Page 63 of You Wish
“Maybe not,” he admitted. “But it’s a start. And it’ll warm your hands before they freeze into claws.”
She hesitated, the fight draining out of her shoulders. For a second, he thought she’d walk away again. Then she sighed—long-suffering, like she was doing him the biggest favor in the world. “Fine. But only because I can’t feel my fingers.”
Jake grinned and fell into step beside her. They ordered cocoa—hers with extra whipped cream, because of course—and carried the steaming cups to a bench under the twinkling string lights.
They sat in silence at first, their breaths mingling with the steam from their cups. Jake let the quiet stretch, resisting the urge to fill it with nervous chatter. Georgia was the one who finally spoke, her voice small but clear.
“Last night scared me,” she admitted, eyes fixed on the swirl of cream dissolving into her drink. “Not because it was bad. Because it wasn’t.”
Jake’s chest ached. He wanted to reach for her hand, but he kept both of his wrapped tight around his cup.
“I know,” he said. “Me too.”
Her head snapped up, surprised.
“Scared the hell out of me, actually,” he continued. “But here’s the thing, I’m not asking you to figure out forever. I’m just asking you to finish your cocoa with me.”
22
Georgia hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. In fact, she’d been trying to give herself some much-needed space from Jake to gather her thoughts. That’s why she’d agreed to help Joy run the cash register.
Little did she know, it was a setup.
Joy had Jake on Christmas tree duty, manhandling the trees from the lot to the cash register. So every sale she rang up involved a sexy grin from Paul Bunyon.
She was running a patron’s credit card when she spotted him crouched down on the balls of his feet, listening intently to a little girl with pigtails and a pink puffy coat debating the “vulnerabilities” and “structural weaknesses” of their soon-to-be Christmas tree like it was a science project.
Next to him, juggling a diaper bag, an infant, and the kind of weary smile that only single parents wore, was the girl’s mom—who looked dead on her feet.
“Well,” Jake said. “If you were to pick any other tree on the lot, which one would it be?”
The little girl took her time scanning the trees. One to her right caught her fancy. She walked up to it and kicked the trunk.Then she walked around it, giving her undivided attention to the angle of the branches and the thickness of the trunk.
This tree was much larger than the one they’d been looking at.
After much deliberation, the girl said, “This is the one.”
And there it was. A look so familiar it was as if Georgia was wearing it herself. Probably because she had—a million times over. It was the “I want to give you everything, but I can’t afford it” look. And it broke Georgia’s heart.
“How about we look at some of the trees over there,” the mother said with a strained smile.
“Nope. This is the perfect tree. Santa will love it.”
She looked at her daughter and began, “I’m sorry, kiddo, but?—”
“Did you know that you are our one-hundredth customer of the day?” Jake said to the little girl.
She smiled gleefully. “I am?”
“Yup.” He tugged her pigtail. “That means that this tree is free.”
The mother’s face blushed with embarrassment. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know,” Jake said. “But I bet that your daughter is on the Nice List and all nice little girls deserve the perfect tree.”
It was annoyingly sweet. The kind of moment that made Georgia’s chest flutter and her mind shout, “Don’t do it. Don’t get sucked in!” But her heart, her stupid treacherous heart, had already RSVP’d to the party.
Jake Evans—one of the sexiest men alive and last night’s mistake— standing in the middle of Pine Village Christmas Tree Farm with a Douglas fir so enormous it made the other trees look like they’d been on Ozempic. And Jake, he wasn’t looking like such a mistake right then. He was looking like a hero who went out of his way to make Christmas wishes come true.
