Page 78 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
The boys came home from school with homemade Christmas ornaments, which prompted me to take them out Christmas tree shopping.
We’d always had artificial trees, until now. The three of us stood in a field on the edge of town with our chosen tree leaning against the car, a length of rope dangling from my hands. The smell of pine needles filled me with excitement to rival my sons’.
“Go to the other side, boys. I’ll toss the rope over and you pass it through the back window.”
Nate took off at a sprint. He’d gotten his cast off at the beginning of the month, and his arm seemed to have healed just fine. He’d insisted on keeping the two halves of the fiberglass cast with the rest of his things, since it was covered in his classmates’ Sharpie doodles.
I heaved the tree onto the roof of my old car, yelping as the trunk came sliding halfway down the windshield. Scrambling up onto the hood, I caught the trunk before it hit the glass.
That was how Rhett found me: crouching on top of my car with the end of our Christmas tree clutched against my chest.
“Need a hand?” he drawled.
“I think I’m good, actually,” I replied, heaving the tree backward so the end of it was clear of the windshield. I beamed at him and began to laugh as pine needles sprayed all around the car and all over me. I spat half a dozen of them out, turned around, and slid down the hood on my butt. Only stumbling slightly, I stood before picking up the rope I’d dropped in my haste to save my car from trunk-related damage.
Rhett’s eyes glittered, and his lips curled into an amused grin.
“Go help the boys,” I commanded, blood fizzing with delight. I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. I couldn’t wait to put this tree up in our new house and see it glittering beside the fireplace.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, disappearing around the other side of the car.
I took my position, counted down from three, and launched the tangle of rope over the tree while clinging onto the end of it.
“Got it!” Alec cried.
Ducking down, I met my son’s gaze through the back seat. “Loop it through the window and toss it over.”
He gave me the type of smile that made being a mom the best job in the world, then fired the rope across the back seat. I caught it with a laugh and did it all over again. Rhett snatched the rope out of the air this time, then handed it to Nate, who tossed it through the seats once more.
When the tree was wrapped, I considered the two ends of rope. Rhett joined me on my side of the car.
“How are your knot-tying skills?” I asked.
“I moonlight as a sailor,” he replied, taking the rope from me.
“Of course you do,” I answered with a laugh, watching him tie the rope and then tug at the tree to make sure it was secure. That’s when we realized the boys wouldn’t be able to get in; we’d had to close the back doors to feed the rope through.
Nate and Alec squealed and laughed as they climbed in through the front seat, and I felt Rhett’s keen eyes on my butt while I leaned over to help them clip themselves in. Huffing as I climbed out, I laughed at the wiggle of Rhett’s eyebrows. We lifted the back windows as much as we could with the rope in the way, then stepped back.
“You could have called me,” Rhett said quietly as I surveyed our work, tugging at the bindings and the branches to make sure I wouldn’t cause an accident on the drive home. “It’d be easier to get the tree over to your place in the back of the truck.”
The air was bitterly cold, the wind piercing my jacket. I looked up at Rhett as our breaths gusted out in puffs of white, and I smiled. “I never thought of that.”
Out of sight of the boys, Rhett squeezed my hand. “Start thinking about it, then,” he chided. “You don’t have to do everything on your own anymore.”
“Why, Rhett Baldwin. Are you asking me to be your girlfriend? All official and everything?” I said it as a joke, my eyes sliding away from him as I turned to tug at the rope again, but his silence made me glance over and meet his gaze again.
“Yes,” he replied.
My heart cartwheeled. “Oh.”
As his lips kicked up at the corners, he stepped closer. “Ithink you’ve been the woman for me since the moment you chewed me out for ordering a blueberry muffin, Darling,” he murmured, his eyes warm. “And definitely since you took a drill to the office walls.”
“I chewed you out for cutting in line,” I corrected, and he laughed.
“So?” Rhett prompted.
“Mom!” Nate screamed as his window whirred down. “Are we going? I want to decorate the tree!”
