Page 446 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
Damn.
All I’d thought about all night as I tossed and turned in bed was kissing her and feeling her. I wondered if she’d thought about me, too. Neither of us had said a word about it.
Perhaps she wanted to forget.
“The snow has let up a bit,” she said, moving to stand in front of my office window. What were once giant snowflakes pouring down from the sky were now smaller and less fluffy and fewer in between.
I moved up behind her. “That’s a good sign.”
“I think I’m still going to be stuck here tonight, though.”
Merry Christmas to me. “Most likely,” I said.
She smiled up at me. “Any ideas on how we can pass the time?”
Ideas? Oh, I had ideas. Plenty of ideas. However, I knew she wasn’t asking me to lay her down on her back, spread her thighs, and taste her. I wanted to—oh boy did I want to—but I refused to push her and make her uncomfortable. She’d stopped me last night. I had no reason to assume her position had changed just because she’d been snowed in.
“I have one idea,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
“Follow me.” I led her to the back of the house, where we stood looking out the sliding door. I pointed past the hot tub and out into the snow, where a dense, twelve-foot tree stood with heavy branches loaded down with snow. “That’s a fir tree.”
She looked from me to the tree. “Okay…”
“I’ve been eyeing it for years waiting for it to get a little bigger. It would make the perfect Christmas tree, don’t you think?”
She cocked her head to the side and studied the tree. “Yes, actually. I do.”
“I have an axe in the garage.”
“You want to chop it down lumberjack style right now?”
I shrugged. “Why not? I need a Christmas tree, and I have the best Christmas elf in the city here to help me decorate it. I’d have to be crazy to pass up an opportunity like this. Besides, we’re stuck here with nothing better to do. What do you say?”
Tinsely considered the offer with pursed lips and pressed two fingers to her chin. “Do you really think the two of us could drag that thing inside?”
“I’ve seen you hauling boxes around work, and I saw the overhaul you did in Bamford’s ten years ago. You’re stronger than you look.”
She smiled. “That’s true.”
“Come on, let’s give it a go. Say the word.”
She rolled her eyes but not in the usual irritated way she usually did when I was around. “Fine, go get your axe.”
About twenty minutes later, Tinsely and I stood in near waist-deep snow, bundled up in snow gear I’d found in a box in my garage. She had to wear my gloves, which were three times too big for her, so I’d tightened them around her wrists with duct tape. It wasn’t pretty, but it kept them from falling off. We began by shaking all the snow off the branches.
“This thing is going to be pretty wet for at least a day,” she said. “Do you have something we can lay down on your floors to soak it up?”
“We’ll lay down some towels,” I said as I gripped the axe and hacked away some of the lower branches to make access to the trunk easier. Tinsely stood back and let me work until the bottom was clear. Once I had a good angle, I began hacking away at the trunk, leaving forty-five-degree notches and alternating taking wood off the top and bottom of the notch.
Soon enough, I was able to push the tree over.
It landed soundlessly in the snow.
I flashed a smile at Tinsely. “Not bad, right?”
She cleared her throat and took her gaze off me and looked at the tree. “Not bad at all.”
