Page 7 of How The Mountain Man Stole Christmas
A knock on the passenger window garnered his attention. Harper. He pushed the unlock button. She climbed in with determination, the height no match for her. “I’m sorry I didn’t open the door for you. How was the rest of your day?”
“Oh no big deal, I’m a big girl. The afternoon was quiet. The few people I had come in mentioned we were due to get a bad storm. Are you sure dinner tonight is a good idea?”
“That’s why I have a big 4-wheel drive truck. It’ll go through almost anything. Besides you need a bit of a distraction from your life right now. Let’s go get the pizza and head on out.”
Twenty minutes later they were out of town and headed north up the mountain toward the farm. The falling white stuff had turned to sleet, coating the roads.
“If we don’t get there soon, I’m breaking open this pizza box. It smells so good.” Harper picked up the boxes to smell at the seam.
“Go ahead, I won’t tell.” He laughed when she shook her head.
“No way, I’m not messing up dinner. They’d know just by looking at the pizza. Although, I could tell them you did it.”
There was that laugh again. It was magical, sending chills through his whole body. “I love your laugh.”
“You’re nuts. I laugh like a hyena. Oh wow, is this your farm?”
Fin pulled in the driveway marked with two monstrous Blue Spruce trees, adorned in Christmas lights. They’d grown so big one could barely see the welcome sign standing beside them.
“Fin this is gorgeous. There are trees as far as the eye can see.”
“Probably a lot you can’t see either. We don’t just grow Christmas trees. We have a lot of different landscaping trees too. Maple, Oak, and several others. Even some fruit trees in the greenhouse.”
Fin parked in front of the main house and shut off the engine. When he looked at Harper, her eyes were transfixed on the scene before her, and her mouth hung open.
“You look like you’ve never seen a house decorated for the holiday before.” He jumped out, rounded the back, and opened her door. She hadn’t moved. He lifted the pizzas off her lap.
“I’ve seen decorations but not like this, this is amazing. Does it always look like this?”
He couldn’t help but find it a little funny. He’d never seen this type of reaction from someone before when it came to Christmas decorations.
“Yeah, it used to look worse, a lot more lights when Maddie was alive. She was big into Christmas.” The cheerful moment turned somber with talk of his deceased sister-in-law.
“Come on Fin, let’s get this pizza into the girls. I’m sure everyone is starving by now. I know I am.” She jumped from the truck and followed him inside where they were immediately bombarded by two little dirty blond bobs, heading straight for Fin.
After unsuccessfully averting a pile-on, Fin got their attention to introduce her.
“Alright girls, this is my friend Harper.” He motioned for her to stand closer to him. “Harper, this rugrat is Kelsey, she’s got a freckle on her cheek. The little she-devil with the mini-pigtail horns is Hayley. Usually, the freckle is the only way to tell them apart.”
“Hi girls, it’s very nice to meet you.” Both girls smiled at Harper then ran away screaming.
“Daddy, Unca fin has a gir fend.”
“Hey, you two…” but it was too late, they were already out of site. Then around the corner came Fin’s older brother.
“Hi Harper.” Kaleb extended his hand to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Kaleb. Please come in and just ignore the girls. They are so high strung.”
“Oh my gosh, they’re really beautiful.”
“Thanks, they are pretty special. Unfortunately, they know it too.”
As they laughed, Fin yelled.
“I’ve got pizza!” He went running into another part of the house leaving Harper with Kaleb.
“It’s really nice to meet you Kaleb, thanks so much for allowing me to join you all for dinner tonight.”
“Pleasure’s all ours. We should get in there before Fin and the girls eat it all though.” He motioned for her to go ahead and explained where the dining room was. “Sorry if you overheard me giving Fin a hard time about meeting you today for lunch. It’s just that he doesn’t have too many friends he spends time with so it’s nice to see him get out. I feel bad he’s been stuck here with me and the girls.”
