Chapter 3

Chapter Three

T here were dogs outside. Kira could hear them barking as she rinsed her coffee mug and peered out the window over the sink. The one that let in so much cold air, she could feel it on her face as she washed dishes, but she didn’t know what to do about that.

Another bark! She wiped the condensation from the window, but she still couldn’t see anything.

Maybe she had customers! Customers with dogs! Maybe they’d dressed the dogs in little dog sweaters for a Christmas photo shoot! That would be adorable. And it would look great on the new social media account she’d finally managed to set up when she’d got a weak signal in the far corner of one of the upstairs guest rooms. As long as she stayed perfectly still and faced the wall, the internet worked perfectly.

She should get outside to greet them, even though she’d hired a lovely and very responsible-looking woman to sit in the booth and work the register, but if these were her first customers ever she should go out and see. And get their permission to post pics of their holiday sweater-wearing dogs.

That was why she was scrabbling for her boots and pulling on her new puffy coat so fast. Customers meant money and money meant heat. And new windows.

See, everything was going to be fine. She was going to pull this off all on her own. She didn’t need Chloe. If she was being honest, Chloe had probably been holding her back all these years, with her practicality and realistic expectations. It was time for Kira to go big. To live her dream, regardless of how recently this dream had popped up. She was going to make money off this Christmas-tree obsessed town and then she could live off the land just like @thehomesteadgoddess and @selfsustainedliving and all the other lovely and beautiful accounts she followed. If they could do it, surely she could do it.

Kira hurried out the back door, fantasizing about pickled vegetables lined up in neat rows in her pantry, and cross-stitched aprons, not that she knew how to pickle anything or what the hell cross-stitch involved. She followed the sound of the barking dogs through the lines of trees, up two rows, across three.

There!

Oh.

‘You.’

The man from the other day had his head down, as though he was looking for something in the dirt, but it snapped up when he heard her voice. ‘Hello, again,’ he said, a hand raised in greeting.

‘Why are you back?’ Kira’s dreams of Christmas doggie photoshoots fizzled out. Elizabeth, the biggest of the three dogs, nudged against her hand. Kira gave her head a good scratch. These dogs weren’t wearing sweaters, but they were still pretty darn cute.

‘The sign said open.’

Kira frowned. ‘And you’re here to buy a tree?’

The man smiled. ‘I’m considering it. If I can find the right one.’

‘The right one?’ she huffed. ‘It’s just a tree, not a wife.’

His laugh startled her and the dogs. Odie barked in alarm.

‘I have very high standards for my Christmas trees,’ he said, his eyes sparking in amusement.

‘I bet you do.’ He probably had obnoxiously high standards for a lot of things. But if Kira liked that sort of thing she would have stuck around at home for longer.

‘You don’t?’ he asked.

‘Not about Christmas trees, no.’

He glanced around at the farm she now owned but luckily for him refrained from commenting about how she should probably care about the quality of her Christmas trees.

Instead, he shrugged and said, ‘I like your coat.’

‘Thank you. It’s so damn cold here, I had to upgrade.’

He chuckled. ‘It hasn’t even dropped below freezing yet.’

This guy. Ugh. ‘Well, it’s cold to me. What are you from Alaska or something?’

‘Buffalo.’

‘Hmph. Well, that’s nice for you that the cold doesn’t bother you, but it bothers me.’

‘Where are you from?’

Kira sighed. She didn’t love telling people she was from Georgia, especially people from up North. They made instant assumptions that she didn’t appreciate, assumptions that she was dumb or slow or worse. It was why she’d made a concerted effort to ditch her accent when she’d moved. It only slipped out now when she was angry or drunk, or speaking to her sister.

‘Georgia.’

The man just nodded. ‘No wonder you’re cold.’

No rude comments. Interesting.

‘I don’t know your name,’ she said. If this guy was going to keep hanging around, she’d probably need to know what to call him.

He smiled and stuck out his hand. ‘Sorry, I’m Bennett.’

Kira took it in hers and shook it. It was big and warm. ‘Kira.’

‘I know.’

‘You know?’

‘Sure, you’re big news in town. I’m staying above my sister’s café and you’re all anyone can talk about.’

Odie and Pudgie whined at her feet and she squatted down to pet them. ‘You say that, but where is everyone?! I’m open and I haven’t had a single customer.’

‘Does anyone know you’re open?’

Kira huffed. ‘The sign says open, doesn’t it? And we have a brand new website with all the information and an Instagram profile… Oh, actually could I post a pic of your dogs? So far I just have random tree pictures.’

She peered up at where he still stood above her.

‘I don’t think anyone is checking for a new website. And I think you did a good enough job telling people to uh … stay out … that no one is driving by to check for an open sign.’

‘Oh. Hmm. Good point.’

Now what? How was she going to lure everyone back? Her dreams of perfectly preserved vegetables were quickly fading.

‘Why don’t you go to that tree-lighting thing? It sounds like a big deal to the town. You could make some kind of announcement about your grand reopening.’

She wanted to tell him she didn’t need his suggestions, thank you very much, but that was actually a really good idea. Damn it.

She stood. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

He smiled that stupid straight smile. His parents must have paid so much for that smile. Nobody was born with teeth that straight. Well, nobody was born with teeth in general, but that was beside the point! She was getting sidetracked.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to your perfect tree hunt,’ she said. ‘If you find one you like, Iris at the booth has saws for cutting it down.’

‘You have a person sitting in that old shack out front?’ His eyes widened in alarm.

‘Of course I do. It’s fine.’

‘Fine? I don’t know about that. Looks pretty run down.’

Kira put her hand on her hip, fully intending to give this know-it-all asshole a piece of her mind, when an image of poor sweet Iris buried under a pile of old wood beams flashed through her mind.

Oh, God, what if this know-it-all asshole was right!

She turned and ran, the dogs hot on her heels. Well, Elizabeth and Odie were. Poor chubby, Pudgie was pulling up the rear.

‘Iris! Iris!’ she called, racing toward the little cabin on the other side of the farm. ‘Iris, you’re in danger!’ Kira had thought it was rustic. She’d thought it had charm. She’d thought it looked very cute and post-able when she’d strung twinkle lights up along the roof. She had not once thought it might fall down and kill her only employee!

‘I don’t think it’s that imminent!’ Bennett yelled to her as he followed behind the dogs. Imminent or not, Kira couldn’t risk it. Mostly because she couldn’t bear the thought of Iris getting hurt, but also because she didn’t have insurance yet and definitely couldn’t afford anyone’s medical bills.

‘Iris, get out of there!’ She skidded to a stop in front of the booth. A wide-eyed Iris pulled aside the little window and peered out.

‘What’s going on?’ Iris asked, taking in Kira, red-faced and panting, the three barking dogs, and Bennett striding in last, but no less harried than the rest of the crew.

‘Get out of that death trap!’

‘Deathtrap?’ Iris’s brows furrowed.

‘Everyone just calm down,’ Bennett said. ‘I don’t think it’s that serious.’

‘Not that serious?’ Kira spun toward him. ‘Not that serious?! Then why did you say it? Why did you waltz in here and just start spouting helpful little tidbits like maybe that booth is a death trap…’

‘I never said death trap.’

‘Argh!’ Kira was out of intelligible words. This guy! Why was he even here?

‘How about I just go in and check it out for you?’

‘How about you go the hell back to Buffalo!’

His eyes widened at her outburst and the southern accent that was now bursting through her defenses and she was suddenly very thankful she didn’t have any other customers right now. That would be … awkward.

She took a deep breath. ‘Why would you be qualified to check it out?’ she asked through clenched teeth, instead of yelling at him that possessing testicles did not make him a handyman. You had to have actual skills for that sort of thing. You had to know what you were doing.

Not that she did, either … but still.

‘My dad’s a contractor. I have some experience…’

Kira let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a shriek. ‘Of course you do. Fine. Go look.’ She gestured toward the little cabin and noticed Iris still staring at them.

Right. She was having an interesting first day of work.

‘Iris, why don’t you go grab a cup of coffee and take a short break? I just made some in the house.’

Iris’s gaze flicked from Kira to Bennett, a bemused smirk on her face. ‘Okay, sure.’ She came out of the cabin and gave Kira a knowing smile. ‘I’ll take a break. Try not to kill this guy while I’m gone.’

Did Iris just wink at her? What on earth did she think was going on here? Kira didn’t have time to set her straight before Iris hurried away down the drive to the house.

Bennett meanwhile was sniffing around the perimeter of the shack and then peering up at the roof before finally heading through the door. Kira followed him in.

There wasn’t much inside, but she’d thoroughly cleaned it all on her own. She’d even relocated the family of possums that had taken up residence inside. And by relocate, she meant she’d screamed when she saw them and they had voluntarily left.

But the wood floors were scrubbed clean, there was a cozy space heater in the corner and a small table and two chairs. She’d lined up the saws on hooks on the wall and had even made a giant carafe of hot chocolate for all the customers she’d imagined having today. Clearly, that wasn’t going exactly as planned.

She glanced at Bennett who was examining the small space with a furrow between his brows.

‘It’s better in here than I thought.’

She wanted to punch him. Unfortunately, manners were still a big deal in the South, so she refrained.

‘Thanks.’

He knocked on a few walls and reached up to poke at the ceiling. ‘Looks okay.’

Kira ground her back teeth together. ‘Wonderful.’

He turned to face her and suddenly the fact that they were crammed into a tiny space together was very evident. He was taller than she’d first realized. For whatever reason that made her angry, too. Like just be average, would you? Ugh.

‘I’m sorry for worrying you like that,’ he said. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘So is that your thing?’ she snapped. ‘You get off on helping people?’

He blinked. ‘I wouldn’t say I get off on it.’

‘You know what I mean, you like to fix things. You’re a fixer.’

‘I … well…’ his frown deepened. ‘Maybe I am.’

Kira scoffed. How predictable. This big Boy Scout liked to fix things. Well, she didn’t need that kind of energy in her life right now. This was her big endeavor; she didn’t need this guy waltzing in and trying to take over with all his … ideas … and … concerns. However valid they may be.

‘And you?’ he asked. ‘What gets you off?’

‘What?’ she sputtered, her face immediately heating.

He chuckled, low and deep. ‘You know what I mean. What’s your deal? You’re bad at letting people help you.’

Why was it so crowded in here? Had he stepped closer or had she? For the first time in days, she was warm.

‘Actually,’ she said, straightening to her full height, refusing to crane her neck to look up at him. ‘My whole life all people did was help me. I rarely did anything for myself ever. I didn’t need to. We had people for that.’ She sniffed. ‘But this is different. This is for me.’

‘Accepting help is different than letting other people do everything for you.’ He was definitely closer, his light gray eyes locked on hers.

This new coat was too warm.

Kira cleared her throat. ‘Yes, well. I think you’ve done enough helping for one day.’