Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

T hings had been going so well. Too well. And now it was all about to fall epically apart, and it was only day one.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Kira was not going to cry.

She was going to handle this like the capable adult that she was. Or that she was trying to be. Or that she wished she was.

‘What are we going to dooooo?’ Oops, the question came out in a wail.

Iris looked at her with concerned eyes. ‘Um…’ Iris frowned. They were in the customer-service cabin together and Kira was starting to sweat. It was too stuffy in here to still be wearing her coat.

‘How much weight can you lift?’ Kira asked, eyeing her employee. Iris was slight, but maybe she was stronger than she looked.

‘I’m pretty strong,’ she said with a smile, clearly game for anything. ‘But then who will man the booth?’

‘Right, good point. Never mind. I’ll figure something out.’

‘Maybe we should close for the afternoon?’

Kira peered out the window. The place was packed. Think of the money they would lose if she closed now. No, she couldn’t do it. Not when things were just taking off.

‘No, I can make it work.’ Kira tried to give her a reassuring smile as she turned and fled the cabin, but she felt like her face was going to crack in half. Things had been going so well! And now her afternoon help had canceled on her. Her two large college men that were hired to lift trees onto people’s cars had bailed—and now what the hell was she supposed to do? She couldn’t ask customers to do it themselves, could she?

They already had to cut their own trees, but surely they wanted help getting them on the cars? Oh, damn it, the tears were pushing hot against the backs of her eyes. And, of course, right on cue, Bennett and friends came traipsing out of the rows of trees with their own trees slung over shoulders, and one extra-large tree lay across the bed of one the wagon’s Kira had found in the old barn.

She’d really wanted Bennett to see her as capable, and she’d felt so confident this morning, so freaking happy, for once. And now it was crumbling down around her.

Already.

And like a drug-sniffing dog, but for female distress instead of narcotics, Bennett noticed her right away. He was going to come over here and try to fix everything for her and damn it if she didn’t want to let him. She wanted to lean into him and just let him fix it.

Old habits die hard.

Instead, she sniffed back her tears and rolled her shoulders back, preparing for battle. Bennett lowered the tree from his shoulder and propped it against the side of the cabin as the rest of his group went to the window to pay for their trees. Kira ignored how his arms flexed as he did it.

‘Hey,’ he said with a frown and a creased brow. He knew something was wrong. What, did this guy have some kind of extra sensory perception?

‘Hi!’ Kira tried to sound perky, but it came out more deranged than cheerful. ‘How did it go?’

‘It went fine.’ He was still studying her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Right. Nothing. Everything is fine. Great, actually. Really, really good.’

His frown deepened. ‘Then why is that old couple trying to shove their own tree onto their car?’

Kira’s head whipped around to where there was indeed an elderly couple grappling with a giant tree and an SUV that was way too tall for them.

‘Shit,’ she whispered, already turning and hustling over to them. ‘Let me help you with that,’ she said, plastering her customer-service smile back on her face. It was very similar to her ‘attending her mother’s parties’ smile. The last thing she needed was to have elderly people crushed by a Christmas tree. Definitely not the vibe she was going for.

‘Oh, thank you, dear. We thought we could manage, but we might have picked one that’s a bit too big.’ The woman smiled at her from under her knit hat.

‘I told you it was too big,’ the old man grumbled. ‘Should have just gotten a small tree from the grocery store again.’

Kira’s stomach dropped. Losing customers was almost as bad as killing them.

‘No such thing!’ said Bennett as he strode up behind her. ‘Can never have too big of a Christmas tree! Right, Kira?’ He smiled, and before she could stop him, before she could even get her hands on the tree, he was shoving it on top of the car.

Oh, hell, no.

She nudged him aside with a hip check. ‘I’ll take it from here, thank you, Bennett.’

‘Kira, I really don’t mind––’

She shut him up with a glare. She must have done a pretty good job communicating with her eyes that she was two seconds away from strapping him to the roof of the car instead of the tree because Bennett stepped aside with his hands up in surrender.

Good. Perfect. She could do this.

Right. How exactly was she going to do this?

She stared at the tree. It was enormous. How the hell had these two got it down here in the first place? The man had to be at least eighty years old and the woman was all of four feet tall and maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. The physics didn’t make sense, but Kira now had Bennett, the old couple, and several other customers watching her, waiting for her to perform this very unlikely feat of strength.

‘Okay, let’s get this strapped on, shall we?’ she said, still sounding less chipper and more unhinged than she intended. She took the rope from the man’s hand and flung it over the top of the tree. It got about halfway and then got tangled in the branches.

Shit.

‘I’m just going to open the doors,’ she explained with a smile to the man. She refused to look at Bennett, even though she could feel the barely restrained ‘I must help you’ energy emanating from his direction.

She put a foot up on the floor of the back seat and tried to reach the rope, but between the height of the SUV and the tree branches, she couldn’t reach it.

‘Just a minute!’ she chirped, racing to the other side of the vehicle. Sweat dripped down her back. She climbed up on the other side and stretched across the tree, branches jabbed her in the face like Christmas was personally assaulting her. How festive.

She almost had it…

‘Ben! Why are you just standing there?’ Jeanie’s voice pierced the silence around the car.

‘Let me get that.’ A large arm reached past her, grabbed the rope and pulled.

‘I told you––’ She started to snap at the unwanted helper, but reeled it back in when she saw it wasn’t Bennett but Logan who had grabbed the rope and was now very expertly and efficiently tying the tree to the car. ‘Oh…’

She stepped down from the car and let him work.

Jeanie and Hazel came up beside her. The other guy they’d come with, Noah, had taken it upon himself to help a mom with two little kids get her tree tied to the roof of her minivan. The kids were running around his legs cheering. Bennett was helping Logan make sure the gigantic tree was secure and politely fighting off tips from the old couple.

Kira blew out a long sigh.

Damn it.

She’d failed again.

‘I can’t believe Ben was just standing there watching you struggle,’ Jeanie said, shaking her head. ‘That’s not like him.’

‘I know it’s not,’ Kira said, faintly. ‘I told him not to.’

‘Oh. Why?’

‘I wanted to prove I didn’t need his help. I’m trying to be … independent and all that…’

Jeanie huffed. ‘Being independent doesn’t mean you don’t need help. And besides,’ she said, gesturing to the men, ‘they love it. Makes them feel all manly and stuff.’

Hazel laughed. ‘Wow, Jeanie. How very feminist of you.’

Jeanie scowled at her friend. ‘Oh, please. Logan and I are equal partners, but try and tell me it doesn’t do something for you to see Noah with his sleeves rolled up and hefting that big tree up over his head. Look at those forearms…’

All three women tipped their heads to the side, pausing a moment to appreciate the sight in front of them. Noah was tying up the tree for the mom, now that the kids were buckled safely in the car, Logan was chatting with the older couple, his muscular frame leaning on their open window, and Bennett had rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and was helping another man carry his tree to his truck. His forearms flexed as he lifted the tree, and Kira was not going to lie, he looked damn good doing manual labor. She didn’t hate it.

She shook her head. No. Nope. This was not happening.

She cleared her throat and broke all three of them out of their daze. ‘Well, that was very nice of them and all, but I can take it from here.’

‘Oh, really? How do you plan to do that? You clearly don’t have anyone here to help with the trees and you still have two hours until close. Do you plan on putting all the trees on the cars yourself?’ Jeanie asked, her hand on her hip.

‘I … well … I will just…’

‘We’re staying,’ Hazel announced. ‘Let’s get some more rope.’ She walked off toward the cabin before Kira could argue.

Jeanie just grinned and followed her friend.

What the hell just happened?

* * *

‘Cheers to a job well done,’ Noah said, and they all lifted their compostable paper cups of cocoa in a toast to their hard work tying trees all afternoon.

‘Cheers!’ Hazel and Jeanie sang out. They were all gathered on the little porch in front of the cabin, Logan in the rocking chair with Noah perched on the rail of the porch beside him. Hazel and Jeanie were huddled together on the steps, keeping warm now that the sun had set. Kira was freezing but she stood just off the porch in the frozen dirt. Bennett was leaning against the porch on the other side of his sister, and she was still studiously avoiding his gaze. She had been all afternoon. All afternoon while these people she barely knew helped keep her business afloat.

And isn’t this exactly what she swore she wasn’t going to do? Hadn’t she started this whole crazy plan to do something on her own? Something without Chloe’s sensible guidance and without her parents’ money (other than the money she used to start the whole damn thing, but that was beside the point). Wasn’t she here to stop mooching off other people and using them for what they could do for her? She was supposed to be self-sufficient up here on her farm. But she was even further from that goal than she was when she started.

Five people had given up their afternoon for her and she had absolutely nothing to offer them in return, other than watered-down cocoa in cups that would disintegrate if they didn’t drink it fast enough.

‘I can send over a few of my guys tomorrow,’ Logan said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘They’re always looking for more work in the colder months. They’ll help you out and they’re reliable.’

‘Oh … uh … thank you. That would be great.’ Kira chugged the last of her cocoa, wanting to reject his offer but really, really needing a way to keep this stupid farm running. ‘And thanks for helping today, all of you. I appreciate it.’

‘Of course!’ Jeanie smiled at her. Her arm was tucked under Hazel’s, the two women leaning in toward each other, and a sharp pang of jealousy hit Kira. Did she miss her sister or just any human contact? At this point, she thought it was probably both.

‘It was like being in one of those holiday romcoms Hazel likes to watch,’ Noah said.

‘ We like to watch,’ she corrected.

‘Right, we like to watch,’ he amended with a grin, and Logan huffed a laugh.

‘So, what’s the plan for the other eleven months of the year?’ Logan asked, steering the question back to business. Kira had learned throughout the afternoon that the man ran a successful produce farm and apple orchard so she should probably ask for some advice. Business advice was different from random help from strangers, she figured. They were associates, fellow farmers. It was different than Bennett trying to swoop in and rescue her. Right?

‘Well, I thought I could focus on more of a general garden center. There’s an old greenhouse in the south field and we could do shrubs and small trees.’ It was the first time she was saying any of it out loud, mostly because she had literally no one to say it out loud to, but also because she was nervous and didn’t know if any of it was a good idea, but Logan was nodding so that was probably a good sign…

‘Sure, that could work. I’m going to get you in touch with my agricultural engineer. He’ll help you get set up.’

‘Agricultural engineer?’

‘Yeah, name’s Gordon. Give me your number, I’ll send you his information.’

‘Um … okay.’ As she rattled off her number, she wondered what the hell an agricultural engineer was and how much they cost, and why the hell running a farm was a lot harder than just planting some seeds.

‘What about your pickles?’ Bennett asked, speaking for the first time since they’d stopped working, forcing her to finally look at him. Shit. He looked good. In the soft glow of the Christmas lights, he looked like a damn holiday card come to life. His dark hair was mussed from an afternoon of working, and his puffy vest was streaked with dirt and pine needles, but his cheeks were ruddy from the cold and his eyes bright and teasing.

Frankly, it was rude to look that good when she knew she was a wreck from the afternoon of running around in a panic, that fake customer-service smile plastered to her face.

‘It’s possible the internet lied to me.’

His perfect mouth tipped up in the corner.

‘What pickles?’ Jeanie asked, forcing Kira to tear her gaze away from Bennett’s mouth. That stupid, perfect mouth.

‘I just thought things would be different when I got here.’ She shrugged, like it didn’t matter, like she hadn’t been completely wrong and delusional about setting up her own little homestead. That she thought she could be self-sufficient and not need things like actual money to fix radiators and windows. That she had lived her entire life in an absurd sheltered reality, where anything broken was fixed for her.

When her gaze flicked back to Bennett he was watching her again. Something was different about the way he was looking at her now. Something decidedly less … wholesome … was lurking in his eyes. Had it been there all along and she just missed it? Or had something shifted between them? Despite the cold evening, heat flared in her cheeks.

‘You thought things would be more pickle-y?’ Noah asked, pulling her attention from Bennett again.

Kira laughed despite the feeling that her world was falling apart around her. ‘Yeah, much more pickle-y. I just … I didn’t plan on setting up a business. I kinda thought I was coming here to go off the grid.’

‘We can plant cucumbers in the spring,’ Hazel told her with a smile, and Kira’s heart hurt at how kind they were all being. ‘Then you can make all the pickles you want.’

‘Right.’ Kira cleared her throat. She was not going to cry over pickles. ‘Thanks. That would be great.’ Her gaze snagged on Bennett’s again.

He dipped his head in a nod but didn’t take his eyes off her. Kira swallowed hard. Was it possible that Bennett wasn’t quite as nice as she thought he was? Suddenly this damn coat was too warm.

‘We should probably get going,’ Logan said, standing from the rocking chair. He reached out a hand and pulled Jeanie to her feet.

‘Let’s go, Haze. Those Christmas movies aren’t going to watch themselves,’ Noah said, hopping down from his perch. Hazel stood from the step and Noah hoisted her over his shoulder. She shrieked.

‘See,’ Jeanie said with a giggle. ‘Feeling all manly.’

‘Noah! Put me down.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t strap you to the roof,’ he teased. ‘Bye, everyone!’ He carted Hazel across the parking lot before sliding her down his body and placing her gently on the ground near his car. As Noah’s head lowered to Hazel’s, Kira turned back to Jeanie and Logan not wanting to intrude on their moment.

‘Call me if you need anything else,’ Logan said.

‘Thanks, I will.’

‘See you later, Kira. Make sure you come into the café sometime. Oh, and Annie wanted me to mention that you should call her. She’d love to set something up to sell gingerbread cookies up here.’

Kira winced a little, remembering the business card that was tucked into the free cookies George had dropped off a week ago. She was supposed to call the baker, but time had gotten away from her. ‘Oh, that would be great. I will.’

‘Great!’

‘Bye, Kira.’ Logan grabbed Jeanie’s hand and the two wandered back to his truck, leaving Kira alone with Bennett.

‘They’re my ride,’ he said when she dared to look up at him, that new … something … was still in his eyes. ‘So, I should probably go.’

‘Probably.’

Panic spiked through her. Was this it? Was she never going to see this man again? And why did that matter? Her mind was racing, grappling for reasons to make him come back, for reasons to see him again. Anything! A leaky roof, a creaky floor, a drafty window … technically she had all of those. Would he come if she asked him to?

At some point, he’d stepped closer and she fought the insane urge to lean into him. Get a grip, Kira.

‘I’m staying above The Pumpkin Spice Café,’ he said. ‘If you take Jeanie up on her offer, maybe we’ll run into each other.’ He was so close now that his words brushed against her cheek.

‘Yes,’ her voice was a breathy whisper. What the hell was wrong with her? But it had been so long since she had company, since she had … naked company, and he was so warm and sweet and…

Jesus, was she describing a man or cinnamon bun?

She cleared her throat and stepped back before he could lure her in further. And there was that smile again. She didn’t know if she wanted to smack it off his face or kiss it.

‘Yeah, sure, maybe we will run into each other. At the café.’

The smile grew like he knew every single filthy thought going through her mind. ‘See you around, Kira.’

‘See you.’ And despite herself, she was hoping they would.

Bennett Ellis was a complication she didn’t need in her life right now. But Kira was not known for doing anything the easy way.