Page 39 of Christmas in Vines

“Just to renew my files, Willow,” my uncle took the file and gave me a soothing smile. “I’ve asked your dad for a copy of these files over four times, but he keeps forgetting. I decided to come and do it myself. I have businesses with these people too so it’s only right for me to keep on top of it.”

“Oh.” That did sound reasonable…but why did I feel it was not as innocent as he made it look? “I get it.”

Going to Dad’s desk, I flipped through his rolodex and found the number for the charity then plugged it into my cell. “Will you be going to the Winslow’s Christmas party then?”

“Of course,” Uncle Herman nodded, while snatching up the copied file and adding it to the stack on the table. “I would not miss it for the world. Are you coming?”

“I’d rather have four root canals without Novocain and offer my arm to a shark,” I replied. “On the same day. I-I don’t want to be within fifty feet of Maxwell, uncle.”

“Why?” he asked, “Are you afraid he’ll try to woo you again?”

Woo? Who in this century used the word woo?

“No,” I smiled brightly. “It’s because I might very well put my foot up his ass and since I’m at a ball, that shoe would be spiked. At least five inches.”

He laughed. “Oh sweet girl. You always had your mom’s feistiness in you. I am glad it’s still there.”

He took his copied files and left. I called the shelter and checked in again, then after getting the confirmation, hung up. Going to the printer, I accessed the memory and printed copies of what my uncle had done. Page after page, after page, thirty-five in all—a fraction of what my uncle had copied—were all clones of the assets of our common shareholders who held forty-nine shares between them all.

If what Uncle Herman had said was right about redoing his files, it was not that unremarkable. But—I couldn’t understand why I felt this sickening churn in my gut.

These shareholders were the ones with voting rights to nominateboard membersof their choice and even top-level management. What was Uncle doing with these? Slipping them into a manilla folder, I dropped it off in my room then went to the living room where the tree was nearly fully decorated. The last thing to go on was the star at the top and Dad always wanted that part.

“… Why did I expect you to have gone all Architectural Digest on that thing?”

I spun around to see Tyler there, his arms filled with chopped wood for the fireplace. He was squinting at the tree, as if it were a math problem he could only solve by turning it upside down. “It’s… pure chaos.”

I rolled my eyes, “Sometimes you need chaos.”

He hefted the stack. “Not this kind of chaos. It’s like a Christmas elf… threw up on it.”

I smacked him. “Shut it.”

Laughing, he went to fill the fireplace with wood and stacked the rest on the racks beside it. Dusting his hands off, he asked, “What time are we going off to the shelter again?”

“Six,” I told him. “The shelter opens at six thirty, so we need to be there early to get our assigned positions.”

“Assigned positions?” his head jerked back. “So… I won’t be that guy inOliverwho hears the kid saying,Sir, I want some—”

I smacked his arm again but giggle-snorted, “Jesus, you’re incorrigible.”

He waggled his brows. “It’s one of my best traits.”

Eyeing him, I asked, “What is your definition of best?”

He glanced around and I saw what he saw: the mistletoe and boughs on the mantles and across the fireplaces. The staircase balustrade wrapped with red and white, the festive red, white and green thrown pillows on the couch with old, knitted quilts on the back of them. The manor smelled of gingerbread, pine, and mistletoe, and I could not be happier.

The expression on Tyler’s face shifted to calm awe. “I don’t know how this is possible but this room—it’s you. It’s you in decorations.”

I frowned, “How do you figure?”

“Over there,” he pointed to a row of bows on the staircase. “Red, white and green bows but in between them, white, silver stars, all an inch and a half apart. Down to the exact centimeter, I guess. That’s your control and attention to detail. And then there’s that—” he nodded to the tree. “Baubles hung anywhere, wooden figures plopped on any branch, tinsel covering half of it in clumps and mere strings on the half. The lights are wrapped with so much red in one place I’m starting to think it’s a homing missile.”

I laughed. “I guess that’s my chaotic side.”

“You said it, not me,” he grinned. “I wonder where that side of you will come out next? Oh—what if when you have kids, you name one something proper like, William Alexander the third and the next kid’s gonna be named… Sparky.”

Grabbing a cushion, I flung it at him. “Oh my god,shut up.”

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