Page 30 of Christmas in Vines

She slanted a narrow eye at me. “I can run you over with it, and then you’ll tell me.”

Laughing, I circled the truck and hopped into the passenger seat. She started the vehicle and drove off, taking the backroad circumventing the town, and when we were past the township, she headed north.

“We’re going to a pine tree farm,” she explained. “The O’Hara’s have been planting and providing firs for the town since before I was born. Heck, before my dad was born. A lot of people come far and wide to get their fir trees, but that’s not all they do. There are hills for sledding and skiing and a pond for ice skating, too. They have a hot cocoa and ice cream shop, too.”

“Ice cream? In this weather? Are they nuts?” I asked.

“You’d be surprised how many people want ice cream in snowy weather,” she said while we took a hill. “Anyway, we’re going to get the tree for my family living room, and that area is like two stories high with an enormous stone fireplace and feature chimney running straight up to the roofline. We can get a big one.”

“It might be a mangled one,” I told her. “I have never held an ax before.”

“Brace your feet and chop down at an angle,” she instructed. “It’s easier to taper the tree than cut through it at once. At least that's how I did it.”

As we crested the hill, she took a left and headed west. Trees lined the drive, and snow-capped mountains rose in the distance. We passed under the huge wooden signpost with the name O’Hara Ranch swinging from it in the soft breeze. Fir trees sprawled across the acres of the property, ranging from seedlings to large firs.

“Wow,” I gazed out. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s been in their family for generations. It’s spread out as far as the eye can see. It really is beautiful out here,” she said, looking around a little. “I’ve been wrapped up in business and boardrooms so long I forgot how lovely it is.”

We drove about two more miles in until we came to a house with, I kid you not, white gables and a freaking white picket fence. It looked like something I would see onLittle House on the Prairieor something from theHansel and Gretelstorybook. It looked so quaint and homey that I wondered if it was real.

“Yes, it’s real,” Willow laughed, and I realized I’d said my thoughts out loud. “I know it looks like something you’d draw up as a kid or make a gingerbread house from. But it works; when kids come here, it looks inviting and a bit magical, to be honest. Plus, Mister O’Hara looks like Santa Clause with his silver hair and beard.”

“Well, hell,” I replied. “When I was a kid, Mom had to bribe me to get on Santa’s lap, you know, at the mall and stuff. He scared the bejesus out of me… well, not him, mostly his elves. At six, elves with beards, piercings and mohawks looked like aberrations to me.”

“You mean to tell me even Santa is strange to you,” Willow groaned. “Is there a reset button on you somewhere for me to press?”

“If only,” I snorted.

There was a parking lot, and after finding a space, Willow plucked out an ax from the bed of the pickup and handed it to me. “Your weapon for this evening, sir.”

“I hope I won’t lose it,” I murmured.

We left to the farm and to a shed not too far off when we came across a man wielding a clipboard and overlooking rows of snowmobiles. Willow signed up, got the keys, and we headed off into the wild, snow kicking up behind us as we roamed the rows of firs.

“How about that one?” I asked, nodding to an 8-foot tree.

“No. Keep going,” Willow replied.

I gunned the bike, and we came to another row where a 9-foot one stood tall and proud. “That one?”

“Nope,” she said in my ear.

We took another row… and another… and four more until I started to lose count. We passed so many firs that I was starting to believe I was some kind of lumberjack in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere smelled like car freshener… only ten times stronger, and the smell of pine was so strong I couldtasteit in the back of my throat. All through it, Willow sat on a padded bench seat behind me with her arms wrapped tightly around my middle and her cheek nestled against my shoulder.

“Baby, you need to make a decision,” I said, feeling uncomfortable as the cold air was seeping into my jeans. “I’m getting the wrong case of blue balls here.”

Another row… another one, and then, finally, Willow exclaimed, “That one!”

Instantly, I stopped the vehicle and looked where she pointed. The pine was… a behemoth, at least thirteen feet high. As I stepped off, I looked at the trunk, thicker than my thigh, and half the other one.

“This… one?”

Ripping fears of me chopping the wrong one and getting crushed under its leafy boughs ran through my mind in concentric circles.

“Yep,” Mia pressed the ax into my hand. “Get to chopping,baby.”

I looked at her as she gazed up at the tree, her eyes twinkling happily and cheeks flushed red from the cold. She looked really pretty and sexy and sweet standing there.

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