Not Christmas Without You

by Jane Porter

  Rob glanced down at the money in his hand. “Is this coming from my paycheck?”

  “No, it’s from me to you, to make sure you can take care of your family. But I expect you to take care of your family, understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. What time do you come? I don’t want to keep you waiting tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be here at seven.”

  “See you then.”

  After Rob left, Quinn took a walk around the property, inspecting the public areas of the tree farm, from the trees in the stands, to the wreaths stacked on a wooden table, to the big barn overflowing with Christmas lights and decorations. The barn was warm and Christmas music was playing. There was a register at one end and a coffee cart at the other. Quinn lifted one of the big coffee thermoses. It was heavy and sloshed with liquid. Opening the lid steam rose. Hot coffee. Exactly what he needed.

  Quinn poured himself a cup, added some sugar and a splash of milk before taking a second walk around the property, studying the pricing on the ornaments and holiday decorations before checking on the register to see how it worked. Petty cash was in the register’s till. An iPhone sat next to the register with a little square attached for credit card purchases. He glanced around to see if there was a book for record keeping, or a computer for QuickBooks. He couldn’t find one and then thought he’d keep track the old-fashioned way—he’d write each purchase down, and how it was paid for and once Sawyer and Jenna were back, they could sort it out the way they wanted.

  Wheels crunched gravel outside and Quinn stepped from the barn with his coffee. He grinned as he saw it was Rory. “What are you doing here?”

  “McKenna called me. She thought you might need a hand,” Rory said, buttoning up his sheepskin coat and tugging on work gloves.

  “There’s no one here yet.”

  “Not right now. But trust me, it’s going to get busy.”

  “Not complaining. It’s great to have you here.”

  “No, Quinn. It’s great to have you here.”

  When the first customer arrived a half hour later, Quinn and Rory had divided the labor. For the first part of the morning, Rory was going to bale and load the tree while Quinn rang up purchases, and then they’d switch for the next couple of hours. The system worked, and the day passed quickly. Sadie brought them lunch and stayed to eat with them. She took a peek into the barn to see what decorations they were selling, and then, noticing that coffee was out, she headed into the Gallagher’s house to make fresh coffee for the afternoon and returned to work.

  By late afternoon traffic picked up significantly. Kids were out of school and families were coming together after work. McKenna’s husband, Trey, joined them, and Sadie returned to work the cash register so the guys could all help customers with trees.

  Quinn couldn’t remember when he’d last enjoyed himself so much. He knew many of the families who stopped in, and even more people recognized him, with quite a few asking for autographs or pictures. He was happy to oblige, and then got the idea that maybe everyone should sign a card for Sawyer, sharing their best wishes.

  By five it was dark, and Trey laid a fire in the big fire pit before getting back to work wrapping and anchoring trees onto the waiting line of trucks and cars.

  McKenna arrived with the kids and boxes of pizzas. She found the sound system’s control and turned on the speakers for the outdoors so Christmas carols played inside the barn and wafted over the tree lot, too.

  Quinn hummed along with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” feeling festive. He liked having his whole family here with him. The only person missing was Charity. And just thinking that thought made him realize how serious he was becoming about her. That was a problem. She wasn’t ready for him to have strong feelings. She wasn’t ready for anything but friendship. But he’d promised her he’d be there for her, and he would be.

  Even if it meant keeping his distance from the one person he wanted to see most.

  Chapter Six

  Charity spent the rest of the day on pins and needles, hoping—expecting—to hear from Quinn. She kept an eye on her phone, even when she went on her lunch and breaks, just in case he texted or called, but he didn’t. She told herself he was probably really busy out at the Gallagher Tree Farm, but she kept thinking he might ask her to come out, and do something like Sadie had. This was one of those times that it was hard living in a small town because Charity knew who was out at the tree farm pitching in, and she hadn’t been invited. Maybe Sadie wasn’t invited, but as Quinn’s sister-in-law she could show up when she wanted and stay for as long as she pleased.

  Charity drove home after work, and as she made dinner for her parents and herself, she thought she’d happily do a stint at the register. She could restock shelves. Brew coffee, make cookies, basically anything. She’d do it for the Gallaghers—everyone was willing to support the Gallaghers—but her anxiousness was due to Quinn, and not hearing from him.

  Why hadn’t he sent her at least one text? Why not say that he’d stayed? Did he think she didn’t care, or was he just so busy he forgot about her?

  She went to bed feeling rather wistful and woke up even more blue when she discovered still nothing from him. It would have been different if he’d returned to Seattle. She honestly didn’t expect to hear much from him once he was back in the Pacific Northwest, but for goodness’ sake, he was just down Highway 89. A twenty-minute drive from town!

  Once at work, she sent Amanda a text, asking if she’d heard anything about Jenna Gallagher. Had the contractions stopped? Would Jenna and Sawyer be coming home today?

  Amanda promised to get info and let Charity know, and then added slyly in a second text, “You know Quinn is out there working. Maybe you should go pick out a tree?”

  Charity glared at her phone and didn’t answer. She settled down to work, and forced herself to ignore her phone and succeeded for nearly an hour when a text popped in from Amanda. “Just talked to Jenna. She and Sawyer are going home later today. I told Jenna you’re bringing a lasagna and garlic bread for dinner. She said Sawyer would be excited. He can’t stand hospital food.”

  Charity read the message a second time before answering. “You’re a weasel.”

  Amanda replied. “You want to see Quinn. I’ve given you the opportunity. You can thank me with details later tonight.”

  Charity smiled and put her phone away even as Greg appeared in his doorway.

  “You’re always on that,” he said. “Don’t you have any work to do?”

  “I’m checking on the Gallaghers.”

  “If that’s what you say.”

  There was no point in engaging him. Charity returned to the property listing she’d been filling out for Sam. But Greg didn’t like being ignored. He crossed to her desk, and cleared off a corner so he could lean on it. “And to think I once thought you were so sweet,” he said bitterly. “But you’re not. You’re cold. You’re an ice cube—”

  “Right,” she said, looking up and giving him a dazzling smile. “I am an ice cube. I’m frigid. Frozen. Brutally cold. Now, is there something you want from me, or are you just going to waste both of our time?”

  “I’m not dating Meghan anymore.”

  She just kept typing.

  “It was a mistake,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I accept your apology.” She gave him a tight smile. “Now can you go back to your office and find something to do, because I have plenty.”

  He said something unpleasant under his breath and huffed his way back to his office. Charity watched him a moment and then refused to give him another second of her attention. Before the Wyoming trip she might have dissolved into tears, or at least, felt wounded, but the five days at Little Teton had given her a chance to evaluate her heart. Her heart might have been bruised, but meeting Quinn gave her hope. Nice guys were out there. And nice guys did like her. And nice guys kissed soooo much better than lame guys.

  Her hands hovered over the keyboard as she remembered Quinn�
�s kiss. It had been amazing. A little shiver raced through her as she relived the lovely warmth and sensation. She’d left for Wyoming beat-up, and yet she returned to Marietta with energy and excitement and strength.

  Charity knew what she looked like—her mom was still pretty, even in her mid-fifties, and her sisters Jenny and Amanda were beautiful—but Charity had always been uncomfortable with her looks. It was why she downplayed her appearance whenever possible, pulling her long hair into a ponytail, and keeping her makeup subdued. She needed her value to be based on something other than her face, but apparently that was all Greg had wanted her for. Arm candy.

  But arm candy wasn’t enough for him. She discovered on Thanksgiving after he’d arrived at Amanda and Tyler’s house that there was someone else. She wasn’t even looking for trouble, trouble found her when Greg accidentally left his phone on a side table when he went with Tyler to open the red wine.

  Greg’s phone vibrated, dancing on the wooden table, and then vibrated again. The phone was facing up. Charity glanced down when it vibrated a third time, revealing an incoming pic.

  It was a photo of him and a pretty brunette in bed, with a big pink heart around them and the words, love you, babe.

  Charity had felt sick and she turned the phone over, hiding the image and yet it was seared into her brain.

  She was shaking when Greg returned with a glass of wine. Greg didn’t even notice she was upset. It was Tyler who asked if everything was alright. She blinked back tears and shook her head.

  Greg frowned. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  She handed him his phone. He looked at it and then turned it off as Tyler discretely left the living room.

  “That’s not what you think,” Greg had said.

  She clenched her hands, trying to stay calm. “I’m blonde, not stupid,” she said quietly.

  “That’s an old relationship.”

  “Is her name Meghan?” she asked, unable to even look at him.

  He didn’t answer and her eyes burned, and her chest ached, and she felt so unbelievably stupid. “I’ve heard about her, you know, but I didn’t believe it. She lives in Livingston, doesn’t she? She’s a Pilates instructor. One of my friends saw you take her class and then leave the class with her.”

  “It was a cardio class.”

  Charity laughed because she suddenly saw what she’d been trying to ignore. Greg was a liar and a cheat and he’d always been a liar and a cheat and she’d ignored the truth because she was desperate not to be alone. Jenny was gone. Mandy was married. Charity hated having so much time on her hands. But how could she have settled for this? How could she have imagined she was happier with him than on her own?

  Her laugh infuriated Greg. “I was never going to marry you,” he said. “You’re a bimbo looking for a free ride. You just want kids so you can stay home and stop working.”

  “Because kids aren’t work?”

  “Men are the breadwinners—”

  “Go. Please. Now. Before I get sick.” She went to the front door and opened it.

  He left without a word but the look he gave her was absolutely filthy.

  The tears Charity had held back filled her eyes as the door slammed shut. Amanda came out of the kitchen and gave her a fierce hug. “He’s an ass,” she whispered. “He was never ever good enough for you.”

  “You were right,” Charity choked. “He was seeing someone else.”

  Mandy pulled back and looked her sister in the eye. “Don’t you dare take him back.”

  “I won’t. I’m done.”

  The front door of Melk Realty suddenly opened and a gust of wind scattered papers stacked on Charity’s desk. She grabbed at them, and placed the stapler on top, before getting up to meet the mailman halfway. “Thank you,” she said, taking the bundle of envelopes and magazines.

  “My pleasure, Charity. Keep smiling, beautiful.”

  She gave him a smile and returned to her desk. Her gaze took in Greg in his office, and part of her hardened, hurt and angry still, and then she told herself he wasn’t worth it. She needed to let the anger go. It was time to focus on the things and people that mattered.

  Late afternoon, when Rocco’s opened at four, she called in an order for a family-size lasagna to go, their famous cheesy garlic bread, plus a green salad. It was expensive, but worth it, she thought when they promised to rush the order and have it ready in forty minutes. She swung by Rocco’s at four forty-five, picked up the order and headed out to the Gallaghers’ in Paradise Valley.

  Her tires crunched snow and ice as she pulled off the highway onto the narrow road lined with big pines that led to the Christmas tree farm.

  There were two established tree farms in the area, the Scotts’ and the Gallaghers’, and her family had always gone to the Gallaghers. She’d grown up thinking it was because her mom had gone to school with Mr. Gallagher, and that might have been part of it, but as Charity and Amanda learned two years ago, they’d gone to the Gallaghers because they always gave her family a tree for free. No one had known but her mom and Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher about the “donation,” and when the tree farm passed to their son, Sawyer, he continued the tradition until Mandy and Charity discovered that the Gallaghers had quietly taken care of her family at Christmas for all these years. The sisters had gone to Sawyer and expressed gratitude, insisting that it was time for the tradition to stop because they could afford to buy their parents a tree.

  It had been an awkward conversation with Sawyer, not because he had said or done anything uncomfortable, but rather it was uncomfortable knowing while some had scorned the Wrights for their poverty, there were others like the Gallaghers who simply, quietly, lent a helping hand.

  Pulling into the gravel parking lot now lit by tall overhead lights, she spotted cars and people, and then finally Quinn, leaning over a vehicle, tying a rather large tree onto the roof of a small car.

  She sat in the warmth of her car, just watching, thinking he looked even more gorgeous than she remembered.

  She knew it was cold out, but he was working without a coat, wearing a navy patterned wool sweater over some kind of thermal shirt, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

  He had fantastic forearms. And hands. She remembered his hands from ice-skating with him in Wyoming, and how he’d tucked the blanket in around her for their sleigh ride.

  Turning off the engine, she stepped out of her car and zipped up her parka, trying to get some perspective, which wasn’t easy when her heart was racing.

  She shouldn’t be surprised by the crazy beating of her pulse. From the first time she’d met him at Little Teton Resort, he’d made her heart skip, but it had been almost forty-eight hours since she’d seen him, and the attraction was even stronger than before.

  Just looking at him made her feel so many things, and these were totally impractical emotions, but it seemed she had a totally impractical response to him. Charity might not want to feel this pull, but the chemistry wasn’t going away.

  Charity didn’t know if Quinn felt her watching him, or one of the guys said something to him, because he suddenly turned around and looked straight at her, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a slow, sexy smile. She didn’t think he was trying to give her a sexy smile. He just was sexy.

  Why, oh why hadn’t she realized he was Quinn Douglas in Wyoming?

  It would have made it all so much easier. She would have steered clear of him, and she most definitely wouldn’t have opened up so much, sharing those private little tidbits about her life, including highlights from some of her worst dates to the revelation she’d decided two years ago not to have sex again until she married, and men struggled with that. She’d told him that her last boyfriend had used that as an excuse to date someone else, and it had been his defense, too, when people discovered he was two-timing Charity.

  No, the late-night sharing by the lodge fire hadn’t been a good idea, as the late-night sharing had probably been a case of oversharing, and she wished she could take all of t
hose words back.

  Across the lot, Quinn shook hands with the driver of the car, and then started walking toward her. “This is a surprise,” he said, closing the distance between them, before wrapping his arms around her and giving her a hug.

  He looked big from far away, but close, he felt strong, warm, and hard. He smelled amazing, too—pine, fresh air, and a whiff of spiced shaving cream or aftershave.

  He smelled like a man. He smelled like Montana. He smelled like everything she loved. Except she couldn’t love this one. He was off-limits, out of bounds, not an option.

  “How’s it going here?” she asked, slipping from his arms, jamming her hands into her quilted coat pockets. To meet his gaze, she had to tip her head back. His cheeks had a dusky, ruddy glow. The red made his eyes brighter. His teeth shone whiter. He was simply too much of everything.

  “It’s going well,” he answered. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of things. The first day was overwhelming, this morning felt a little less confusing, and now that Sawyer is back, I know we’re going to be fine.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He and Jenna are in the house. He wanted to be out here, but Jenna is on bedrest and Sawyer needs to be off his leg, so we’ve sent them in and made it clear they have to stay there for the night.”

  “I’ve brought them dinner,” she said. “I’ll just carry it in and see if I can help them at all before I go.”

  “Let me help you. We’ve salted the parking lot but it’s still slippery.”

  She was glad for his help, and the chance to talk to him a bit more. “Where is your coat? Aren’t you freezing?” she asked as they returned to her car.

  “It’s drying by the fire. I got a massive snowball down the back of my neck and it soaked through on the inside but I’m sure it’s dry by now. I should put it on. It’s cold.”

  “Who would do that to you?”

  “TJ Sheenan, my nephew, of course.”

  Charity laughed. “I love that kid. He’s all Trey, isn’t he?”