Underneath My Christmas Tree Read online

  “I get you.”

  The French doors next to us opened, and a group of people stepped inside from the deck I’d seen through the windows. They were mostly little kids, I realized—I spotted the mischievous little guy who’d nearly bowled us over earlier—but in the middle of them was an older girl, herding the crowd. She had light brown hair and wide brown eyes, and she was laughing at something one of the rug-rats said as she stepped past us.

  Beside me, I heard Joe’s quick intake of breath. And I could’ve sworn the temperature of the air went up a few degrees. As though she felt it too, the girl stopped and turned her head, looking right into Joe’s eyes.

  I expected her to keep on going, but instead, she came closer to us, her focus solely on Joe.

  “Hi. I’m Alexis. I don’t know you.” She stood in front of him, with her hands on her hips, lips twisting into a teasing smile.

  “Joe. Is me. I’m Joe.” He pointed to himself, his lips continuing to move even after sound stopped coming out. Damn, the kid had no moves.

  I took pity on him for the second time in one day. “Joe Scarver. And I’m Trent Wagoner. We’re in town selling Christmas trees, and Logan invited us to dinner.” I paused, trying to remember if anyone had mentioned an Alexis. “Are you his . . .?”

  She giggled. “No blood relation. I call them Uncle Logan and Aunt Jude because they’re the closest thing I have to family, outside my dad and mom.” She gestured toward the group of men sitting on the sofa watching football on the giant television screen. “That’s my dad over there. Cooper Davis. Logan’s, like, his best friend.”

  I nodded, even though I had no idea about anyone she’d mentioned, outside of Logan.

  “Are those your sisters and brother?” Joe regained his power of speech and jerked his chin toward the three children lingering nearby.

  “No. Not yet, anyway. They’re Emmy’s kids, and my dad and Emmy just started living together. But maybe.” She looked over my shoulder, lost in thought for a few seconds, and then grinned again. “Want to come out front with us? I promised I’d keep the ankle biters out of the way while Jude and Emmy bring out all the food.”

  Joe shot me a questioning glance, and I lifted one shoulder. “Go on. I’m fine.”

  I didn’t have to tell him twice. The two of them were out the door, towing children. I took another swig of my beer and tried not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. I was just beginning to mosey toward the sofas to get a better view of the game when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Oh, my God, Abby, it’s gorgeous.”

  I twisted my head, my heart sinking. Yep, it was her. The blonde I’d been a jerk to last week, the one I’d gone out of my way to avoid seeing in the six days since. She was standing just outside the kitchen next to a woman with long black hair. Elizabeth was holding the woman’s hand, knuckles up as they both examined a ring.

  As if she felt me looking at her, she turned and spotted me. The expression on her face didn’t change, but I saw her stiffen and angle her body so that her back faced me. Her friend—she’d called her Abby—frowned and glanced my way, and I figured Elizabeth was giving her the gory details about the jerk selling Christmas trees in her building’s lot. That’d be me, of course.

  Before I could execute an escape, a strong hand gripped my arm, and I looked into a pair of dark, suspicious eyes.

  “Who’re you?”

  The guy was frowning—glowering, more accurately—as he waited for me to answer. I wondered what I’d done to piss him off.

  “Trent Wagoner.” I’d said my name more today than I could ever remember. “I’m running the Christmas tree lot in front of Logan’s building.”

  “Yeah. So who’s the kid?” The guy crossed his arms over his chest. “The one who just went outside with my daughter?”

  Understanding dawned. “Oh—that’s Joe. He works with me.”

  “Uh huh, and just how old is this Joe?”

  “Cooper, are you harassing this poor guy?” A gorgeous red-haired woman appeared, ducking under Cooper’s arm and snagging his bottle of beer. She took a pull and then gave it back to him. Smiling at me, she stuck out a hand. “Emmy Carter, and this over-protective dad is Cooper. Jude told me you might be coming.”

  “Oh, is this the Christmas tree guy?” Abby with the ring had drifted over, and I didn’t have to look behind her to know that Elizabeth was there, too.

  “Yeah, and Cooper’s being his normal friendly self.” Emmy laughed. “He’s lucky the rest of us are on to him.” She narrowed her eyes. “Elizabeth, you’re blonde! I love it.”

  I let my gaze wander over to her. She twisted a long curl around her finger, and I thought again how pretty she was. And I knew if I gave myself permission to look down her body, I’d be reminded that it was smokin’. I’d thought that in the truck last week, and God knew I’d been tempted.

  “Thanks. I used to keep it this light all the time—it’s actually my natural color—but I thought going darker would make it easier for people to take me seriously as a lawyer.” She snorted, and fuck me if I didn’t think it was the cutest thing I’d ever heard. “I was wrong. But I haven’t had time until now to take it all the way back to the blonde.”

  “Well, it’s perfect. And the hell with anyone who doesn’t take you seriously.” Emmy gave her a quick hug before she turned back to me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. But have you met Elizabeth and Abby? They both have offices at the building where you’re working.”

  “His name’s Trent.” Elizabeth spoke up before I could. “And yes, we’ve met.” The tone in her voice left no doubt about her opinion of that meeting. The other two women immediately clued into this fact, of course, rounding on her with interest.

  “Oh, really?” Abby glanced from Elizabeth to me. “I see I’ve been missing out on the important stuff.” She glanced at Emmy. “I actually don’t have an office there anymore. We’ve moved everything over to the hotel now.”

  “How did I not know that? See, this is what happens when we all get so busy. Plus, it’s these men in our lives. Back when we were both sex-starved single ladies, we had time for each other.”

  Cooper slung his around her shoulders, pulling her into his body. “Yeah? And you miss that?”

  Emmy gave him a half-hearted shove. “Of course I miss my friends. But no, I’m not looking to go back to the sex-starved singleness.”

  “I think we’re making Trent here uncomfortable with all this sex talk.” Abby winked at me. “After all, he doesn’t know us. We should probably try to act like we know how to behave before we scare him off.”

  “He does scare easily.” This came from Elizabeth as her mouth twisted into a half-smile.

  “This sounds like a story I want to hear.” Emmy settled her attention on me. “Do tell all.”

  “First I want to know about this Joe who took Lexi outside.” Cooper had been shut out by the ladies, but he hadn’t forgotten his main concern. “How old is he?”

  I decided I was safer dealing with Cooper than with the females. “He’s eighteen, and he’s a good kid. And he didn’t take her outside. She asked him to come with her because she’s watching little ones.”

  “Eighteen, huh.” His jaw clenched. “She’s sixteen.”

  “Almost seventeen.” Emmy sighed. “And they’re not running off to a motel, Cooper. They’re in the front yard, with my kids and Mark’s and Eric’s, not to mention DJ, who’ll keep them running. Chill, babe.”

  Cooper didn’t say anything else, but I noticed his jaw didn’t relax.

  “So you’re from up north, Trent?” Abby’s eyes were curious. “You don’t talk like a Yankee.”

  “Takes one to know one, Ab?” Emmy poked her in the ribs.

  “He’s from Michigan.” Elizabeth seemed intent on filling in the group on my history.

  “Doesn’t sound like Michigan.” Emmy raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m from Georgia.” It wasn’t really a secret, or at least it wouldn’t stay a secret l
ong here, where Jude and Logan both knew I’d lived in Burton. “I have family in Michigan, and I’m down here with them selling trees.” There, that should satisfy their curiosity. There wasn’t more to tell.

  “And how did you meet Elizabeth, exactly?”

  So I was wrong. There was more, but damned if I was going to tell it. I flickered a glance at the blonde.

  “I forgot to move my car last week when they were putting up the tent. Trent had to come in to ask me to move it, and I was under deadline, working on a motion due that afternoon. So he moved it, and long story short, my keys weren’t available when I needed to get to the courthouse, so he drove me over there.”

  “Ohhhhhh.” Abby’s eyes danced. “Well, if that isn’t a meet-cute, I’ve never seen one.”

  “Not exactly.” Elizabeth leveled her gaze at me. “Mr. Wagoner here made it very clear that he didn’t find anything about me cute. Matter of fact, he couldn’t get me out of his truck fast enough.”

  Two pairs of female eyes swung toward me. Cooper slapped me on the back. “I don’t know what you did, dude, but right now, sucks to be you. I’m going back to football. Good luck.”

  Great. Abby cocked her head. “Really? How on earth can you think Elizabeth isn’t gorgeous? Any guy would be lucky to catch her eye.”

  “Are you married?” Emmy made a point to look at my left hand. “Or engaged? Or dating someone?”

  I considered lying just to get out of this mess. But it wasn’t smart to lie to girls about things like this, I’d learned, so I took a deep breath and shook my head. “No. I’m single.”

  “Then why did you—”

  A shrill whistle interrupted the words, and I wanted to kiss whoever did it. Logan stood at the entry to the kitchen, hands cupped around his mouth.

  “Food’s going onto the tables now. Let’s get everyone together so we can give thanks.”

  Everyone scattered, as the men rose slowly from the couches. A few minutes later, Joe sauntered over to me, and I spied Alexis talking with her dad.

  “Hey, kid. Be careful with the girl, okay? She’s only sixteen.” Last thing I needed to do was explain to Uncle Nolan how I’d let his wife’s cousin hook up with an underage girl.

  Joe scowled, but his face went red. “Nothing happened. We just talked. Geez, Trent.”

  “Just sayin’. I know what it’s like to be eighteen.” Man, did I know. I wished I could go back and undo some of the shit I’d done back then.

  “Okay, everyone.” Logan was talking again. “Happy Thanksgiving. Jude and I are both so glad everyone could be here with us to celebrate. We’re all blessed, and this is the time of year when we need to remember to give thanks.”

  The room fell silent as Logan bowed his head. “Thank you for all the people in this room. Thank you for the children who’ve been born this year, who’ve grown and stayed healthy and especially for those who haven’t given their parents and grandparents extra gray hair.” A ripple of laughter spread over the crowd. “Thank you for the men and women who’ve found love, and thank you for those of us who’re even more deeply in love than ever. Thank you for homes, for families, for food and most of all for this amazing community where we live. May we always remember where home is. Amen.”

  His final word echoed, and then Logan clapped his hands once. “Let’s eat!”

  I’d never seen so much food in my life. I loaded my plate and found an empty seat at one of the tables on the deck. The sun was bright and warm, offsetting the cool breeze blowing in from the water.

  “Kind of wild, isn’t it?”

  I almost choked on my mashed potatoes as Elizabeth swung her leg over the bench and sat down next to me. She set her plate on the table and looked out over the ocean. “I mean, we’re eating Thanksgiving dinner on the beach. Outside, at the end of November. It’s not bad, it’s just weird.”

  I managed to swallow my food. “Yeah, I guess so. It was never that cold in Georgia on Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t warm enough to eat outside. And the beach . . . we didn’t have that.”

  “I lived up north for a few years here and there.” She stabbed a piece of turkey with her fork. “I remember snow one year for Thanksgiving. I was so excited. I realized what all those holiday songs were about.”

  Part of me knew I should keep the conversation on this impersonal, weather-related level. Just like I would with anyone else here. But before I could overthink it, I heard myself asking her, “So you’re from the south?”

  Elizabeth chewed for a minute, eyes unreadable as she swallowed. “I was an Army brat. My family originally comes from Tennessee, but I lived . . . a lot of places.”

  She didn’t say it with much enthusiasm. I guessed moving around so much must’ve been tough on a kid. “Where did you live in the north?”

  “Oh, let’s see.” She cast her gaze up, as though the answers were in the sky. “We were stationed at West Point for two years when I was in elementary school, and that’s where I saw snow for the first time. And then we were in Virginia when I was in middle school, and Maryland when I was in high school. Only for one year, though, and then my dad went TDY unaccompanied to South Korea, so my mom and my brothers and I went back to Tennessee while he was there.”

  “TDY?” The acronym rolled off her tongue with ease, but I didn’t know many military terms other than what I’d heard in movies.

  “Temporary duty. Unaccompanied means he couldn’t take us.”

  “Ah, okay. Is your father still in the Army?”

  “Yep.” She didn’t want to say anymore, so I didn’t push. Hell, I knew what it was like to want to avoid certain subjects.

  “How did you—”

  “Listen, I wanted to say—”

  We both spoke at the same time, and Elizabeth laughed. “You go first.”

  “No, ladies first. Besides, yours sounded more important.”

  She sighed. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for throwing you under the bus in there. I don’t know why I did it. You had every right to turn me down. You’d just done me a big favor, and I should’ve been a little more gracious about it.” She licked some gravy from the edge of her fork, and as her tongue darted out, I felt a familiar tightening under the zipper of my jeans.

  Damn. I didn’t want to want this girl. She was sexy, no doubt. Her hair was silky as it fell over her shoulders, and her eyes were wide and luminous. That mouth . . . yeah, I could imagine doing things to that mouth. And the way her body had moved in the short skirt she’d been wearing that day in the truck—shoot me now. Another time, another place, I’d have had her on her back in the cab of my truck, the skirt pushed up around her hips and her legs wrapped around me.

  But that was another me. I’d changed, or I was trying to change. Moving to Michigan and working with Uncle Nolan was supposed to be my new start, and I’d be damned if I’d fuck it up.

  I didn’t want to hurt her, though. She might’ve looked like she had it all together, like it didn’t matter if a guy like me didn’t fall at her feet, but I’d seen the flash of vulnerability on her face, both last week in my truck and this afternoon. I probably didn’t owe her anything, but I wasn’t going to be a dick, either.

  “You were plenty gracious.” I laid my butter knife diagonally across my plate. “And it wasn’t anything you did or said. Thing is . . .” Damn. There wasn’t any way for me to say this without sounding like an idiot. “I’m kind of taking a break from girls right now.”

  Elizabeth frowned, her forehead wrinkling. “Taking a break—oh!” Her eyes went wide. “Are you—I’m sorry, are you not into, um, women?”

  “No! I mean, yes, I’m into women. I’m not gay. I don’t have a problem with it. Being gay, I mean. But I’m not.” Yeah, real smooth, buddy. “It’s actually kind of the opposite. I was sort of a little too into girls. I almost got into trouble, and it made me stop and think about what I was doing.”

  “Okay, now I’m intrigued.” She wiped her lips with a napkin and turned sideways on the bench so that h
er body was angled to face me. “Let me get this straight. Are you on a sex fast?”

  I blew out a breath and wished I could bury myself in the sand under the deck. “I guess you could call it that, yeah.”

  “Unbelievable.” She shook her head. “A woman decides not to have sex for a while, and men call her frigid. A guy does it, and it’s some noble quest. A sex fast.” She balled up the napkin and tossed it onto the table. “Well, I’ve been on a sex fast, too. Only I didn’t choose it. And I’m ready for it to end.”

  Shit. That’s what the other day had been about. She was reaching out for a little mindless fun, no strings attached, and she propositioned the one guy who couldn’t—or wouldn’t, rather—scratch her itch. I felt even worse.

  “I’m sorry. The funny thing is, a couple of months back, I’d have been all over that. I mean, God, you’re hot. Saying no to you wasn’t easy. But I’m really trying to make a change in my life. In who I am. Just bad timing, I guess.”

  “Bad timing.” Elizabeth laughed without much humor. “Story of my life.” She stared out over the ocean and took a deep breath. “So it’s not going to happen between us. We should at least be friends, right? You’re only going to be here for a little while, and I’ve got some time. All my single friends in town have hooked up or moved. If I’m not going to be having hot sex, I might as well have scintillating conversation.”

  I grinned. “Not sure anyone’s ever accused me of scintillating conversation, but I’d be willing to give it a try.”

  “Good. It’s a deal then. So why don’t you start by telling me what put you off sex?”

  Whoa. “Jumping right into the deep end?”

  She lifted one shoulder. “I’ve never been a fan of small talk. I grew up around people who did nothing but schmooze. They’d be talking with you and looking over your shoulder for the next more-important person they could chat up. So my feeling is, why have a conversation that doesn’t mean anything?”

  “Fair enough.” I had to admire this woman who told it like it was. “I slept with a girl who took things between us to be more serious than they were. It wasn’t the first time it happened, but this time . . . it went further. She was really hurt when I told her I didn’t feel the same way she did.” There was more, of course. Jenna’s face flashed across my mind, and I winced. Much more, but I wasn’t willing to talk about that yet. Maybe I never would be ready. Some pain never went away, and some sins could never be atoned.