Underneath My Christmas Tree Read online

  I loved everything about sex. I liked the brand-new, awkward sex, the comfortable-with-a-long-term-partner sex, the mad sex, the break-up sex . . . you name it, I was passionate about it. And because I enjoyed it so much, I had a lot of it, at least up until the time I’d stupidly listened to my best friend Darcy and moved down here to Florida after we graduated from law school.

  So it was with that thought in the back of my mind—okay, it might’ve been closer to the front—that I bunched my upper arms close to my chest, squeezing my boobs into prominence as I leaned forward toward Trent.

  “Is this your first time in Florida, or do you come down to sell trees every year?” I let a little of the breathy flirt into my voice and fastened him with my best hi-there-big-fella look.

  Trent side-eyed me, but if he noticed my cleavage, he didn’t give any indication. “No and no. I’ve been to Florida. But this is my first year selling trees.”

  “Oh, really? Were you down here before for business or on vacation?” I tilted my head.

  “I used to live in Georgia. I came down here once or twice with buddies. I wouldn’t call it vacation, but it wasn’t business either.”

  “You lived in Georgia? Whereabouts? My friend’s daughter lives there. She just got married last spring.”

  This time, he did give me more than a passing glance and sighed, rubbing his jaw. “Yeah, you mean Meghan, right? I know her. She lives in my town—well, the town I used to live in.”

  I straightened up a little. “That’s quite a coincidence.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. We’re using the lot at your building because I know Meghan, and she asked her step-father if we could put the tent up there. So . . . not such a small world.”

  “Oh.” That was a conversation stopper, though it was more Trent’s tone than his words that said he didn’t want to talk about it. “Well . . . it must be pretty cool to sell Christmas trees, though.”

  “I guess. Doesn’t much matter to me. It’s work, and it’s what I do twelve hours a day. I’m getting through this stretch because it’s what I need to do.”

  “What did you do before this? Oh, and take the right onto the bridge. That’ll bring us back over into the Cove.”

  He veered up the ramp but didn’t answer. I let the silence go on for a few moments, in case he was just focused on the road, and then I tried again.

  “Were you in sales in Georgia, too?”

  “Is this an interview?” He shot the words back at me this time. “Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to be polite, to make conversation or whatever. But you don’t have to. I’m just the guy selling trees outside your office. You don’t have to be my new best friend or my welcome wagon or whatever. There was a misunderstanding with your keys, we took care of it, it’s done.” He swung the truck into the parking lot and braked to a stop along the side of the building.

  My face was burning, and my throat got tight, my typical reaction whenever I was embarrassed. I reached for the door handle, pausing only long enough to pick up my shoes. “Thank you for driving me to the courthouse. Please make sure my keys get back to me before five o’clock.” I shoved open the door and stumbled out of the cab, not watching where I was going as I walked across the asphalt and into the building.

  I made it to my office chair and collapsed, not sure which hurt worse: my feet or my ego.

  Chapter Two

  Trent

  I sat in the cab of my truck, watching the pretty blonde hustle across the parking lot, not stopping even though the pavement had to be hurting her bare feet. A pang of regret stabbed my chest.

  Damn. I hadn’t meant to be such an asshole. Or maybe I had, but I hadn’t realized she’d take it like this. I just didn’t want to talk about my life in Georgia, or why I was in Florida selling Christmas trees, or anything else about myself. I’d come down here to make a little money, get my head on straight, and once I was back in Michigan, I’d figure out what came next.

  “Yo, Trent!” My uncle Nolan laid a big hand on the door of my truck. “What’s going on?”

  I shrugged. “Long story. Tell you later, but it’s taken care of. Hey, is Joe back yet?”

  “Yeah, he’s handing out keys to the motel rooms.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I pushed the door open, and Uncle Nolan stepped back. “I’ll make sure everything’s set up here, and then we’ll secure it for the night. We’ll put up the signs in the morning, if that sounds good.”

  “That works. Logan says the local cops patrol around here pretty regular, so we should be okay.” He took off his ball cap and scratched at the thinning hair on his head. “Crazy thing, selling trees before Thanksgiving, huh? Up ‘til a few years ago, we never would’ve opened until Black Friday. Used to be, Ellie’d make Thanksgiving dinner for us to eat at noon, and we’d have the trailer all loaded up. No sooner we’d take the last bite of pumpkin pie, the boys and me would be on the road, driving all night to get here and set up to sell.”

  “I’m glad you can fly home this year and eat with Aunt El and the kids. And no worries about anything down here, right? We’ll take care of the trees.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “I know that. Can’t tell you what it means to me that I can get on that airplane Wednesday and have a real Thanksgiving with my family.” He leveled a steady look at me. “There’s no one else I’d trust, Trent.”

  The weight of his trust was heavier on me than the hand that gripped my arm. “I won’t let you down.”

  “Good man. All right, enough with the touchy-feely stuff. Let’s finish up here so we can get settled over at the motel.”

  “I’ll be right there. Gotta talk to Joe real fast first.”

  I made my way through the maze of trees, most of them still tied up, until I spotted the red-haired kid standing near the open trailer. “Hey, Joe. Remember those keys I gave you to take inside to the lawyer?”

  Confusion clouded his round face for a moment before understanding dawned. “Aw, shit, Trent. Nolan asked me to give him a hand with the posts, and I stuck the keys into my pocket and just forgot. I’m sorry. Was the lawyer pissed?”

  “She wasn’t happy.” I muttered the words under my breath and then forced a smile as I looked back at Joe. “No big deal. Just do me a favor and run them into her now, okay?”

  “Sure thing.” He headed for the front door, and I went back to moving trees into stands. I was on my third tree when I heard Uncle Nolan’s voice again.

  “Trent, c’mere, son. Need you to meet someone.”

  I stood up and stretched, making my way over to where my uncle stood with a tall guy in a suit.

  “Logan, this is my nephew, Trent Wagoner. He’ll be the one in charge of the lot whenever I’m not here. And Trent, Logan Holt’s the owner of this building.”

  “Sure, Trent and I spoke on the phone.” The man leaned forward, offering me a hand. “Nice to meet you. Glad we could make this happen.”

  “We’re grateful you were willing to give us space at this late date.” Uncle Nolan grinned at me. “Who would’ve thought Trent would have the connections we needed?”

  That stung. I knew he didn’t mean anything, and the fact was, he was right. I’d been the family screw-up for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t a shock that most people who knew me would be surprised that I’d come through on anything.

  “Well, Jude and I love Burton. With Meghan living up there, we’ve gotten to know the whole town pretty well. So when we heard you’d lost your normal site, and we thought about this big parking lot, it only made sense.”

  “And we appreciate that.” Uncle Nolan flickered a glance at me. “And Trent here taking over for me this year is a treat, too.” From the back of the trailer, Andy yelled, and my uncle grimaced. “Excuse me a minute.”

  Logan shook his head. “Never a dull moment, huh? Hey, listen, I wanted to let you know that you and any of the other guys who’re staying to help are invited to Thanksgiving dinner at our house. We always do a big spread, and the mo
re the merrier.”

  The idea of being the only outsider at some huge family gathering didn’t exactly sound like fun to me, but I nodded anyway. Apparently Logan saw through me.

  “I know, last thing you want to do is hang with a bunch of strangers. But think about it. You don’t have to let me know now. If it gets to Thursday and you decide you want to eat with us, come on over.” He leaned a little closer. “To be honest, you’d be doing me a favor. My wife’s a little down about this holiday, because it’s the first time the whole family won’t be home for Thanksgiving. Meghan’s coming to the Cove for Christmas, but you know how it is—she had to compromise, and that meant spending Thanksgiving in Burton. Jude understands, but she’s still missing her girl.”

  I pictured Sam and Meghan Reynolds and imagined what the holiday would look like out on the family farm. Sam’s sister Ali would be there, without doubt, with Flynn and their daughter. It still grated a little, the fact that he’d swept back into town and gotten back with Ali as though he’d never left. As though he hadn’t skipped off and left her alone and pregnant. I knew I’d never had a real chance with Ali. She’d never seen me as anything other than a joke. But still . . . I couldn’t see Flynn Evans without being completely pissed.

  Logan was looking at me expectantly, waiting for some kind of response. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans.

  “Thanks for the invitation. I’ll have to see what’s going on, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind.”

  “You do that.” He patted my arm. “I’m heading home, but here’s my card. It’s got my cell number and my home address, too. Just in case you change your mind about dinner next week.”

  ~~~***~~~

  Thanksgiving Day

  The next week passed in a blur of pine needles and evergreen scent.

  When Nolan had told me that we needed to be in Florida a week before Thanksgiving to sell Christmas trees, I’d had my doubts. I pictured Christmas in Florida as a weird mix of tropical shirts, palm trees with tinsel and Santas wearing sunglasses. But since we’d opened for business on Saturday, we’d been busy almost non-stop. Apparently Floridians liked to have their Christmas trees in order early.

  I drove Uncle Nolan and my cousin Andy to the airport on Wednesday afternoon while Joe manned the trees. And then it was just the two of us.

  We opened up at regular time on Thanksgiving morning, but as busy as we’d been all week, it was dead that day. The streets were silent, and the only sound in the tent was Joe cracking his knuckles and sighing.

  By noon, I threw in the towel. We closed up, secured the lot and headed back to the small motel that was our home away from home until December 22nd. I flopped onto the bed on my back, groaning as I hit the mattress.

  “So . . . what’re we going to do now?” Joe sat on the edge of his bed, his eyes fastened on the worn green carpet.

  “I don’t know. Watch football, I guess? There’s a diner a few miles away, so we could go get some turkey or whatever later on.” I stared up at the ceiling.

  Joe toed off his boots and stretched out. “If I were in Michigan, I’d be at my grandma’s house, getting ready to eat turkey. And everyone would be there, talking about the football games and the weather and all.” He sniffed, and I wondered if he was about to cry. The kid was just eighteen, after all, a cousin of Nolan’s wife, and clearly having a massive attack of homesickness.

  “First time away from home on Thanksgiving?” I didn’t turn my head. Sometimes it was easier for guys to talk when they weren’t face-to-face. At least that’d been my experience.

  “I’ve never been out of Michigan until now. Ever.” Yeah, there was a definite hitch in his voice.

  “You guys always do the big family deal?”

  “Yeah. My grandparents have a farm about an hour away from where we live, so everyone goes there for the holidays. All my cousins, my aunts and uncles.” He rolled onto his side. “This sucks. I feel like an orphan or something. Or like one of those people who’s been—what’s the word? Shunned? You know, like the Amish, where they kick out the kids who don’t follow the rules?”

  I’d had about enough. Truth was, being stuck in the four walls of this motel room wasn’t doing anything for my holiday spirit either. Not that I was used to the kind of family deal Joe was, but at this point, anything was better than listening to his sniveling.

  “Get up, kid.” I swung my legs around to the side of the bed. “I can’t take you back to Michigan, but I think I got the next best thing in mind.”

  ~~~***~~~

  I almost turned around and headed for the diner when I saw how many cars were parked around the house at the address Logan had given me. Damn. When he’d said they had a big spread, apparently he hadn’t been kidding.

  But before I could wimp out and run, Joe whistled low under his breath. “Look at this. It’s just like at Grandma’s.” He glanced at me, and I saw gratitude in his eyes. “It’s good, right? I mean, Uncle Nolan said this Logan’s a decent guy, and he’d want us to go, since they invited us.”

  I choked back the smart-ass reply I wanted to give him. “Yeah, Joe. It’s good. We’ll go in, eat some turkey, make nice and then we got to get back. Tomorrow’s Black Friday, and we need to be open by seven. Got it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I know. But hey, thanks for letting us do this.”

  I finally found a spot to park the truck, and we headed across a green lawn to a house that looked like it had grown out of the beach. It was the same gray-blue as the waves I could hear hitting the sand just beyond. Just as Joe and I climbed the few steps to the front door, it flew open and a small boy with dark hair came racing out.

  “DJ Hawthorne, get your little butt back in this—oh!” A pretty young woman with curling light brown hair stopped short at the sight of us. “I’m sorry, I’m just chasing down that little hooligan. He stole a finger-full of mashed potatoes from his grandmother’s pot, and she’s not happy.”

  The little boy, who’d come to a halt just beyond Joe, giggled. “Grammy can’t catch me!”

  “Grammy could catch you, easy-peasy. But it’s not really Grammy you need to worry about.” She crossed her arms over her chest and fastened the kid with a glare that left no doubt in my mind who she was. “It’s your mother who’s going to string you up by the heels if you mess around in the kitchen again.” She pointed into the house. “Get in there and apologize to your grandmother, then go find your dad. March.”

  He marched, and as soon as he was beyond the doorway, his mom smiled at me. “Hey, sorry about that. I’m Lindsay Hawthorne.” She stuck out her hand. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “Trent Wagoner.” I hooked a thumb at the boy behind me. “This is Joe Scarver. Uh, Logan invited us for dinner.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. You’re the Christmas tree guys, right? Come on in.” She stood back. “We’re just in the final stages of putting the food together, but there’re some nibbly things out already.”

  We followed her into a large foyer, which opened to an even bigger room. People filled the sofas and chairs in the center, while a long row of tables flanked the far end, under a wall of windows that almost brought the beach into the house.

  “Holy shit.” Joe muttered the words so that only I heard them. “This is amazing.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant the house or the people, so I only nodded. Lindsay had left us behind as she approached a small cluster of men, and I saw that Logan was one of them. She touched his arm, stood on tiptoe to whisper to him, and he turned, smiling.

  “Hey, guys! Glad you could make it.” He shook my hand and then did the same to Joe as I introduced them. “As you can see, we have a few people here.”

  “Yeah.” I shifted my weight, glancing around. “Is this . . . your family?”

  Logan’s expression softened as he followed my gaze. “Yeah. Maybe not by everyone’s definition, but they’re the most important people in the world to me.”

  “You mean to us.” A woman with long dark hair slid her a
rms around Logan’s waist. “Hi, I’m Jude.”

  “And she’s the most important one of them all.” He tightened his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Babe, this is Trent and Joe.”

  “Trent, I’m so glad to meet you. Meghan’s talked about you.” The way Jude took my hand and smiled made me wonder what her daughter might’ve said about me. After all, I’d been one of the first people Meghan had met the night she came to Burton. Granted, we’d both been wasted out of our minds, but we’d still connected. Fleetingly I wondered if she’d ever told Sam about our hot and heavy make-out session that night. Most of the evening was a blur, but I remembered that much.

  “Uh, yeah. She’s great.” I cleared my throat.

  Jude tilted her head. “You’re a friend of Sam’s, right?”

  “I went to school with his sister, Ali.” I shrugged. “And it’s Burton. Everyone knows everyone else.”

  Logan laughed. “We have some experience with that here in the Cove.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you guys get something to drink and help yourself to appetizers? We’re going to bring out the main dishes shortly. Make yourselves at home.”

  A makeshift bar had been set up in the corner of the room, and Joe trailed behind me as I made my way over. I dug into an ice-filled cooler and found a bottle of beer, while Joe popped open a can of soda.

  “So does this make you feel better about not being in Michigan?” I lifted my beer toward the window. “You don’t get that kind of view on Grandma’s farm.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He took a sip. “It’s good to be around people. Better than just sitting at the motel all day, anyway.”

  I quirked an eyebrow. “Thanks. Feeling the love, Joe.”

  He flushed. “I mean, it feels more like Thanksgiving with all the people here.”