Page 2 of Wish You Faith

That was out of the blue. What kind of a question was that?

“No.” What else could Evan say?

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” Bellina chuckled. “Otherwise, going to the tree farm is like entering a spider’s web.”

“How’s that?”

“A brown recluse lives there, and she will steal you away from your girlfriend.” She seemed to want to say more but was waiting for Evan to ask.

Evan wasn’t taking the bait. If he pointed out that in North America, the black widow was more dangerous than the brown recluse, then Bellina might say that he had called that person a more insidious label.

Nope. He wasn’t playing that manipulation game.

So he said nothing.

Bellina had no fuel to fan her flame, so she shut up after honking at a bicycle that nearly cycled into oncoming traffic. “You want to die?!”

After five hours with Bellina, Evan was about to quit. It had been a torturous morning listening to her gripe about everything.

Evan wanted the workday to end, but they were only halfway though. Now they had to go to the Christmastown Tree Farm to pick up poinsettias for delivery.

He had been to tree farms as a kid, back when Grandpa had lived in Seattle—before Grandma died and Grandpa moved to Tybee Island, where he lived his last days.

He recalled how Grandpa had nicknamed him Rusty II after himself—a name no one else had called Evan since Grandpa died—after he stepped on a rusty nail at the Christmas tree farm. The nail went through his sneakers into his foot, and they rushed him to the emergency room for a tetanus shot.

That had been his memory of his last Christmas tree farm excursion with Grandpa: a night in the ER.

So this better be different.

At least he got paid to do this, even though it was minimum wage, a far cry from his corporate job at Cavanaugh Shipping at the Port of Seattle. Then again, here at Christmastown, he wasn’t in his older brother’s shadow.

Down the road, a sign appeared at the street corner. It said “Christmastown Tree Farm.”

“It’s Christmastown Tree Farm now, but it used to be called Amy’s Christmas Tree Farm,” Bellina explained. “We all expected the merger because Amy was running the tree farm on the side while she was VP at Christmastown. Good thing too because the tree farm was a fledgling business.”

A fledgling business? Was that for real or was Bellina putting in her two cents?

Evan didn’t know about that. Prior to talking to Cyrus the day before Thanksgiving, he had no interest in this sort of seasonal business. He was in shipping with no days off. Any day they missed a shipment of goods, a cascading effect happened down the supply chain.

Bellina parked in front of the building. “I need you to drive the truck to the back where the greenhouse is. I’ll meet you there. I need to make a stop at the front office.”

“Okay.” Yes, Evan had a commercial driver’s license, which was one of the reasons Cyrus hired him on the spot on Wednesday.

For thirty seconds, Evan had peace and quiet as he drove the red-and-green Christmastown truck to the back of the building, where someone waved him down. He wore a red apron and held an iPad in his hand. He came up to the driver’s side.

Evan rolled down his window. “Bellina sent me. She’s in the building.”

“She told me she was bringing someone new.”

“That’s me.” He extended his hand out the window. “Evan Cavanaugh.”

The man gave him a fist bump. “I’m Lorenzo Flores, the assistant manager at Christmastown Tree Farm.”

Flores. Evan wondered if he was related to Pastor Diego Flores at Riverside Chapel, but he didn’t want to make assumptions. Just because they had the same last name, it didn’t mean they were related.

“Nice to meet you,” Evan said. “I was at Riverside Chapel…”

“Yes, Pastor Flores is my younger brother.” Lorenzo smiled. “No, I didn’t go to seminary. Yes, I’m happily married. No, I don’t have kids at the moment.”

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