As promised, we arrived at the edge of the Desden city limits after only an hour on the road.
“Here we are,” Chris said, pulling into a lot. Parking the truck, he unbuckled his safety belt and let himself out. I opened the door and slid out of the cab, my feet thudding to the icy concrete.
A large lot of Christmas trees filled an expansive area, about the size of half a city block. There were employees zipping around, helping the few other customers on site, but no one rushed to help either of us. Instead, Chris and I meandered through the aisles alone, and I was careful to remain right on his heels.
“What do you look for in a tree?”
“The basics,” I said. “Alive, booming with potential. Like this one.” I stopped to run my hand along an eight-foot Grand Fir. Full, green, and glossy, it was at its prime, and it was exactly the kind my father would’ve chosen. We were lucky to have spotted something so good right away. “What do you think? Do you like it?”
Chris reached over to touch the smooth needles. “It’s a little too showy, don’t you think?”
“Meaning?”
“It’s nice,” he said. “But it’s big, and loud, and . . . perfect.”
“Exactly.”
“What about something like this?” he asked, taking a few steps forward to point out a smaller tree—one that barely stood an inch taller than me.
“There’s a reason it’s still here,” I said, pointing to the red clearance tag. Yellow needles littered the ground beneath it, and there was no gloss left to the faded green. “It’s browning. What’s wrong with the one I picked out?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“No, really. It’s a guaranteed winner. Someone’s going to sweep it up and take it home, no doubt.”
“Then we should grab it before—”
“But this one,” he said, looking back to the smaller tree. “Try to see what I see.”
“I do see what you see,” I said. “It’s about to fall over.”
“Close your eyes.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Humor me?” he asked, coming around behind me.
He stood at my back, lifting his hands to my eyes to cover them, and when his fingers brushed my face, a knot formed in my stomach. He was touching me again. Content to humor him as he’d asked, I tried to disregard the nerves rioting inside of me, but my body was at war with my mind. He lowered his head next to mine and our cheeks brushed. Feeling him so close, I panicked. Could he hear the way my pulse slammed in my ears? Could he sense what he was doing to me?
“Picture this,” he said, his voice quiet. “It’s a little broken and withered now, but it can blossom into something beautiful again. We could tend to it, give it attention. Imagine trimming it with lights and ornaments, and giving it a purpose again.”
I couldn’t picture it. Even with my eyes closed and Chris narrating the change, my imagination wouldn’t spark. Nothing so dull could ever be beautiful again.
“There was life in that tree once, a liveliness that made it special,” Chris continued. “It’s still special, but it doesn’t feel its beauty, and that’s why it needs tending.”
“Can trees have feelings?” I asked.
“Of course they can,” he said, feigning offense at my question. “Now, imagine the growth and possibilities. Picture the lights and the decorations. Envision the wholeness, Sydney, what it could be with an attentive support system. Can you see it?”
I squeezed my eyes tighter, trying to bring his picture to life.
“Where would you put it?” I asked.
“In front of the bay window.”
I imagined it sitting there, looking lowly and pitiful. But as quickly as I’d pictured it there, I could see Chris all around it, stringing lights through the branches, careful not to trip over the ornaments at his feet—though he stumbled a few times and laughed in spite of his clumsiness. As he finished off the lights, I stepped in to hang the first ornament, and together, we brought out the inner beauty of the old and broken tree. The decorations covered the imperfections, while slowly, the color turned to a vibrant green. And as I saw it complete, I visualized Theo stepping in to position a star at the top, giving it the last little push it needed to be as perfect as Chris knew it could be.
“I see it.”
“We could do that, Sydney,” Chris said. “A little love can go a long way.”
He was still behind me, closer now than he was before, and my heart swelled. Somewhere, in the black, distant darkness of my mind, I registered comfort. Warmth. Protection. I leaned back into him, savoring a moment I hadn’t meant to enjoy, but then a tremor of alarm signaled me to snap out of it. Refusing to let a comforting thought of Chris plague my mind again, I took a small step away.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“For someone who claims indecisiveness, you seem to have your heart set,” I said quietly.
“And?”
“I like the idea.”
“But?”
“But what if it’s too damaged?” I asked, my voice cracking. Staring at the measly tree, I shook my head. “So what if we buy it, take it home, and dress it up? What if we give it all the love and attention it requires, and it’s still not good enough? What if it’s too damaged?”
“It’s not,” he said, taking my shoulders to turn me. He lowered his eyes to catch my stare before it fell to the ground. “You’re not.”
He was talking, but I couldn’t register his words. They were tangled up in all the chaos in my head, lost somewhere as they faded to background noise. What if it’s too damaged? I was reeling, trying not to overthink something as simple as a tree. Chris would think I was crazy if he knew what I was thinking, that I was no better than that stupid, broken, worthless piece of garbage he wanted.
“Sydney, did you hear me?” he asked.
“No,” I muttered, because I hadn’t. I tried to recall his response, but I couldn’t remember anything past my fearful question. What if it’s too damaged?
“Listen, forget the tree, okay? I don’t care,” he said. “We’ll get whatever you like. If you want the Grand Fir, it’s yours. We’ll pay for it, load it up, and take it home.”
“But you want this one.”
“I do,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
“But not the way it is. It needs work.”
“It needs love.”
“But you said it yourself,” I said. “It’s going to take a lot of time.”
“I’m patient.”
“Is it worth it?” I asked. “Do you think it’s worth all the time, love, and patience it’ll require?”
“I do,” he said, a smile tempting his mouth. “Sydney, I really, really do.”
I looked back to the small tree, watching as it leaned at an angle, dangerously close to falling.
I didn’t know why Chris felt so passionately about a plant, about how brightly it would shine with a little love and attention, but I wasn’t going to stand in his way. He’d clearly made up his mind. He wanted it. He was on a mission, and I hoped he would prove me wrong.
I needed him to prove me wrong.
Chapter Eight
“Ew, God, no,” Danielle said, walking around the base of the tree. “Please tell me you’re joking. This is hideous.”
Chris finished securing the tree in front of the common room window, right where I’d pictured it on display. It didn’t fill the area like one of the larger trees would’ve, and that was only one of Danielle’s many complaints.
“We have guests arriving in three days. Do you understand that?” she asked.
“I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow,” Chris said. His smile turned to a scowl the moment she breezed through the front door a few hours after we’d unloaded the tree. He went straight to work, opening the paint cans in the dining room.
“Chris, this isn’t going to work,” she said, following him. “When guests come to Morgantown in December, they’re coming for the
holiday experience, and we cannot give them this.”
“It’s a good tree.”
“It’s crap,” she said. “There’s not enough tinsel in the world to turn this around, and don’t you dare try to convince me there is. God, you are unbelievable! Can you imagine what people are going to think when they come in here and see this thing? You’re running this business straight into the ground. We’ll be lucky if we’re still open come next Christmas.”
“Are you done?” he asked, and Danielle puffed her cheeks full of air. “It’s the one we chose; it stays.”
“Think of Kathy,” she said. “What would your grandmother say?”
“Well, she’s not here, now is she?” he asked. He didn’t seem to care much what Danielle thought, and bringing his grandmother into it wasn’t going to change his mind.
She leaned forward to smell the tree, and her nose crinkled.
“I can’t deal with this tonight,” she said, sweeping her purse up off the couch. “I’ll be back in the morning to get the rooms ready for the Friday arrivals, and . . . ” She looked at the tree one last time. “I’ll try to make something out of that mess.”
“Sounds good,” Chris said.
She stomped out the front door, letting it slam shut behind her. Chris started back to work, filling the paint trays to prep for the second coat on the dining room. He gnawed at his bottom lip.
“It’s none of my business,” I said. “But—”
“Why do I let her talk to me like that?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “What does she have on you?”
“It’s not blackmail, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “I have some weird sense of obligation to her, and it’s stupid, but I can’t shake it.”
“What kind of obligation?”
“Gran was training her to take over the B&B when she retired, and they were inseparable,” he said. “It doesn’t feel right to send her away, but it’s also a struggle keeping her around. In Danielle’s head, it’s her business to call the shots.”
“Even though it’s not?”
“It was supposed to be,” he said. “But Gran died unexpectedly, before she ever made the proper amendments to her will.”
“So it went to you?”
“Nope. Theo.”
“Really?”
“But even that came with its own set of problems,” he said. “He already had too many business ventures in the works. He’d started his side job with the food truck, and he was putting together a business plan for a catering company. With breakfast duties here and traveling out to Desden to help with the soup kitchen, he was weighted with responsibilities. It was a busy time for him; he couldn’t accept more responsibility by taking over the business end of the B&B. He said he’d sell it before he’d pass it to Danielle, and I couldn’t bear to see that happen.”
“Would he have let it go that easily?”
“No. It was his way of keeping me here. I didn’t see that at the time, but . . . ” he sighed. “We signed the paperwork last December, and now . . . I’m running it straight into the ground.”
“Danielle doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” I said.
“It scares me that she may, though,” he said, so embarrassed by his admission that he couldn’t even look at me. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m going through the motions, hoping I’ll figure it out along the way, but . . . I don’t know. Gran made it look so easy, but this isn’t easy. Even with a great team, I’m struggling.”
“I don’t know. From where I’m standing, it seems like you’re doing a great job,” I said. “I mean, you said you’re booked to capacity for the weekend, which means after closing down for two weeks, people are flocking right back. They haven’t lost faith in you; guests are coming in, which means you’re obviously doing something right.”
“They’re coming for Morgantown, not the B&B.”
“Do you want to be here?”
“Strangely enough, I can’t imagine leaving again,” he said. “It’s not what I wanted or what I’d pictured for myself. I grew up in this house. I didn’t want to spend my adult life here, too. But it’s home, you know? It’s where all of my memories are—the good, and unfortunately, the bad. The business has suffered without Gran, and we have our low days, but it’s gotten better. I do what I can to keep morale up, but, as far as Danielle’s concerned, I’ve overstayed my welcome. She only hangs around because she’s waiting for me to give up.”
“I think you’re wrong about that,” I said, remembering the way she’d looked at him yesterday. She may’ve wanted the ownership to the B&B, but she also wanted Chris—whether he could see that or not. “You want my opinion?”
“Sure.”
“You’re underestimating yourself,” I said. “If you keep focusing on the things you want here, and you try a little harder to shut the negative stuff out, you’ll realize that you’re doing a wonderful job. It’s a nice place, and you’re a welcoming host. You’re new at this, and you’re still learning. Give yourself some credit and a little room to grow. Have some faith. I believe you can do it.”
He stopped rolling the paint for a moment, giving my words the consideration I’d hoped he would.
“I assume it’s Danielle’s job to decorate the tree?” I asked, breaking the silence after a long minute.
“Only because she says so.”
“Would it be okay if I started on it?” I asked, hoping that Theo was right—that a project would keep me busy, take my mind off of the things that were working effortlessly to drag me down. “Do you think she’d let me?”
“We won’t give her a chance to say no,” he said. “You want to do it?”
“I do.”
“Then it’s up to you,” he said. “Decorations are in the basement.” He set aside his roller and wiped his hands. “You wanna give me a hand?”
We walked through the kitchen and over to the basement door, taking the old wooden steps downstairs.
“I’ve got to get an electrician in here to check this thing out,” he said, flipping a switch a few times. The light never kicked on.
He pulled his cell phone out and shined it around the dark basement, but it didn’t give off much glow. I found myself walking at his heels, trying not to let him get too far ahead of me.
“Here we go,” he said, finding the shelf at the back wall. Passing his phone off to me, he lifted two boxes from the top shelf. I used the light from his screen to help guide him back to the stairs, and we made our way through the kitchen.
Chris set the boxes down in the common room.
“Thank you,” I said, passing his phone back.
He returned to the dining room, taking the roller back in hand.
I opened the box of lights and ornaments to assess what I had to work with. The strings of bulbs were nothing like what we’d had back home—white and twinkly, small and simple. The strand of lights I pulled from the box were large, multi-colored, and heavy, no doubt big enough to weigh down the small tree.
Still, I plugged them into the nearest outlet and watched as the blues, reds, and greens buzzed to life. Keeping them lit, I tried to string them along the base of the tree, but they wouldn’t stay in place.
I grumbled, fussing with them, and a few minutes later, I sensed Chris behind me again.
“Trouble?”
“It’s not working,” I said.
He messed with the lights for a minute, too, but my earlier suspicion had proven correct. The lights were too bulky for such a small tree.
“Danielle used some smaller lights last year to decorate the bookshelves,” Chris said, packing the others away. “Those are probably still in the basement. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared through the kitchen before I had a second to realize that he’d left me alone. Knowing he’d come back any minute, I turned back to the box of ornaments and opened the lid, revealing a lot of beautiful trinkets and ornaments.
As I lifted the first ornament from the box, the floo
rboards creaked upstairs, and my eyes snapped to the ceiling.
I’d tried reasoning with myself once before that any noise heard upstairs could easily be a guest, but I’d since learned that the B&B wasn’t open to guests until Friday. Since Danielle had left, and Chris and I were alone, I had no way of knowing the source of that sound.
I took a deep breath and tried focusing on the boxes, but then the wind picked up outside, and the bushes scratched at the siding. The house rattled against the wind, and each tiny sound sent a shiver down my spine.
I prayed that Chris would come back, but the longer I sat there, the more I started to doubt the validity of my rationale.
Maybe it wasn’t the wind. It could be a person, someone out there, watching me. I was surrounded by windows. Anyone could see me.
I jumped to my feet and shot through the dining room and kitchen, quick to get to the basement door.
“Chris?” I called down the stairs, knowing that his voice was all I needed to feel a sense of calm again.
I’d spoken loud enough to be heard, but he didn’t respond. Even from the kitchen I couldn’t see the glow of his phone downstairs, so I cleared my throat and called for him again.
“Chris?” My voice cracked, and as I looked down in the darkness, I wondered where he was and why he wasn’t answering me.
Deciding to brave the dark, I took the few steps slowly toward the bottom of the house.
“Are you down here?” I asked.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
I shivered against the dark. I couldn’t see anything. When my foot reached the bottom and leveled out on the floor, I only took a few more steps forward before stopping in my tracks. I turned. “Chris?”
I waited for a few seconds before I heard a pinging sound, and I jumped. Reasoning that it was only the water pipes, I took a breath and tried to focus in the dark. I turned in a circle, hoping to see something, but nothing stood out to me—nothing but black.
Running Scared (Letters From Morgantown Book 1) Page 7