Cowboy’s Christmas Bridesmaid (Trinity Falls: Icicle Christmas #8)

3. Tanner

3

TANNER

T anner Williams stood in the living room of the house on Juniper Lane, feeling completely out of sorts and wondering what on earth had just happened.

One minute he’d been elbows deep in the electrical panel, and the next… well, the woman who was essentially his boss had come clicking in on those heels like a hurricane, yelling about timelines and almost immediately covering herself in wet paint.

She had given the impression over text and email that she was one of those unflappable people—calm, level-headed, asking only the proper questions about licenses and references. But meeting her in person had certainly shown that she was more complicated.

Tanner smiled as he thought about the brief meeting. The look on her face when she realized he’d only been trying to save her outfit was priceless. Yet he hadn’t been glad she messed up her nice clothes. He liked her right away, even when she was yelling at him .

It wasn’t difficult. There was a lot to like about her. She was so earnest, and she seemed to actually care about her work. She was also so much younger than he’d thought she would be, and…

Don’t you dare notice that she’s beautiful , he told himself inwardly.

But he couldn’t deny that when she looked up at him, he’d been thrown by the sweetness in her eyes.

And when she yelled at him, she was only doing it for Radcliffe’s sake. Tanner liked that she was furious at the injustice of anyone not doing their best work for someone who had shown himself to be a selfless man.

Loyalty , he thought to himself.

The world could do with a whole lot more of that, as far as Tanner was concerned.

He shook his head and headed back down to work, not wanting to let his thoughts spin out to his ex-wife and her lack of loyalty. There was no point in that, especially when he was feeling good.

He grabbed the handrail of the basement stairs and gave it a nice shake, but it held firm. The fifteen minutes he’d put into it yesterday had paid off.

These were the tasks you didn’t anticipate in a big project, but that were necessary. With everything he’d be carrying up and down, he couldn’t risk a flimsy handrail. And besides, the borough inspector would check the handrails before Radcliffe could close on the property anyway.

But of course no one listened when you mentioned peripherals coming up on an estimate or a timeline .

Valentina listened, a little voice in the back of his head whispered.

It was true. He’d been amazed when she stopped and heard him out, thanked him for the background, and actually asked for another meeting to get his insights.

Lately it seemed like no one was listening—even his son’s second grade teacher, who seemed to be set on the idea that Zeke and the other kids needed to do huge amounts of homework every night.

Tanner had taken the time to sit down and write her a polite email after the second week of school, letting her know that the homework was too much for little kids, especially all the math, and that his son really needed time outdoors after sitting in school all day.

The teacher shot back an email so quickly that he was pretty sure she just copied and pasted it without even really reading his message. She said she understood that the kids didn’t like having homework, but that at this stage, they needed to drill .

Tanner could only roll his eyes. After a day of hard work and school, he and Zeke needed to go hiking or bike riding after school to unwind sometimes, not do a hundred math problems.

Besides, in Tanner’s opinion, all those hours of drilling were a surefire way to guarantee that Zeke would hate math.

Tanner used math all day every day himself, doing load calculations, taking measurements, and writing up client estimates. Back in school he had been considered very good at math, and he had enjoyed solving more complex problems too.

But math had been math back then, not this endless catalogue of weird word problems and drilling .

It was stuff like this that made him miss having someone to vent to. This problem might not have a solution, but at least when Karen was around they could commiserate.

I’m better off without her, he reminded himself. And he knew it was true. He’d seen the spark go out with her years ago. They had married young, and Zeke had been a surprise blessing. Tanner adjusted quickly, and was awed and grateful to be a father. But it was pretty clear now that Karen hadn’t been ready. At the end of the day, it was better to just have her gone than sticking around and phoning it in, even if it left him feeling like he was on his own.

The only other person he’d ever really liked talking to about problems was his brother, Axel. And he found himself longing for those times more and more lately. But Axel had taken off after high school graduation and barely came home anymore these days.

Tanner made it all the way to the panel before remembering that he couldn’t continue what he’d been doing anyway. He needed to run to the supply shop for GFCI breakers.

Valentina Jimenez, you really threw me for a loop.

He even liked her name. Something about it was like music. For the first time in what felt like forever, he itched to get out his dad’s old guitar and noodle around on it.

By the time he was in his truck and heading down the farmhouse’s long driveway, he was feeling more like himself than he had in a long time. He’d rolled one window partly down, letting in an icy blast of fresh air and snow flurries as Bing Crosby sang “Winter Wonderland” on the radio.

Tanner had always loved the farmland that stretched between his aunt and uncle’s place and Route One. The little hills and crests looked like something out of a movie, especially when they were covered in snow, as they soon would be.

Everyone knew it didn’t really snow much here until January, but Tanner had a hunch this year. He could taste it on the air. And there were so many flurries lately. That had to mean something. He had always loved the snow, even if it was a pain to shovel out sometimes. And Zeke was already asking about sledding.

Twenty minutes later, Tanner was singing along to “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as he pulled into the parking lot of Singh Lighting & Electrical Supplies.

The main showroom was full of chandeliers. Tanner normally hated having to duck to get past all of it, praying not to knock down any of the pricey crystal concoctions as he made his way back to the supply counter. He couldn’t help noticing the prices from the dangling tags, and he definitely couldn’t afford to smash anything.

But today, there seemed to be some new magic in the shimmering chandeliers and he paused in the center of them all, feeling like he was floating in the sky in the middle of a cloud of fireflies, or maybe an ice storm.

It’s beautiful, he realized. And it reminds me of something…

But he wasn’t really sure what, at first. He’d only installed a handful of these things in his career. Folks in Trinity Falls normally asked for simpler fixtures.

Valentina’s earrings.

He thought of the long, shimmering earrings flashing when she shook her head and couldn’t keep himself from grinning. His boss wore earrings so crazy that a giant showroom full of chandeliers made him think of her.

Yet in spite of the sparkling earrings and the clicking heels, there was an innocence about her. The shy way she had looked at him when he tossed her his sweater—like she was grateful and nervous at the same time—came back to him suddenly and he remembered the spark he’d felt when they shook hands, almost like he’d grabbed onto a live wire.

Had she felt it too?

“Tanner,” Mr. Singh said fondly, approaching him from the main counter where he had been talking with a customer when Tanner walked in. “Were you here to talk about fixtures today?”

“No, no,” Tanner said. “Just supplies.”

“Oh,” Mr. Singh said, sounding surprised. And Tanner could hardly blame him, since he’d been standing in the middle of the chandeliers looking around like he expected them to start talking or something.

Tanner headed back to the supply counter, where Mr. Singh’s son, Dev, sat, typing away on a laptop.

“Hey, Dev,” Tanner said.

“Hi, Tanner,” Dev returned. “How’s it going?”

Tanner explained what he needed, and Dev headed back, grabbing things from what always seemed to Tanner like thousands of shelves, without even looking at the tags. Of course, Dev had grown up in the shop, but it was still impressive. In just a minute or two, he came back to Tanner with a big grin on his face.

“I know you’re not an impulse buyer,” he said to Tanner, placing his items on the counter. “But today I have some stuff that’s actually sort of practical.”

Tanner waited while the teenager pulled a box out from under the counter. Dev used part of the wages his parents paid him to buy returned packages from a warehouse store. Then he resold the items from the shop or on an online auction site.

Tanner figured it was an enterprising activity for the kid, even if most of what he bought he probably ended up donating or throwing away.

“Work coveralls,” Dev said proudly, placing the box on the counter.

Tanner hated to break it to the kid, but he worked in jeans and flannels or sweaters for the most part, and he didn’t mind them getting dirty.

But a bit of pale purple fabric peeked out from among the others.

“You have a purple one?” he heard himself ask.

“Lilac,” Dev said, sounding a little surprised as he pulled it out and handed it to Tanner.

It was the same shade as the suit Valentina had been wearing. She probably could use something like this if she wanted to visit work sites all the time.

“How much?” he asked.

Dev answered with a reasonable number, and Tanner nodded.

“You have to pay for this separately,” Dev said.

“Of course,” Tanner told him, handing over cash for the coverall and then putting the supplies on his business account.

As he headed back out to his truck with his purchases, he felt a funny jolt of happiness at the idea of giving Valentina his little gift, even if it was only a work thing, and practical.

You’re just happy to work for someone who listens, he told himself firmly. It’s natural to be excited about that.

It was only feeling good about a lucky break at work. That was all.