her lips together, then shook her head.
“I’ll lend you some.” I sighed as if it was some great sacrifice for me to make. “Have you considered how you’re going to decorate them all?”
