“Do you have your tree picked out yet?”
“What? No,” he told her, staring into those brown eyes again. “I don’t get a Christmas tree.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”
Why? Because Christmas had never been anything but a misery to Tanner. He didn’t have lovely childhood memories like this little girl was busily making. He didn’t have fond recollections of a happy family gathering. When he thought of Christmas, he thought of empty hotel rooms, a room service menu and a holiday movie on the television. Not exactly something he longed to repeat. But this child didn’t need to know any of that—nor would she understand it. Their childhoods were not just years apart—but worlds apart as well.
“I just…don’t.”
She patted his cheek. “That’s why you look sad. I could help you find a good one if you want and then you could be happy again. I always find our trees and Daddy says that I’m best at it.”
He didn’t know whether to be touched or appalled that a little girl was feeling sorry for him.
“Thanks, but—”
“Ellie?”
Thank God, Tanner thought, turning at the sound of the woman’s voice. He was still holding the little girl, still standing stiffly, as if half afraid to move.
“Hi, Mommy! This man helped me fix Lisa’s tag so no one else can buy her!”
A pretty woman with light brown hair and eyes just like her daughter’s stepped up beside them. She gave him a measuring stare and then must have decided he wasn’t a danger because she relaxed and smiled. “That was nice of him, sweetie. But we’ve got to go now. Daddy’s waiting for us with hot dogs and cookies.”
“Oh, boy! You can put me down now, mister.”
Almost surprised to find he was still holding the girl, Tanner reacted immediately and set her on her feet.
“Thanks a lot,” Ellie told him as she slipped her hand into her mother’s.
“Yes, thank you,” her mom said. “I hope she wasn’t a bother.”
“No,” he told her, realizing it was only the truth. “Not at all.”
Both mother and daughter gave him brilliant smiles, then they walked off, hand in hand, toward the snack bar and the lucky man waiting for them.
Lucky man, Tanner mused. Funny, not so long ago, he would have thought a married man with kids was more to be pitied than envied. But now, he thought having a child like the precocious Ellie might not be a terrible thing.
Stunned at the stray thought, he told himself it was probably Ivy’s influence. The woman was relentlessly cheerful and optimistic. Clearly some of that was wearing off on him. And he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that.
Continuing on through the forest of trees, he nodded at people he passed and even began humming along to one of those insidious carols. When he realized what he was doing he stopped, but the fact that he’d hummed along to it at all surprised him. Was it some sort of brainwashing? he wondered. Play Christmas music all day every day until it gets to even the most hardened of hearts?
Well, he’d never thought of himself as having a hard heart. Still, in comparison to those who thought Angel Christmas Tree Farm was a paradise, he probably sensed the Scrooge Mitchell had named him. Uncomfortable with that particular label, he shrugged it off. He wasn’t that bad, he assured himself.
As he stepped out into a patch of sunlight Tanner saw that the full grown trees were now behind him. Ahead of him, were shorter versions and beyond them, were rows and rows of seedlings, barely a foot high. The farm was laid out well, he thought, recognizing the planning and the care that had gone into the Angel Christmas Tree Farm.
While he swept the area with a cool gaze, he stopped when he spotted a familiar blond head walking with a pretty brunette. Ivy and the other woman couldn’t have looked more different from each other. Ivy wore jeans, a T-shirt and boots while the brunette wore a short-sleeved silk blouse with gray slacks and a pair of heels that were completely inappropriate for walking through trees.
What was Ivy doing here?
As they came nearer, she looked up and spotted him. His heart did a hard roll and crash in his chest that disturbed him a little. And if he was any judge, she didn’t look real happy to see him, a fact that irritated him more than a little. Still, too late now to back out, so he walked to join them.
“Tanner,” Ivy said, pleasure in her voice, “I didn’t expect to see you over here.”
“I could say the same thing to you,” he admitted, then shifted his gaze to the brunette. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Ivy told him, then said, “Patsy Harrington, this is our neighbor, Tanner King. Tanner, Patsy is here to talk about her upcoming wedding.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Patsy said, then quickly added, “but I’m afraid I have to run. The florist awaits. Ivy, thanks again for talking me off the ledge.”
“No problem,” Ivy told her, and Tanner was struck by the warm smile on her face. “Happy to help. Any time.”
“You may regret that,” Patsy told her with a laugh, then gave Tanner a sly look before grinning at Ivy. “You don’t have to walk me out. You two go ahead.”
“What was that about?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Ivy smiled at him. “She’s just nervous about her wedding and wanting to change everything around at the last minute.”
“Well, that’s irrational,” he said.
“No, that’s a bride,” Ivy told him. “But I talked her out of it. Really, all she wants is reassurance that everything’s going to come off beautifully.”
“And is it?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“It will even if I have to do it all by myself,” she said firmly. She paused as if considering something, then admitted, “Angel Christmas Tree Farm took a big loan out for the expansion. There’s a big payment due soon. The Harrington wedding is going to take care of that. If anything goes wrong…”
He frowned, both at the proprietary way she was talking about the farm and at the worry in her voice. “What?”
She looked around at the all the trees and sighed. “We could lose the farm.”
Interesting, Tanner thought. So the farm was in danger of going under if it couldn’t pay back a loan. Then what she’d said hit him and he asked, “We?”
Ivy looked at him. “I mean, we as in, we who work here.”
“So…what? Housekeeper, Christmas tree farm worker and bridal consultant?”