by S Doyle
I couldn’t wait to be part of that cycle.
Eight years, one place, one focus. It sounded like heaven.
Assuming the family kept me on that long.
“Still, she was sort of pretty,” I said.
I couldn’t help but notice. The long, dark, curly hair had been a rat’s nest this morning, but last night, with all the snow stuck to it, it was almost like she’d sparkled.
High cheeks, pointy little chin. Full lips. She had the face of someone you didn’t forget, even if it did always seemed to be a little pinched. I hadn’t noticed her eyes, but both Chris and Ethan had really dark blue eyes. Would she share that family trait? I would have to get close enough to see and that seemed like a dangerous proposition.
“No, my best bet is to stay as far away as I can,” I told my pines as I ran the electric shears up and down the sides, making them more narrow at the top. “She’s a typical New York corporate executive. Probably says things like in the weeds when she’s never been in a patch of weeds in her life. Or creative solutioning. I’m not even sure solutioning is a word. Like there is legit debate about that.”
“It’s a word. Solution can be a verb, so solutioning is perfectly acceptable within the rules of the English language.”
“Shit,” I muttered, immediately recognizing the voice at the bottom of the ladder. I looked at the tree branches in front of me and scowled. “You could have warned me.”
“Are you seriously talking to the tree right now?” Kristen asked me.
“Are you seriously going to call someone out for talking out loud?”
She folded her arms over her chest. She was wearing a knit hat and a warm winter coat, but her hands were bare and her nose was bright red. It annoyed me that I thought she looked cute.
Slowly I climbed down the ladder until we were on equal footing, although I had about six inches of height on her.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked her.
“Uh, hello. It’s my family farm.”
“Uh, hello. It’s acres of trees you have had absolutely nothing to do with in the three months I’ve been here.”
If possible, she crossed her arms harder against her chest. “Yeah, well, I’m taking an interest now. In everything. Let’s start with my father.”
“What about him?”
“Does he seem like he’s…fully in charge of everything?”
This was a tough question. I liked Pops. I liked him a lot. He was a good man who had no fancy airs about him. When he’d interviewed me, I hadn’t pulled any punches and neither had he. I was here to work, get my head straight, and grow healthy damn trees, and that was it.
If he stayed out of my way, I would stay out of his.
Only now his daughter was here and she was trying to pull me into a space I didn’t want to go.
How did I say that without pissing her off?
“No comment.”
Her jaw dropped. “Oh, come on. I’m not a freaking reporter. I’m just asking for your general observations about the inn and my dad.”
“Inn’s half full.”
She huffed. “I know that!”
“Then why did you come down here to ask me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Look, Paul Bunyan, don’t think for a second I’m falling for the thick-headed tree farmer act. You’ve been here for a couple of months. You were here before my dad had his fall—”
“I was here the day he fell too.” I stopped her. “He was at the top of a ladder, trying to hang a damn wreath that was twice as heavy as he could manage, on the barn. He’s lucky he only broke a leg and not his skull. I was the one who called the ambulance.”
“Why do I feel like you’re making me think that’s my fault?”
“Because he needs more people around him to talk sense into him. That’s what children are supposed to do with their aging parents.”
“And you would know?”
Fair question.
“Not really,” I muttered. “My dad doesn’t listen to me either.”
“Yeah, well, join the club. I’m here now, okay? I just want to know how he is.”
“Lonely,” I said, before thinking about it. “He’s lonely. Misses his kids. All of them. I’m not here to judge you, lady. I’m just giving you my general observation.”
She stared down at the ground, covered by the inches of snow that had fallen last night. “A broken leg doesn’t make you lonely.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “Just makes it harder to get around. But it also gives you time to just sit. You start to notice things about your life. Take stock. What you have, what you want.”
She nodded, as if what I said made sense.
“What does your dad do? When he’s not listening to you?”
“He’s a farmer.” It wasn’t a lie. Technically, he was a farmer. “And he likes to marry women. One at a time, mind you. But the last one was younger than me. I disapproved. We fought about it. So here I am.”
“Here you are,” she repeated. “Well, thank you for helping my dad. I’ll leave you so you can go back to your conversation with the trees.”
“It’s good for them,” I replied without shame.
She turned her back to me and started to walk away, but stopped. “Oh, and Paul Bunyan,” she said, with her head turned over her shoulder, an evil grin lighting up her eyes, which I now knew were as blue as her dad’s. “I’m not a typical New York anything.”
“Noted,” I said and lifted my hand in a brief wave. “See you around, Kris Kringle.”
“No one calls me that,” she shouted back.
Cool, I thought. Now I knew what to call her every time.
Kristen
“Ethan, did you know the inn is only half full? And why didn’t you tell you me about Rhonda quitting?”
I could hear my brother sigh on the other end of the phone. He’d started the conversation with the fact that he’d just gotten back from a town hall meeting and he was exhausted.
Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? Take pity? Not get the answers to my questions immediately?
He knew me better.
“I did tell you about Rhonda leaving, not that you actually listen to anything I say. And yes, I’m aware that bookings are down, but that could be for any number of reasons. Not that you would have noticed from New York, but I’ve got a lot on my plate too, sis. I can’t do my job and know everything that is happening at the inn every moment of the day.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. I was lying in my old bed, in my old room, looking at the old posters I’d used to cover my walls.
Pink. Bono. Mick Jagger. I’d been into female punk and classic rock.
Strange, I didn’t know that I could name a popular song on the radio today. When had that happened? When had I stopped listening to Pink?
“What’s not to like? Dad’s getting older. Sure, maybe he’s slowing down a bit. If the business slows down with him, maybe that’s a good thing.”
I shook my head. Ethan was a lawyer. He cared about things like right and wrong. Good and evil. Justice for all. There was no doubt he was going to be the mayor of Salt Springs one day.
But he was an idiot when it came to the business.
“Ethan, that inn is Dad’s retirement. There are no real savings. No 401K for him. If the business falls to shit before he retires and decides to sell it, then he’ll be left with nothing.”
“Is that true?”
“Oh my God! Ethan! How can you not know that?”
I rolled off the bed and started pacing in front of Pink.
“Because it’s not something we’ve talked about. Besides, Dad hasn’t even hinted that there’s a problem,” Ethan said, and I could hear the defensiveness in his voice.
“I’m not sure he would even know,” I said. “You know how it was when Mom was alive. She handled the bookings, the finances, and left him to the tree farm. I’m going to have to dig into the books. See where things stand really.”
“And you
’ll have time to do that? You don’t have to work remotely while you’re home?”
“Uh, no. My assistant has things handled for now back at the office.”
That was technically true.
“Then good,” Ethan said. “This is good. I’ve been trying to keep up, Kris, I swear I have. But with all the shit I’ve got going on, it’s nice to know that I’ve got some backup.”
“We should call Matt again. Tell him to get his ass home.”
“I tried,” Ethan said sharply. “He said he would pay for the nurse. He’s lucky I didn’t fly out to Chicago to kick him in the teeth.”
“Not the teeth,” I reminded Ethan. “You know he’s already lost three.”
“Yeah, well, he can afford a few new ones,” Ethan muttered.
“Hey, so, off topic,” I said, biting my lip. “What do you know about the new tree farmer?”
“Tree farmer?”
“Paul Bunyan.”
My brother snorted. “You mean Paul McCleer? Manager of Kringle Christmas Tree Farm?”
“Yes,” I said, slightly annoyed with how long Ethan was taking to get up to speed. I had to remind myself Salt Springs, Colorado, was not Manhattan. Things ran at their own pace. Mostly glacially slow.
“What about him?”
What kind of question was that? Everything about him. What was his background? Where did he come from? Had anyone done a background check on him before hiring him?
Was he single?
Stop. I didn’t care about that last part. Paul Bunyan with his beard and flannel shirts and surly attitude was not my type.
Typical New York corporate executive.
Says things like in the weeds.
I did say things like in the weeds all the time. Why? Because it’s how you described things about work when you wanted to get into the details.
And I don’t know when or why or how people stopped saying let’s talk about the details and started saying in the weeds instead, but that’s how the game was played, and damn it, I played it well. Or I had played it well.
“Dad hired him?”
“Yes, but I was part of the process. It was the one thing dad was willing to relent on, that he couldn’t handle both the inn and the farm. I helped Dad post the ad and Paul applied a few weeks later. He’s been a great addition. Solid guy. No bullshit.”
“Yes, but what do we know about him?”
“What’s to know? He plants shit and makes it grow,” Ethan stated. “Why the interest?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he’s living in the house with Dad.”
“That’s temporary.”
“And now I’m living in the house with Dad,” I continued. “What if he’s a secret serial killer or something?”
“Well, no one has died yet,” Ethan said. “If he starts with you, who does that say more about? Him or you?”
I narrowed my eyes and focused my death glare, which sadly Ethan couldn’t see. “You know I can still take you in a fight, don’t you?”
There was a pause. “I’m pretty sure you can’t.”
“Hide your nipples, Ethan. Goodbye, my brother.”
“Kris, wait…”
Too late. I’d already disconnected the call. The key to handling two younger brothers who were significantly larger and stronger than I was, was to instill the fear of the random nipple twist.
Never let them see it coming, but always make sure they knew the threat was real.
Now there was another larger and stronger man in the house. One I wasn’t related to, so I’m not sure how successful a Purple Nurple would work with him.
Still, there was no doubt Paul Bunyan-McCleer was an adversary.
I walked over to the nightstand and picked up my boss lady mug, now safe and secure from the tree farmer’s reach.
I considered what his reaction would be when tomorrow morning I came breezing into the kitchen with my favorite mug already in hand.
It made me smile. Actually smile.
Which instantly made me frown, because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d legitimately, without any pretense, just smiled.
4
The Next Morning
Kristen
I plodded my way down the creaking steps of the house on my way to the kitchen. Flannel pajama tops and bottoms, thick socks, my hair scooped up into a messy bun on my head. I was cranky, cold, and I needed my coffee. STAT!
For some reason I hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Maybe because I’d stayed up listening for sounds of Paul Bunyan sneaking down the hall to kill me in my sleep. Instead, all I’d heard was a shower, some light background TV noise. Then a creaking bed.
Paul was staying in Ethan’s old room and the bed frame squeaked like all get out at even the slightest move.
So technically, I’d been listening to Paul sleep, which seemed oddly intrusive and not a little intimate. Which made me feel slightly guilty, which didn’t help with my sleep so…
CRANKY!
It wasn’t until I’d reached the coffee pot and opened the kitchen cabinet that I remembered where I’d left my mug.
Oh my God! Did that mean I actually had to walk all the way upstairs again?
It was too far!
“Here, did you want to use this mug?”
I turned at the sound of my nemesis’s voice. He was currently washing out MY MUG in the kitchen sink. It was just Paul and me in the kitchen. My dad was nowhere to be found. Probably, hopefully, he was already over at the inn greeting some last minute check-ins.
Paul slowly rinsed out the mug, dried it, then carefully placed it on the counter next to the coffee pot. The boss lady logo facing me.
We stared at each other, each of us understanding that battle lines had been drawn.
He smiled mischievously, even as he raised his hands in the air like an innocent.
“I was so afraid when I couldn’t find it in the cabinet this morning that someone might have stolen it. Good thing, it was just you keeping it safe in your room. Clever.”
“You came into my room?” I accused him.
“I knocked first. The door was slightly open and I could see the mug just sitting there on your nightstand.”
“And you just walked in and took it? While I was sleeping?”
He shrugged. “Not my fault you sleep like the dead.”
“You think you’ve won,” I said softly, letting the darkness fill my voice. “You think this is a war and you’ve won. This, my friend, is just the opening skirmish. Are you really prepared to got to battle over a coffee cup?”
He bent down to me, his beard a little too close to my face.
“Kay-Kay, it’s a really, really good mug. So…yeah. Worth it.”
I blinked. “Excuse me, Kay-Kay?”
“Short for Kris Kringle,” he smiled. “It kind of fits you.”
I glared at him. “Do you have a death wish?”
He took the mug and filled it with coffee from the still half-full pot and then pressed it into my hands.
“Seems you’re a little cranky in the morning, Kay-Kay. Why don’t you drink this and then we can discuss some business?”
I took the mug and pressed it close to my chest in case he had thoughts of snatching it away. I took my first sip. I didn’t tell him how delicious it was this time because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
Also, I was secretly planning my revenge.
Also, I was trying not to wonder if, when he came into my room while I was sleeping, he caught me drooling.
Also… HE CAME INTO MY ROOM!
Thoughts swirling through my head, I took another sip of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.
“What business do we have to discuss?” I asked him, trying to convince both him and myself I wasn’t internally losing my shit.
“I had a chance to think last night when I got back to the house. You were worried about the inn not being filled. Is that because it usually is during this time?”
&
nbsp; “Oh, just every year for the last twenty or so years. So you might understand why I’m a little concerned.”
He brow furrowed and I could see deep creases in his forehead.
“How old are you?” I asked, suddenly curious.
“How old are you?”
“I asked first,” I said.
“Hmm, that means you’re over thirty-five.”
I gasped. “Will you stop doing that! You don’t just announce a woman’s age or weight like that. Did your mother teach you nothing?”
“My mother left us when I was five. So I think you mean stepmother. I’ve had four of those, and, no, they didn’t spend a lot of time teaching me anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said grudgingly, shifting a bit on the kitchen chair. I had the best mom ever so it always made me sad for people who didn’t have the same experience.
“Don’t be. I only pointed out your age because most women start to freak out about it after thirty-five.”
“I’m not freaking out about my age. I’m thirty-six,” I admitted, like it was no big deal.
He nodded. “Oh yeah. You’re freaking out.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why? Because of my biological clock? Because I’ve spent the last fifteen years focused on my career, instead of family? And now, in the last hour of my reproductive window, I’m panicking because it might be too late for me to fall in love and have a bunch of babies with someone? How stereotypical do you think I am?”
“Right. No, sorry. Clearly, you’re not freaking out. Do you want me to make you some breakfast?”
“I can have a baby any time I want, pal. Once again, science. Look it up. Also, I’m considering having my eggs frozen.”
“Does that work?”
“Everybody does it,” I said, as if that was some kind of answer. “It has to work. If you were going to make me breakfast, what would it be?”
“How about an egg sandwich on a bagel?”
“With cheese?”
I knew it was wrong to give him any advantage, but darn it, I was hungry and he offered to cook.
“Cheddar or American?”
“American, please.” I smiled over the rim of my boss lady coffee mug and showed him all my teeth.