Deacon swung his leg over the mobile and stepped closer to gain a better vantage point to assess the damage. “Not as a tree that anyone will want to display in their home, unfortunately. But we can save some of these branches to use for garland and wreaths. And we’ll chop up the trunk for firewood. It won’t be a complete waste. But shoot, that was a really good-looking tree.”
He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt loop and called up Cody to give him the coordinates of their find. It would need to be their first order of business that morning. With the farm opening in just a few short hours, they would have to work quickly. But Cody was a pro at this sort of thing and if Deacon had to guess, his brother secretly enjoyed firing up the saw and having at it.
For the next fifteen minutes, Deacon and Kate zipped in and out of the rows, needles of emerald blurring in their periphery as they sped past. After their first discovery, Deacon had prepared for a slew of more just like it, but much to his relief, they didn’t encounter anything other than a broken limb or two. The night’s gusts and gales proved no match for the sturdy roots and trunks of the good majority of their Yuletide trees and for that, he was overwhelmingly grateful.
“Let’s make a quick run through the rentals and then we can head on in.”
Kate nodded. Her arms hugged firmly around Deacon’s middle and when he skirted a tree a touch faster than necessary, making the back of the mobile wobble and wave like a fan, that secure grasp squeezed even tighter.
“Sorry about that,” Deacon apologized, even though he wasn’t sorry one little bit. He’d fishtail around every bend if it meant having Kate’s hands on him like this. The only thing better would be if things were reversed and he had her in his arms. He suddenly got an idea. “Any chance you want to drive?”
“The snowmobile?” Kate shouted her incredulity.
“Yes, the snowmobile.” Decelerating, he slowed to an idle to give Kate a bit of quiet to mull over the proposition. “It’s easy. You’ll do great.”
“Or I could take out every tree with my wild and erratic driving.”
“If you do, I’ll just send the bill to your station.” Before she could protest, Deacon slid off the seat and moved behind her, giving her shoulder a small bump. “Go on. Scooch forward.” He waited while Kate shimmied up and hovered her palms above the steering handles like they just might burn her if she actually touched them. “Go easy on the throttle and if you need to stop suddenly for any reason, you can always push this button as a last resort.”
Kate studied the kill switch, drew in a shoulder-lifting breath, and affirmed her confidence with a nod. “Okay. I’ve got this.”
“You totally do.”
Taking position, Deacon moved forward until his chest pressed solidly against Kate’s back.
“Wait?”
He withdrew a sliver. “Yeah?”
“Would you mind…?” Her hand went to her coat and when she retrieved her phone, Deacon hissed out his worried breath and snuggled in close again. “Would you mind filming this?”
“Right. Of course. No problem.”
With his arm stretched to full length in front of them, Deacon balanced the phone in his large hand and hit record.
Kate hit the gas.
The snowmobile pitched headlong at breakneck speed, like a smooth rock released from the building tension of a drawn slingshot.
“Wahoo!” A shout of unadulterated joy tore from Kate’s lips the instant the vehicle took off down the mountainside. “Is this too fast? Am I going too fast? Should I slow down? Are we going to crash?”
“Nope. Not at all. You’re doing fine. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Deacon loved that he could see Kate’s face reflected on the screen of her phone as it recorded their downhill ride. Pure glee set her eyes wildly alight and the smile she beamed rivaled a child given a brand new puppy on Christmas morning. Gold-spun strands of hair that peeked out from beneath her helmet coiled and twisted around her face and her cheeks pinked as the frigid wind whisked over her ivory skin. She was beautiful, carefree, and the very best vision Deacon had ever seen.
“This is a-mazing!” Kate squealed around a continuous giggle she couldn’t contain. “I love this!”
Deacon’s heart did a double take at those words. He loved this, too. Maybe he loved more than just this.
Before he could reprimand his wayward thoughts and shove them into time-out where they belonged, the cell phone in his grip pulsed, their mirror images suddenly replaced by an incoming call as the name Courtney Druthers flashed across the top like a lit-up marquee.
“I think you’re getting a call.” Deacon spoke into the shell of Kate’s ear but the motor rumbled louder than his volume.
“I’m getting a what?”
“You’re getting a call!”
Kate released her hand from the throttle and the snowmobile backed off in speed so rapidly it nearly felt as though they were sent into reverse. Her body slammed back into Deacon’s chest right as the phone tumbled from his hand to the packed snow below.
“Oof!” Kate’s breath rushed, the wind knocking straight out of her. “Sorry about that. I should’ve practiced stopping before I set out speeding.”
“I’m not sorry.” Deacon pulled her in close.
Kate slowly turned her head to cast a look over her shoulder and if they weren’t wearing these cumbersome helmets, Deacon would’ve kissed her. Everything within him begged to and everything on her face reiterated that desire. The moment was primed and perfect for it.
“I…uh…” Kate suddenly swung back and lifted the helmet off before shaking her head like a dog after a bath. The faint smell of apples wafting from her long tresses had Deacon even more dizzied than before, something he didn’t deem possible. What kind of spell did she have on him? “My phone. Where’d it go? You said I was getting a call?”
“Oh. Yeah.” He reached down and scooped the device from the snow, brushing off the icy clumps before passing it to her. “Sorry, I dropped it when we stopped so suddenly.”
“That was completely my fault. I think I could use a few more hours behind the wheel before I consider myself even remotely proficient.”
“I can arrange for that, if you like.”
Hiking a leg over the seat, Kate got off the snowmobile and strode a few feet away, her boots leaving alternating tracks in the virgin snow as she paced circles around Deacon and the vehicle. “Nah. I think I’ll leave the driving to you from now on.” She lifted the phone high like a beacon, eyes squinted heavenward under a crumpled brow. “No cell service out here, huh?”
“Sorry. It’s a bit spotty this far out. Do you think the call was important?”
“Hard to say, but it was from my boss.”
Deacon didn’t know why his stomach dropped upon hearing that. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten that Kate’s very presence on the farm was all part of her job. He was well aware of the fact that her time at Yuletide was limited. Yet he’d somehow packed up and pushed that reality off to the side to deal with at a later date. Preferably next calendar year.
“Is it okay if we head home so I can call her back? Or at least find somewhere with decent reception? I probably shouldn’t leave her waiting too long. The word patience doesn’t really exist in Courtney Druther’s vocabulary and I don’t think it would fair well for my paycheck if I’m the first to teach it to her.”
“Sounds like a gem.”
“She’s honestly not all that bad,” Kate said, giving the woman the benefit of the doubt, but only for a moment before she tacked on, “But she’s not all that good, either.” Returning to her position at the rear of the snowmobile, Kate dropped her chin onto Deacon’s shoulder and made his already erratic heartbeat quicken when she uttered, “You’re a much better boss. The best one yet.”
Kate
“Pick up…Pick up,” Kate hissed into the receiver in time with the unanswered ring that pulsed every three seconds like a steady, sluggish metronome. Courtney’s voicemail sounde
d urgent. At least the words Kate could decipher from the bouts of spotty dialogue seemed urgent.
It would not bode well for Kate’s future at the news station to leave her boss hanging like this. Not when things already felt so unorthodox, uncertain, and downright weird. A few months back, a mere thirty minutes had lapsed between Courtney’s text and Kate’s reply, which resulted in donut deprivation in the staff room for a full week following that isolated slip-up. Sure, Kate couldn’t confirm that the two scenarios were linked, but the fact that Courtney would always grab the very last apple fritter just seconds before Kate could make a move for it made the absurd gesture seem entirely plausible. She’d finally gotten past that silly passive-aggressive donut episode. What would she face this time around, now that Courtney’s call remained unreturned going on three hours?
Kate dropped her head back onto the couch cushion and exhaled a strangled breath that lifted the wisps of hair framing her face. Today was shaping up to be a doozy. And then there was that near-kiss with Deacon. It was hard to even call it that because it wasn’t like he’d made a move or anything. But if they both didn’t look like space-bound astronauts, what with those ungainly helmets keeping them behind plastic and polycarbonate, she was certain they would’ve kissed. It was one of those situations where she could feel it everywhere. Her ears that rung like silver sleigh bells. The percussion of her heart that outpaced anything the Little Drummer Boy could crank out. Her palms that sweat and her legs that tingled. The moment was a full body one—every part aside from her lips that should’ve been pressed to Deacon’s.
Courtney Druthers was a buzzkill and Kate grew exponentially aggravated each time she tried—and failed—to reach her.
Tossing her useless phone to the couch, Kate studied the stark white sheet of falling snow that swathed the forest line outside the window. Deacon and Cody had made the call to shut down the farm for the day. Despite the morning’s snow removal, nearby roads were now closed and the white-out conditions weren’t exactly ideal for tree cutting. This was a tuck-yourself -inside-with-a-good-book sort of day, but Kate couldn’t even do that because the one novel she did bring with her was stowed away in her overnight bag currently trapped in the barn loft she couldn’t access.
The day was a waste and while it wasn’t in Kate’s nature to accept defeat without a proper fight, she waved her proverbial white flag and wrote it off as a total loss. It didn’t help that Deacon was down at the horse barn with his brother and Joshua, all hands on deck to secure and repair the decimated staircase. Kate would have gladly perched on a nearby hay bale, posting up by the men at work while she had Courtney’s number on repeat. But that particular part of the barn was a cell phone dead zone and Kate knew the best use of time would be spent in the main house, making sure Marla was taken care of and staying off that sprained ankle.
But the woman was stubborn and each time Kate offered to fold a load of freshly laundered clothes, grab a cold beverage from the fridge, or put on another track of Christmas carols, it was met with an eye roll and a frustrated, sputtering lip.
“I don’t need a maid, Kate.” Marla’s hands went to her waist in defiance. “I can do these things on my own.”
“I’m sure you can. But you shouldn’t.” It was admittedly tiring, this back and forth of matching wills. “Deacon’s not going to like it if he walks in to see you standing on that injured foot, Marla. I just got on his good side. Please don’t put me back on his bad one.”
“Oh, sweetie. You were never on that man’s bad side. There’s only been one woman to cross into that territory, and suffice it to say, she’s long gone.”
Kate bristled. That was no way to talk about a woman six feet in the grave. Any other day, Kate wouldn’t have poked her nose so deeply into business that was not hers, but this day was different. Maybe it was the unpredictability of the weather which vacillated between sunny and stormy like the flip of a switch. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn’t get ahold of her boss and her mounting frustration opted to find another place for release. Whatever it was, Kate didn’t hold back.
“Listen, I get that Jenny broke Deacon’s heart, I do. But it’s not right to talk about someone who clearly isn’t here to defend herself. Someone who can’t defend herself, even if she wanted to.”
Marla dropped into the wingback chair next to the couch and hoisted her bum ankle onto a brocade ottoman, then gave Kate the most peculiar look. “What makes you think Jenny can’t defend herself?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Kate tossed her hands into the air like she was throwing a pizza. “Maybe because she’s dead?”
If someone had told Marla she just grew elf ears, she couldn’t have looked more surprised. That fresh shock quickly turned humorous when she unleashed a fit of laughter that had Kate plastered up against the back of the couch from the shear, uproarious impact of it. “Jenny’s not dead, Kate.”
“She’s not?”
Wiping the tip of her nose and shaking her head, tears streaming down her face as she continued in her bout of hilarity, Marla said, “Goodness, no. Jenny is alive and well, to the best of my knowledge, at least.”
“I just assumed…”
“That no living, breathing woman would willingly leave a man like Deacon?”
Kate wasn’t sure that was totally what she meant, but close. “I guess so. I mean, the way he won’t let people talk about her. How he cuts off any conversation that might bring up her name. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just figured she had to be gone-gone. It was like he was protecting her memory or something.”
“I think what Deacon is trying to do is protect his heart.” A chiming bell from the kitchen punctuated the end of her sentence, and when Marla leaned forward to rise from her chair, Kate stood first.
“Nope. You stay put.” She waggled a finger at Marla. “I’ll see to it. What do you have a timer set for, anyway?”
“Just a batch of sugar cookies I whipped up. Grandma Kay’s recipe. I thought it might be fun to decorate them this evening once Joshua and the boys get back from fixing the staircase.”
“Marla! You’re not supposed to do anything that requires you to be on your feet! I’m fairly certain baking falls into that category.” Kate tightened her brow while giving her best pout, trying to put the woman in her place but failing. “When did you even have time to do this without me catching you?”
“When you were in the shower right after you came back from snowmobiling.”
“Sneaky woman.” Before Kate had retreated to the guest bath to take a nice, warm shower in an attempt to defrost, she had passed through the family room only to spy Marla sound asleep on the couch, a crackling fire that dwindled to embers serving as her afternoon lullaby. She’d been in that precise place when Kate had returned, too. “Deacon’s not going to be happy.”
“We’ll just tell him you made them.”
“The only way he’ll believe that is if they’re burnt, broken or otherwise completely ruined.”
“Well, you keep stalling and they just might be. Go on and get those puppies out of the oven before my snowmen cookies look like they spent a day at the beach without sunscreen.”
Kate snickered as she followed her nose into the nearby kitchen. The entire space smelled of sugary goodness and she sincerely doubted the kitchen of Mrs. Claus herself could even compare. There was that sweet, buttery scent of freshly baked cookies that translated into the warmest feeling of love. Kate imagined Deacon and Cody as young boys, bounding through the back door after school, backpacks slung on their shoulders while they raced around the butcher block island to steal a treat before properly washing their hands. She just knew Marla was the type of mother to have afterschool goodies waiting for her sons.
“Did they burn?”
Marla’s holler from the adjacent room tugged Kate out of her daydream and back onto the task at hand. Opening the oven door, she let the rich aroma mixed with heat rush over her skin before she located the mitts to pull the cookies from their r
acks.
“Nope. They’re perfect!” Kate called back. She hip-bumped the oven door into place. “Which means we’ll never be able to trick Deacon into believing I did this.”
“Believing you did what?”
Kate whirled around, sending several snowmen flying from the baking sheets. Before they hit the ground, Cody lurched forward to rescue the airborne cookies, snatching them right out of the sky like a major league baseball player catching a pop fly.
“Grandma Kay’s sugar cookies!” He cried appreciatively as he chomped the head off one.
“You’re not supposed to eat them before they’re decorated,” Marla reprimanded. She hobbled into the kitchen, holding onto the ledge of the counter for balance while Cody, Deacon, and Joshua filtered into the small space, bringing a rush of winter wind that chased them through the back door.
“And you’re not supposed to be on your feet, Mom.” Deacon nudged the door shut and then unwound the scarf from his neck to ball it between his hands. He shook it at her, but the floppy green and red fringe did little to help assert his demand. “Why would you feel the need to bake when you’re supposed to be resting? Don’t you want to get better?”
“Oh, I didn’t bake these. Kate did.”
“Yeah, for some strange reason, I’m not buying that.”
The devilish lift to Deacon’s mouth and his sidelong glance had every bit of Kate heating up. Most noticeably her hands. She looked down at the sheet still gripped between her fingers and suddenly realized the metal had started to burn right through the padded mitts, singeing her skin with growing intensity. Without thinking, she tossed the tray onto the counter.
“Acck!” She yanked off the mitts and sprinted to the sink to flip the lever to the coldest water possible. It stung initially, but eased into relief once her palms adjusted to the shocking variance in temperatures. Sighing, she let the liquid rush over her reddened palms.
“Are you okay?” Deacon was at her side in a blink. “You didn’t get burned, did you?”
“I’m fine.” Kate slumped forward against the sink basin. The scorched sensation subsided quickly and the bright red of her palms had thankfully started to fade to pale pink. “Just held onto that sheet for a bit too long and it got a little hot.”
Christmas at Yuletide Farm: A Small-Town Christmas Romance Novel Page 15