He started sawing, his movements smooth and confident. Within seconds, she heard a sharp crack.
“Stand back,” he said. Reaching through the branches, he gave the tree a push, and —
Down it came!
CHAPTER 14
The tree lay in the snow, its branches a vivid green against the fresh whiteness.
“Wow,” Penny said, impressed. “That was fast.”
Daniel returned the saw to the cart. “If you can keep the cart steady while I get the tree….”
She took hold of the cart handle and watched as he dragged the tree across the snow and hefted it onto the cart. Despite the tree’s size and weight, he handled it with ease.
“For someone who’s never been to a tree farm before, you did that well.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been getting practice at stuff like this.”
“And by ‘stuff like this,’ you mean…?”
“For the past year,” he said as he positioned the tree in the center of the cart, “I’ve been volunteering for a nonprofit that repairs and restores housing in and around New York.”
Ah —so that explained why his hands were callused. “You fix houses?”
“And apartments. The places we work on are usually in bad shape, so we do prepping, priming, painting, plastering, and carpentry.”
“What made you want to do that?”
“I was looking for something to do after….” He glanced at Eva and her phone, then continued. “I started doing it as research for a novel.”
“But now?”
He took a deep breath. “I do it because I enjoy it. Being part of a team, working together for a worthy cause, feels good.”
“Which means there’s hope yet for you joining Team Christmas.”
He smiled. “The way I see it, I get more from it than I give.”
“You offer your time and labor.”
“And in return, I get the satisfaction of making a difference — plus learning a lot of repair and reno skills.”
“You didn’t do any of that growing up?”
He shook his head. “We rented. Fixing stuff was the super’s job.”
Penny’s pulse quickened. For the first time, he’d mentioned his family. “Tell me about the ‘we.’”
“‘We’ was Mom, Dad, and me. At least until I was twelve.”
“You were an only child?”
He nodded.
“What happened when you were twelve?”
“My parents split up. Mom and I stayed in the Bronx and Dad moved to Brooklyn.”
