Page 14 of Christmas in Vines

Two cups of hot chocolate and fragrant, aromatic, doughy pretzels were placed before us, and before I could even twitch and grab my wallet, Tyler paid for both with a twenty. “Keep the change.”

The crowd was getting thicker, but we found a spot near the fences, stood under an awning and sipped our chocolate. I felt enchanted.

“My dad told me he met my mom on a night like this,” the words left my mouth before I could stop them. “He’d seen her across this green, her beauty so enrapturing, he felt mesmerized, but she had vanished after that. He left his booth to search for her half the night, and when he found her, she was kissing another guy. He said he had never felt that heartbroken in his life, even worse, over a lady he didn’t know.”

Tyler turned to me, his head canted to the side, “That is… I don’t know what to say to that.”

I bit my pretzel. “He gave up, but when she came around the next year, notably alone, he approached her then, and they got to talking. He told her how he had felt that night, and she kissed him, telling him that she would stay with him if he promised to treat her as an equal. He did, and they married.”

He sat his empty cup on a post and bit his pretzel. “If you don’t mind me asking, where is your mom?”

“She passed three years ago from cervical cancer,” I said quietly. “But she was married to Dad for almost thirty years, and she told me she never regretted a day of it. Even the long days when he prioritized his business over giving her attention. But they always made Christmas their priority, to set work aside and commemorate the moment they had found each other.”

Tyler’s face twisted a little. “My mom and dad weren’t that…active in my life. My brother practically raised me when they were off country hopping, seeing stuff to make their business stand out and be unique, or Dad was at work slogging through long nights.”

I blinked. That—that made sense as to why he never truly experienced Christmas.

Before I could address that comment, the bleeping of a transport truck drew our attention, and the crowd cleared while the truck backed up. A huge tree was in its bed, its fir needles thick and bushy.

Tyler dusted his hands off, “I guess it’s time.”

“You’ll be all right. Just don’t let it fall on you,” I replied cheekily,

He leaned over and kissed my temple, “If I die, write the wordsI told you soon my tombstone.”

I stood and watched as he grabbed the gloves the handlers were giving out and stuck to other guys who had erected the tree before. When the tree was tipped up, it was a monster fifteen-foot fir and would take a massive tree stand to stabilize it.

Snow began to flutter down in cottonball-sized fluff, and I watched as Tyler got the wood to make the tree stand. It was so simple but so precious at the same time. I knew I had thrown him in the deep end, but what sense was it to only dip a toe in?

Smiling, I watched as he helped them get the tree nailed up and upright before I wandered over to him. He was gazing at the tree with wonder in his eyes when I plucked the beanie off and smiled. “You did good.”

“Do I get a reward?” he asked mischievously while snow landed on his hair.

I tipped on my toes and smacked his cheek. “There, so—” I turned to walk away, but he stopped me, hooked a hand around my arm and reeled me in like a fish on a line.

“You don’t get to run away, missy,” he said dangerously.

I tilted my head up for a proper kiss when he smacked me on the mouth and walked away, leaving me gaping. “Tyler!”

“Two can play that game,” he grinned over his shoulder while snow collected on his hair and shoulders. “But you can bet your pretty little butt, I play to win.”

ChapterFive

Cole

“Hey, Burrows,” another workhand, Rory, I think, called out while wiping a hand over his hat to dislodge the snowflakes. Jerking his head over his shoulder, he asked, “Can you grab those last crates for me?”

“Sure thing,” I said, hurrying past him to grab the green crates. For once, I wasn’t the last person finishing my work, so I didn’t mind giving a hand.

I got the crates into the warehouse and grabbed a bottle of water while the rest of the guys headed out for dinner. I waited a little to see if I could grab ahold of Willow—she had been there all day, and it was her friend Marcus who had handled that morning’s roll-out—but, as I waited, it was her uncle and Maxwell’s father that descended from the office above.

Making myself look busy, I soon found out that no one paid attention to you if you were not decked out in a five-thousand-dollar suit.

“I’ll see if I can get the files tonight,” the uncle said, his tone as conspiratorial as a two-dollar bill General ready to sell the missile codes for a ham sandwich. “Do you still have time with your people?”

I shifted some crates around, crouching to look at the labels, stacking other empty crates—anything I could do to listen more.

“Seventeen days before the investors turn their backs,” Maxwell’s father said. “It’s half-a-million buy-in, then fifteen million the first year. When we get the profits, they’ll triple that amount.”

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