The Christmas Tree Farm

Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

T he wind rattled the old windows, and from her spot on the couch the view of the outside world was a blur of white and gray. This wasn’t pretty Christmas card snow anymore. The storm lashed icy shards at the windows and the wind shook the trees behind the old farmhouse. This was shut-the-roads-down-stay-indoors-and-pray-the-power-stayed-on snow.

Inside, the fire crackled cheerfully in the fireplace and Kira was thankful for the delivery of firewood she’d ordered back in the fall. And that she wasn’t alone.

Bennett’s phone buzzed on the coffee table, rattling their empty soup bowls.

He’d gone to the bathroom and his phone had buzzed at least five times in the two minutes he’d been gone. Maybe she should check it. Maybe it was an emergency. Maybe her foot might accidentally nudge it off the coffee table and she might have to pick it up…

Just as her toe brushed the edge of his phone, Bennett came in through the blankets. She pulled her foot back and tucked it underneath her. Bad foot .

‘I really hope you sell a lot of trees. It is not pleasant using the bathroom right now.’

Kira laughed. ‘Yeah, I know, right?’

Bennett sat down next to her, but he didn’t reach for his phone.

Curiosity was killing her. ‘Uh … your phone was buzzing a lot while you were gone.’

‘Really? I let Jeanie know where I was and I canceled all my meetings for the day…’ his voice trailed off as he looked at his phone. Clearly, the messages were not from his sister or his job. He frowned at the screen and then put the phone back on the table facedown without answering whoever it was.

‘You can answer if you need to,’ she said, dying to ask more. ‘I mean, I don’t mind if you need to be on your phone.’

‘I don’t need to answer.’ His tone left no room for questions.

‘Oh.’

‘Wind’s getting bad,’ he said, gazing out the window.

‘That wasn’t your wife or anything, right?’ Kira said with a laugh, thinking maybe teasing him would get him to let her in on who was texting him. ‘I mean, nice guys don’t make out with people when they have wives back in California, right?’

Right?

Her laughter petered off when she saw the stricken look on his face.

‘Bennett, please tell me you’re not married.’ As much as she’d looked for trouble in the past, she’d never fooled around with a married man. It was a line she refused to cross. Pretty much the only line.

And now here she was, making out with a man she thought was a nice guy who was very clearly hiding something, and she was right back where she started. But this was worse. At least the guys she’d been with in the past never kept it a secret that they were assholes. They never pretended to be sweet or helpful. They never plied her with kind words and lulled her into a false sense of security.

Oh, no, the guys she’d slept with in the past had never hidden the fact that they had no intention of staying, no intention of being reliable or trustworthy or really anything other than a quick fling, designed primarily to piss her mother off. And they’d been good at it. And that had been their entire appeal.

But here was Bennett acting all … all … sweet. And good. And nice to her. And she’d let him in, she’d started liking him. For once in her life, she’d chosen a man’s company because she actually liked him as a person and not as a means to an end. Only to have it end like this? With Bennett hiding something huge from her?

She should have known. There was no such thing as a good guy. But she’d actually thought Bennett was different.

‘I’m not married.’

‘Oh.’ She blew out a sigh, the rage seeping from her body, before another thought crossed her mind. ‘Engaged? Got a girlfriend back home? I may have been a shitty person in the past, but that is not something I would ever…’

He grabbed her wrists, his fingers on her racing pulse again. She shouldn’t care this much about him but she did.

‘Not engaged. No girlfriend.’

‘Oh. Okay. So…’ Her gaze drifted back to the discarded phone and Bennett dropped her wrists with a sigh.

‘You’re not the only one that makes bad decisions sometimes.’

‘So, it’s a bad decision calling you?’ she asked.

Bennett’s mouth tipped up in the corner. ‘Yeah, exactly.’

‘And does this bad decision have a name?’

‘Nicole.’

‘Hmm. Nicole.’

He nodded, looking more pained than she’d seen him since the ‘oh, you already have a shovel’ incident.

‘And Nicole isn’t a girlfriend or a fiancée or a wife?’

He shook his head. ‘Not anymore. Not for a long time, actually.’

Kira leaned back in the pillows, waiting for him to go on. She’d told him all the ugly bits about herself, she deserved a story or two about Bennett’s messy love life. She raised an expectant eyebrow. A part of her recognized her gesture as something her mother used to do when she was waiting for an explanation about Kira’s latest exploits, but she wasn’t going to think about that right now. Besides, the eyebrow always worked.

He sighed again. ‘It’s kind of embarrassing, actually.’

‘Embarrassing?’ She asked, even more intrigued than before. She’d love to hear something embarrassing about this almost-too-perfect man. And she’d love to hear an explanation for why this woman was blowing up his phone. ‘So, you didn’t break poor Nicole’s heart? She broke yours?’

Bennett glanced back at the windows. ‘Maybe the storm’s not that bad. I could probably make it home.’

Kira smacked his arm. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Now spill it.’

He huffed an embarrassed laugh. ‘Tale as old as time really. I was into her way more than she was into me. I followed her across the country. And then she ditched me.’

‘When?’

Bennett winced. ‘Five years ago.’

‘Five years ago?! Why didn’t you go back home?’

‘No one knew I went to California for a girl. They thought I went for a job. I couldn’t just come back.’

Kira frowned. ‘I’ve met your sister. She loves having you here. I’m pretty sure you could have gone home. Or come here.’

‘Probably.’ Bennett let his head lean back on the couch cushions and Kira watched his throat muscles as he swallowed. ‘But at the time, it felt like I couldn’t.’

‘That doesn’t explain why Nicole-of-five-years-ago is texting you now.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Well, it gets worse.’

‘Uh-oh.’

‘Every year or so, we kind of end up back together again. But not really together.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘She usually just needs something from me.’

‘Oh, Bennett.’

No wonder he was acting so weird this morning. His ex was trying to slide back into his life, and he was trying to fight every Mr. Fix-It instinct in his body. He had a history of being taken advantage of. Did he worry she would do the same thing? The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but she didn’t have a lot of practice being nice .

‘I know. I’m a complete sucker. Nicole calls and I come running. Every damn time.’

‘If you were in California right now…’

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. ‘She doesn’t like to be alone for the holidays.’

‘And what do you get out of all this?’ Kira huffed, irrationally angry at a woman she never met. How dare she drag this sweet man along all these years? Even someone with a damaged moral compass like herself could see that Bennett didn’t deserve that.

He lifted a shoulder in a defeated, half-shrug. ‘I usually get a few weeks of sex, a date to my office holiday party, and a New Year’s resolution not to let it happen again once she runs off. I told you, it’s embarrassing.’

‘Do you love her?’ The question slipped out. She shouldn’t care if he loved her. As long as he and this Nicole person weren’t together at the moment, she could sleep with him guilt-free. Why should she care what he did when he got back to California?

Despite all that, she waited with her breath stuck in her throat.

His eyes stayed shut, his head tipped back, and she thought he wouldn’t answer. Or worse, maybe he would confess to being in love with Nicole, and then what? They play Parcheesi the rest of the afternoon and sleep on separate ends of the couch? Not nearly as fun as the day she’d envisioned.

But then he sat up and faced her, his gray eyes clear and honest.

‘No, I don’t love her.’

Breath rushed back into her lungs. Relief. ‘Oh.’

‘I don’t think I have for a long time.’

‘Well, then maybe it’s good you’re here. To … you know … break the pattern.’

His gaze held hers. ‘It’s definitely good that I’m here.’ He reached for his phone and turned it off, the cocky little smile returning to his lips. ‘There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.’

Kira’s smile was involuntary, immediate, and wide.

Bennett returned it and that was the last thing she saw clearly before the power went out.

* * *

‘Shit.’ Kira’s voice was breathy, a hint of fear in it.

‘I’m guessing you don’t have a backup generator.’

He could see her scowling at him even in the dim lighting. It was late afternoon and between the storm and the early sunset, the room was nearly completely dark now that the lights had gone out.

‘Of course not, I don’t have a backup anything. I barely have an upfront anything.’

He huffed a laugh. ‘It’ll be fine. We have the fire. And all these blankets.’ He fluffed the pile of blankets between them. Kira looked at him, a highly skeptical look on her face.

‘We’ll starve.’

‘Kira, you have a gas stove.’

‘So…’

‘So, it will still work. And I don’t think you can starve in a twenty-four-hour period.’

‘Maybe you can’t.’

He laughed again. ‘How about a flashlight? Or candles.’

She perked up at that, her eyes big in the semi-darkness. ‘I have candles! Upstairs.’ She grabbed his hand and pulled him up from the couch. ‘Come with me, it’s scary up there in the dark.’

He followed her out of the cozy warmth of the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. The stairs groaned with every step. Kira still held tight to his hand as she led the way. He hated to think that if he hadn’t come back, she’d have been here by herself, scared. She’d obviously have been fine, but he hated it, anyway.

She led him down the hall to the last bedroom.

‘They should be in here somewhere.’

It was the only bedroom with furniture. A bed in the center, a dresser, two bedside tables. But the room didn’t feel lived-in.

‘You don’t have sheets on the bed,’ he observed as Kira rummaged through a dresser drawer for candles.

‘I don’t sleep in here. Too cold.’

‘Where do you sleep then?’

‘Living room. On the couch.’

‘The couch?’ He was trying very hard to swallow his thoughts on Kira sleeping on the couch, but it had been a long day. A day filled with unplanned confessions and rapidly shifting barometric pressure. And Bennett was tired of suppressing his natural instincts.

He liked Kira. A lot. Too much probably. But he did.

And he showed people he cared about them by taking care of them. It was just who he was, damn it. And just because Nicole had abused that side of him, didn’t mean he needed to get rid of it completely.

And just…

Sleeping on the couch?

Because she was cold?

In this fucking drafty old house by herself?

He couldn’t stand it.

‘I’m bringing this mattress downstairs.’

Kira turned from the dresser, her arms filled with candles in varying sizes and shapes. Her brows rose until they vanished beneath her bangs.

‘Excuse me, you’re doing what?’

‘Don’t argue with me about this, Kira. I’m bringing the mattress downstairs. You can set it up on the floor in the living room. It will be more comfortable.’ He was already tugging the mattress off the box spring.

‘Bennett…’

‘I said don’t argue.’

‘Ha! Okay, you said it so obviously, I will just agree with you.’

He sighed, lowering the corner of the mattress. ‘Please.’ His voice was rough and raw, and this mattress meant way more than it should right now, but it did. He’d just realized that he didn’t want Nicole anymore. He didn’t love her anymore. And all he wanted was the woman in front of him and he didn’t know what to do about that.

All he knew was he needed this mattress downstairs.

He needed Kira warm.

He probably needed therapy, but that was an issue for another day.

‘Please?’

‘Please, let me do this for you.’

Kira stood in front of him, her mouth slightly open, like for once she didn’t know what to say. So he lifted the mattress again, tipping it to its side so he could shove it through the bedroom door. He pushed it out, angling it to get it down the hall.

Kira followed behind him, still in silent shock.

The stairs were a bit trickier, but he was a man on a mission now and he managed it, not entirely gracefully, but he managed it. Kira didn’t speak again until the coffee table was pushed aside and the mattress was laid out on the living room floor, right in front of the fireplace. The warmest spot in the whole damn house.

‘Show-off,’ Kira muttered as she arranged the candles on the mantle and the side table next to the couch.

And he couldn’t help his smile.

He grabbed the pack of matches by the fireplace and started lighting the candles.

‘This candle smells like Meet Cute ? What does that even mean?’ Lilac, champagne, and citrus, apparently.

‘Chloe got me that set.’

‘Morally Grey, Enemies to Lovers, Grumpy-slash-Sunshine,’ he read off the other candle labels. ‘Slow Burn, at least that one makes sense for a candle.’ He set the last candle down and found Kira laughing at him.

‘Here this one suits you best,’ she said, handing him a candle with Cinnamon Roll written on the side.

He sniffed it. ‘Smells good. Still don’t get what any of that means, though.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Kira shook her head, her laughter petering out. ‘But you should probably pay more attention when your sister talks about books.’

‘Books?! I thought we were talking about baked goods.’

She patted his arm as she made her way around the mattress that was now taking up most of the room. ‘Nope. Romance tropes.’

‘Romance, huh? So is a cinnamon roll … like a sex thing? Is there frosting involved?’ He waggled his eyebrows and Kira laughed harder.

‘Sounds sticky,’ she said, wrinkling her nose as though she didn’t like the idea, but Bennett’s mind was already happily imagining a naked Kira with vanilla icing drizzled over her body and his tongue tracing the pattern…

‘Help me with this.’ Her distressed plea broke through his inappropriate but delicious daydream.

At that moment, a fully dressed Kira was struggling to put a fitted sheet on the mattress. Every time she pulled one corner down the other popped up.

‘Would it kill the fitted sheet makers of the world to make them a tiny bit bigger?’ Kira groaned in frustration. ‘It’s times like this that I miss Elaine. That woman was a treasure.’

Bennett laughed and grabbed one corner while she took the other, and together they managed to tug it over the mattress. Once the sheet was on, Kira collapsed, arms and legs out like a starfish in the middle of the bed. The firelight gilded the side of her face, dancing gold over her dark hair.

She grinned up at him. ‘Well, I don’t know where you’re sleeping tonight. I take up a lot of space.’

‘I’ll take the couch.’ His response was so fast that Kira’s eyebrows rose in surprise. A frown crossed her beautiful face.

‘I was kidding.’

‘Kira, I don’t want you to think?—’

Kira cut him off before he could cock-block himself any further. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep on the damn couch.

‘Let’s agree that overthinking anything that happens during this storm is a bad idea, okay? Let’s just…’ She bit her bottom lip, her gaze meeting his again. ‘Let’s just live in the moment.’

‘Live in the moment, huh?’

‘Yeah. Let’s pretend there’s nothing outside these walls. Nothing after tonight. We don’t have to worry about the consequences. This storm, this day … it’s a free pass.’

A free pass? God, what a tempting thought.

A purely selfish moment. He’d wanted Kira North since he first saw her on the farm wrapped in her duvet, and now he could have her. For today, for this storm, for this moment. And he didn’t have to wonder what would happen after, or who would have to uproot their life for whom, or when she would get bored of him and leave. There would be none of that.

Only today.

Kira stared up at him from the mattress. He was still kneeling beside it after helping her with the sheet. He could tumble into bed with her and stay there for the rest of the night. He could have his perfect Christmas gift.

He didn’t know what it was about this girl that had him so into her after knowing her for a short time. But no, that wasn’t true, was it?

He knew exactly what it was. It was the way she sparred with him, teased him, and didn’t back down. It was the way she’d decided to change her life and then actually did it. It was the way she smiled at him like that, like he’d earned it.

‘So … what do you say?’ she asked, hesitation seeping into her question.

He leaned forward, bracketing her body with his arms, his legs straddling hers. ‘I say, I told you so.’

‘About what?’

He let his mouth tip into a smile. ‘About you being full of good ideas.’

Kira’s smile grew then, the uncertainty leaving her face. ‘Yeah?’

He dipped his head, letting his chest brush against hers and he felt her breath catch. He kissed the corner of her mouth.

‘Definitely.’

Kira blew out a dramatic sigh. ‘Oh, good. I was worried you were going to go all nice-guy on me and refuse to take advantage of me or something.’

Bennett huffed a laugh, as he nuzzled behind Kira’s ear, placing another kiss on the soft skin he found there.

‘Do you want me to act like a nice guy?’ he asked, lowering his hips and pressing lightly into hers. She squirmed a little beneath him.

‘No.’

‘No?’ he asked, teasing, brushing against her center again.

‘No, I don’t want you to be a nice guy right now, Bennett.’

He smiled against her throat. ‘Good.’