Inheritance for Christmas (Holly Ridge Christmas #1)

2. Blake

2

BLAKE

T he night turns colder fast, and I’m freezing by the time I return to my truck parked on the back road in the forest. It’s one of many hidden side roads looping through Holly Ridge Forest, not found on any map, but I know them all.

A half-moon rises overhead, and from deep inside the pines, an owl hoots beyond a distant rustling of the trees. The night creatures are waking to roam while their day counterparts head off to sleep.

I hope Avery Dawson made her way back to her vehicle safely. I decide to circle out toward the main road and check the parking lot on my way home, just to be sure.

It’s strange seeing her. I haven’t laid eyes on her in at least fifteen years, not since I used to tag along with my dad on work calls when he was the resident handyman in Holly Ridge. Not that I had known Avery well back when she visited in our youth. She’s a few years younger, four, I think. My father came up here to help her grandparents occasionally, and I’d hang around, but I remember the precocious redhead. She’s hard to forget.

Where is she from? Tennessee? Texas? Somewhere like that. Her accent doesn’t give it away much, the very faint hint of a southern drawl tripping up a few of her words.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see her today, except that I admittedly forgot she existed. I arrived at Mr. Dawson’s funeral late yesterday, and with so many people in attendance, I took my place at the back of the church where there was standing room only. I didn’t attend the reception afterward at the Dawsons’ house, gatherings not really my thing. They lead to questions, and platitudes, both things I can always do without. Anyway, it’s not like I was really close to Mr. Dawson, even if I did like the man.

But that explains why I didn’t see Avery before today. She certainly has blossomed into a beautiful woman.

I shake off the unbidden thought, reminding myself that she’s a potential client, and I weave the truck through the dark forest road toward Maple Lane. As I head south back toward the center of Holly Ridge, I note that the parking lot in front of the tree farm is empty. It looks like Avery found her way out.

I’m half tempted to drive by her grandparents’ house and make sure she got home all right, but I don’t. I gave her my card, and that’s the end of that.

Parking in the double driveway outside of my house, I wave to one of my neighbors as I stop at the mailbox, collecting a fistful of flyers and envelopes from inside the log-cabin styled letterbox. He waves back, stopping to pick up a fistful of dead leaves from in front of his own mailbox.

The bitterness in the air is indicative of snow, but this feeling has been lingering over us for a week now without a single flake falling. Any day now, it will come, frosting the tips of the spruces with glittering white.

“You there!”

I wince, recognizing the voice even before I turn around. Everyone in town knows that voice. Sometimes I swear it haunts my dreams.

Through my peripheral vision, I notice that my neighbor has inconspicuously slipped back into his house, likely having seen Edna Monroe coming well before she marched up my driveway.

Coward, I think bemusedly.

“Hey there, Edna,” I offer, turning to greet the store owner as she stalks toward me. She lives a few blocks over, but it’s not uncommon to see her walking her gaggle of dogs in the area. Today she’s alone, however, not a wagging tail in sight.

She clucks her tongue reprovingly at me, her icy blue eyes narrowing.

“Edna, hm?” she leers, and I already feel my insides flipping like they did when I was a kid.

“Mrs. Monroe,” I correct myself quickly. At what age was I able to address the old lady as an equal, I wonder? Apparently thirty-two isn’t it.

“No, no,” she purrs, stepping forward to drop a mittened hand on my arm, a wavy wisp of white hair falling over her surprisingly unlined face. If I had to guess, I’d say Edna is in her late sixties, but that seems impossible somehow, because she’s always seemed the same age, even when I was a kid.

“Edna will do,” she declares.

I eye her suspiciously. “All right, Edna…”

“And since we’re on a first-name basis, you can come and help me with something, handyman,” she says, her hand curling around my upper arm. “This way.”

She’s freakishly strong for a woman her age, and I find myself half-dragged down the driveway toward the road as I try to protest weakly.

“I just got home from work?—”

“Didn’t we all, handyman? It won’t take a minute.”

I choke back my arguments and let her lead me the rest of the way to her house, where I find her Christmas lights half-strung, dangling. Groaning inwardly, I gape at her. The dogs start barking wildly when they see me from the bay window, paws and snouts against the glass. Edna sashays toward the porch to calm them down.

“Hush now, boys and girls,” she coos sweetly, her voice taking on a much gentler pitch. “You know Blake. He’s not going to hurt me. He’s here to help.”

“Is this what you called me over for?” I ask, smothering a sigh. Edna turns back to look at me, her brilliant blue eyes shining in the darkness.

She shrugs. “My arms are tired.”

A pang of sympathy for the widow shoots through me, but I remember that she’s a pain in the neck, and the thought curbs my compassion slightly. Still, I can’t leave her to her own devices.

“Fine,” I sigh. “Can you turn on the exterior lights, at least? And make sure your mutts are fed. I don’t want to be their dinner.”

Edna snorts and ambles inside, flicking on the porch lights so I can work. Shaking my head, I climb onto the ladder and get busy, stringing up the rest of her Christmas lights before she returns outside with a steaming mug.

“Here,” she grunts, setting the oversized reindeer mug on the railing. “Hot chocolate.”

I’m mildly surprised by the gesture. “Thanks.”

“There are no marshmallows or whipped cream, though,” she adds. “It’s just hot chocolate. And I’m not putting any on it, either, so don’t ask.”

I smirk, winding the electrical cord around the existing nails. Edna lingers by the steps and watches me silently for a moment. Her presence is making me distinctly uncomfortable, and I wonder if she’s going to watch me the whole time.

“Do you know what’s going to happen with the Dawsons’ land?” she asks unexpectedly.

My head jerks toward her, my brow furrowing. “Why are you asking me about that?”

She shrugs. “You’ve done some work over there. I saw Avery Dawson at the funeral. I expect the farm went to her, seeing as the son was good for nothing, running off like he did on his family. He couldn’t even be bothered to show up to bury his father. Didn’t show for his mother’s, either, if you’ll recall.”

I exhale slowly. “I really don’t know anything about that.”

Town gossip is not something I keep up to speed with, and I don’t think it’s my place to tell Avery’s business to anyone.

“She always seemed like a good egg, that Avery. Can’t say how that happened with those parents,” Edna goes on, as if I’m contributing evenly to the conversation. But I’m not stopping her from rambling on, either. A part of me wants to hear what she has to say about Avery. “I always liked her. She had something?—”

The dogs start to howl again, cutting Edna off mid-sentence, and the woman shuffles up the steps to tend to them, leaving me to finish the chore in peace, but also questioning what it is the town’s curmudgeon sees in Avery Dawson.

By the time she returns, I’m done hanging the lights. She emerges from the house again as I descend the ladder.

“Ah!” she laughs, a genuine smile of pleasure overtaking her face as I plug in the lights through the outside outlet and they blink in red, green, and blue. “Thank you, handyman.”

I roll my eyes, knowing full-well that she knows my name. She just said it to the dogs.

“How much do I owe you?” she asks.

I shake my head. “It’s on the house—literally. Get it?” I joke, pointing at the flickering lights on the roof. “On the house?”

She snorts again at my silly joke. “At least take your hot chocolate,” she insists, and I reluctantly agree to accept it. “But make sure you bring my mug back.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, now it’s ma’am,” she taunts me, and I stifle the urge to groan at her incessant razzing.

“Good night.” I turn and head down the street again. Breaking into a jog, I make it the rest of the way to my house and let myself inside, reclaiming the mail and my work bag from on top of the mailbox where I left it when Edna approached me.

The central heat is welcome after the exterior chill as I kick off my steel-toe boots and flip through the envelopes absently, padding through the front hallway toward the kitchen. My pulse quickens when my eyes rest on the letter not addressed to me. I stare at it for too long, a familiar sense of uneasiness knotting in my stomach as I reread my father’s name on the address line over and over.

Surely there can’t be an outstanding bill after all this time. Not another one.

Before I can bring myself to open it, my phone rings from my work bag in the front hallway, and I jump up from the kitchen table to answer it, grateful for the distraction. Digging the device out of the front pocket, I frown at the unfamiliar number.

“Hands-On Holly Ridge. Blake speaking,” I answer.

“Hi, Blake. It’s Avery Dawson.”

My shoulders relax instantly, her pretty face flashing before my eyes, the unexpected bill forgotten.

“Hello yourself,” I reply pleasantly. “I’m glad you made it out of the forest all right.”

She chuckles lightly. “I might need a little training with that saw, after all.”

“It’s an acquired skill,” I agree. “I’m happy to help.”

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling. Do you have any free time coming up? After taking a little tour of the grounds, I think I will need some help upgrading the property a bit…” She trails off, and I wait expectantly. “But I’m not really sure where to start. Did my grandad discuss what he had in mind with you?”

“Some of it,” I say. “The barn, for one.”

“Yeah, I saw how rundown it’s gotten. It’s mainly used for storage, isn’t it?”

“Mostly,” I concede, wandering back through the house to collapse on the couch now. I sink against the plush sofa, dropping my head back, enjoying the soft lilt of her voice. “It wasn’t always…”

I stifle a yawn quickly, but Avery’s astute ears pick up the sound despite my best efforts to hide it.

“I’m keeping you,” she says, sounding contrite.

“No,” I half-fib, not wanting to get off the phone quite yet, but she doesn’t believe me.

“Could we meet tomorrow—or whenever you have time? I didn’t mean to have this discussion right now. I’m sure you’ve been working all day.”

Her concern for me is endearing, and I don’t fight it. I am tired.

“What if we meet for dinner tomorrow?” I ask on a whim. The suggestion surprises me. I didn’t mean it to come off as a date per se, but I quickly add, “I’ll bring a pizza to the farm, and we can look over what needs to be done together. You can tell me your budget, and we can go from there.”

There’s a slight pause, as if she’s considering my offer, and I cringe, wishing I hadn’t been so hasty in blurting out the proposition in the first place.

“That actually sounds really great, Blake,” she finally says. “It would be nice to have some company my own age—not that my grandparents’ friends haven’t been wonderful and supportive since I’ve been in town.”

“Great. I’ll bring the pizza then. Is six good?”

“Thanks, Blake. I appreciate it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

We hang up, and I find myself smiling as I stare at the blank, mounted television hanging on the stone wall over the fireplace. To my surprise, I realize I’m smiling.

She’s a potential client, I remind myself again, but somehow, that doesn’t wipe the grin from my face. I’m looking forward to spending time with Avery, client or not.

Mr. Dawson’s little store is simply named Holly Forest Store and hosts an eclectic combination of homemade wood furnishings and whittled crafts the man created with his own two hands. What probably started off as a hobby turned into a whole store.

Over the years, I’d see him working on his front porch, his skilled hands always moving with his whittling knife as he rocked on his rocker after his wife passed, talking up the neighbors, and he acquired something of a legacy in the shop.

“I almost feel like I should save the pieces,” Avery comments, catching my gaze as I enter with two pizza boxes in hand that evening. “It doesn’t feel right selling off the last of his work.”

“Oh, I don’t know if he’d want that,” I say, setting the food down on the counter. “He took so much pleasure in knowing his work was in other people’s houses.”

“That’s true,” she agrees wistfully. “It’s a shame I won’t be able to keep it up. I wish he’d taught me how to whittle more, at least. He showed me a bit.”

I say nothing, my eyes flickering over the beautiful items admiringly. He did have a talent.

Avery turns her sparkling emerald eyes toward the white cardboard. “You know there’s only two of us, right?” she teases. “Unless you want to go out and feed the elk. How much pizza did you bring?”

I shrug nonchalantly. “I didn’t know what kind to get, so I got a bit of everything. Half meat, half Hawaiian on one, half vegetarian, half cheese on the other. I was hoping to avoid a debate about pineapple on pizza this way.”

Her dark red eyebrows arch appreciatively, and she waves me behind the counter, the fake kerosene lamps catching the strawberry red highlights in her high ponytail. “I can eat anything,” she reassures me. “You really didn’t have to go through all this trouble.”

I chuckle and accept the stool she offers next to her, catching a hint of jasmine perfume as I sit. “I remember you being fussier as a kid,” I recall. “Something about chicken nuggets and fries.”

Avery’s rosebud mouth forms an “O” of shock. “You remember that?! I was obsessed with nuggets as a kid.” She eyes me speculatively, and I look toward the counter, embarrassed that I recall that random tidbit about this girl.

Having her back here is bringing back a bunch of little memories, all of them good.

I reach for the pizza and notice a paper laid out.

“Oh, you found the blueprints to the farm,” I realize, nodding at the page in the corner as I open the first box.

“It’s been a while since I was here,” she explains. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything when I went through today.”

Again, I catch myself eying her appreciatively.

“I’d forgotten about the fully mature blue spruces we have in the west corner,” she continues, her words quickening. “Did you know that they can grow over a hundred feet tall at full maturity and that they’re drought resistant?”

I offer the box to Avery first and watch her face light up as she picks a slice, unwrapping a paper towel piece from the roll next to her. “There’s a whole wall of them surrounding the barn.”

A smile quirks the corner of my lips. “No, I didn’t know that. But I guess it makes sense to put a building there, protected by such strong trees.”

The light fizzles slightly from Avery’s eyes. “It still needs a lot of work,” she sighs. “As you’ve seen. The roof is rotting, and the interior is not in the best shape.”

I take a bite of my slice, chewing thoughtfully.

“I’d like you to start right away,” Avery tells me. I choke slightly on the cheese, her unexpected determination surprising me. She leans forward worriedly, placing a hand on my back, and I raise a palm to show her I’m all right.

Swallowing and sputtering, I find my breath and compose myself. “Are you sure?” I say, wiping my mouth when she hands me a paper towel. “You’re ready to dive into this?”

Surprise colors her face. “Of course. It’s already the season. Half the town is decorating, and people will go elsewhere for trees if I don’t open the doors. I’m ready to open tomorrow.”

Impressed, I sit back, setting the crust down and nodding slowly.

“I’m sorry. You must be super busy,” she apologizes. “Do you even have the time for this?”

“Yes!” I answer without preamble. I probably don’t, but I’ll make the time. “I can do it. I just want to make sure you’re sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she grins, cocking her head to the side. “Let’s make Grandad proud.”