The Merry Moose’s Mates (Male-Order Mates #16)

Chapter Thirteen

Briar

My plan for Christmas had been very simple: stay home, possibly visit my brother for lunch or have him come here, and just relax.

That was before my mates and Alice showed up. Nothing I had planned was close to special enough for her. Alice was giddy about snow, Christmas, and her new life. The very last thing I wanted to do was to have her disappointed about the holiday. I needed to up my game. But with the snow keeping us here and delivery trucks away, it was going to take an immense amount of creativity.

My cabin didn’t even come close to looking like it was ready for guests, much less Christmas. It was boring, which was normally fine. But with a little girl excited about Christmas magic, I needed to make some.

I looked in the storage area of the attic, hoping that there was something Christmas related I could bring down. My uncle had left quite a bit up here, most of it things he thought he might someday want but decided last minute weren’t worth taking with him. I’d planned to go through it all and get rid of it eons ago, but, out of sight, out of mind and all that.

I dug through all the totes and boxes looking for anything that might be considered holiday worthy. There wasn’t anything, but in the back was an old, fake potted indoor tree that, for some reason, my uncle thought looked good. A lot of people did back in the day, but most of them had been wise enough to get rid of them. In this case, maybe he was the wise one because seeing it gave me an idea.

It had never looked good, and it looked even worse covered with dust and faded from years in the sunny front window. There was potential there. I grabbed it, brought it down the ladder and straight into the kitchen. My plan was to clean it up the best I could and go from there.

“What is that, Briar?” Alice peered around the corner of the cabinet. “Is that pretend or real? Pretend, right? You don’t put window cleaner on real plants, do you?”

“No, window cleaner isn’t good for real plants.” Not that I was too confident it was good for this one.

“It’s pretend, then.” She righted her shoulders, proud as could be.

“Well, I suppose, in a way, it is.” I squatted to be face to face. “But I thought, this year, we could turn it into a Christmas tree.”

“I love pretend!” She jumped up and down. Maybe my plan wasn’t as bad as I feared. “Can I help?”

“I’d love that.”

Abandoning the glass cleaner, I handed her a damp washcloth, and we wiped the leaves off together. I had to go back and clean over her spots again, but it didn’t matter. She was happy to be helping, and I was happy to be spending this time getting to know her. I heard all about her favorite stuffie, how she wanted to meet a fairy, and how her neighbor had a fish—a real fish who lived in water and everything.

With the snow coming down as hard as it was, getting a real tree wasn’t possible, but the longer I worked on this one with her, the more I realized this was a million times better.

“Where should we put it?”

She tried to pick it up and quickly put it down, the tree too wobbly in her arms thanks to its height. “I’ll show you.”

“Then, I will carry it.”

“Deal!” She grinned, and I followed her into the living room, where we found the perfect corner for it, perfect because it made Alice smile.

“What you got there, sweetie?” Austin stood in the bathroom doorway, his hair still damp, wearing sweats and one of my shirts.

“We made a Christmas tree—a pretend Christmas tree! Isn’t it beautiful, Daddy?”

He came over, smiling. “It is. You know what would make it even more beautiful?”

She shook her head. “What?”

“Ornaments.” He turned to me. “Do you have ornaments, Briar?”

“I don’t, but I have an imagination, some old magazines, popcorn, and cooking supplies. I bet we can make some amazing ornaments.” I sounded much surer than I was.

“I’m getting Shay!” she squealed, running out of the room as Austin stepped in close.

“Thank you for this,” he murmured, kissing me sweetly. “It means a lot. This really wasn’t the best time to be moving, but…maybe it was.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, smiling. “I’m thinking maybe it was.”

Shay came out, Alice talking a mile a minute to him, her enthusiasm contagious. The next thing I knew, Austin was popping corn for us to string, and Shay was bringing down old magazines from the attic to get pictures to make ornaments. I started on salt dough, remembering how my mom used to make it when I was little.

We spent the day threading needles through popcorn, gluing, taping, and, at one point, just folding paper to make stars, stockings, and circles for the tree. We did our best to create Christmas-themed salt dough ornaments, although none of them were recognizable. Next year, we were definitely getting cookie cutters.

Next year.

Gods, I loved the sound of that.

There was so much we would do differently next year. But looking at the joy on Alice’s face as she put the maybe-sort-of magazine star she pieced together on top of the makeshift tree, I knew this was going to be a tradition—one we would keep forever.