Page 47 of The Cowboy's Christmas
He exhaled and it sounded more like a frustrated sigh than a release of breath. Maybe it was. When he glanced sideways, Savannah shifted her gaze forward then caught her hair, which the wind was teasing around her face, and tucked it up under her cap with one hand. She must have pulled the elastic out and lost it.
“Enough talking for a while?” she asked with a sidelong look, reading him. She did it better than anyone he knew, even though they’d only been acquainted for a short time.
“Yeah,” he said, catching sight of the fir grove in the distance. “Enough talking. I think it’s time to focus on Christmas.”
*
Focus on Christmas.
More like go through the motions while not engaging too deeply or feeling too much. It helped that she and Matt had never harvested a Christmas tree together. Matt preferred to support the local 4-H club, which sold trees as a fundraiser, so choosing a tree in the wild held no painful memories for her.
But Christmas in Marietta was another thing. That held memories. She and Matt attending the Christmas Stroll—they hadn’t missed one from the time they started dating—ambling through the downtown area, sipping cocoa, eating amazing food, waving as Santa passed by, and following the parade to the tree lighting ceremony and singing Christmas carols.
When he’d gone to work for the city of Marietta, to help make the ranch payments, he’d hung the holiday decorations, adorning lampposts, hanging swags, creating a display on the courthouse lawn. He’d always come home so happy.
And then there were the lamppost decorations he’d made: plasma-cut metal wreaths, created of overlapping metal stars with an intricate Christmas scene mounted inside, which the city had commissioned him to make once word of his metal working skills got out. They’d hung on the lampposts near the courthouse, and according to Deke, they still did.
Quinn and Pete had pulled ahead of Savannah and her mare as they approached the small grove as if he couldn’t wait to start the selection process. There were several nice fir trees and a couple of pines, and he was right that thinning out a tree or two would help the others grow.
Quinn dismounted as she rode up beside Pete. “I should probably do a grouse check.”
Savannah smiled. “Just hang on to the reins real tight and you should be okay.”
Quinn slapped his palm to his forehead. “That’s where I went wrong.”
“A tricky business,” Savannah agreed. She got off her mare and untied the halter rope from her saddle. “We can tie them to the windfall while we look around.”
She led Rose to a weathered trunk with thick silvery branches pointed skyward. She secured the horse to a vertical branch, and Quinn did the same before tromping through the snow to her side of the log.
“Fir or pine?” he asked.
“You’re in charge of the tree project,” she said.
“Fir.” He started through the snow to one of the trees he’d pointed out from horseback when they’d moved the cows, punching tracks in the snow that Savannah attempted to follow, even though his stride was longer than hers. It was an awkward business that left her winded, but she enjoyed the challenge. It’d been a long time since she’d simply had fun doing simple stuff—like following tracks spaced too far apart.
“This one looks good,” Savannah said when she finally reached the tree Quinn was studying with a critical eye.
“Maybe, if you put that side to the wall.” He pointed to a sparse area at the back.
“Isn’t that the charm of the home-grown tree? Imperfections?”
“Right.” He pulled the roll of flagging tape out of his pocket and tied a long pink strip to the tree. “We can take it off later if we find better ones.”
“How long is this operation going to take?”
“Hours.”
He spoke so matter of factly that she believed him. “That long?”
“This is serious stuff.”
His expressionwasserious—except for the light of amusement in his gray-green eyes. She shook her head, refusing to let herself smile back, then turned to scout for another tree. A better tree.
She headed uphill, making her own tracks, which was only marginally more difficult than following Quinn’s, stopping in front of a stand of three intergrown firs.
Nope.
She hiked on. Behind her she could hear Quinn moving in a different direction, his boots punching through the snow. She didn’t look back because the perfect tree lay ahead, maybe twenty yards—uphill, of course. She battled her way up the slope, only to find that the perfect tree was missing a section of branches on the back side. She didn’t have enough walls to hide that much empty space.
