“Well done, Dr. Minelli,” I tease.
She rolls her eyes.
Except itisimpressive to watch her work.
She walks away from the crowd as she searches for the hospital phone number.
I follow because I have nothing else to do at the moment, and I’m still carrying her puffy vest. Silently, I hold it up.Do you want this back?
She shakes her head. In the sun, it’s quite warm now, and after that blast of excitement, I’m warm, too.
As she waits on hold to be transferred to the emergency department, I hang both of our vests up on a hook on the tree sales hut.
“How’s business?” I ask Cassie.
“Jules is telling every customer that their aura is calling out for a very specific tree, so she’s moving an average of two per household.”
Her sister jogs over. “Just sold four more.”
“Auras?” I ask.
She grins wickedly. “Yep.”
“You’re evil.”
“This is business,” she says with savage delight. “And also, I’m hungry and want to go to the bakery.”
“Yeah, I think we’ll be sold out within the hour,” Cassie says dryly.
I give them both a high five, then go to give the good news to Rory.
“That’s right,” she says into the phone as I approach. “Briefly dazed but is now alert and well-oriented. Possible concussion, but her helmet was on properly. Yep, sounds good. Thanks.”
“All good?” I ask after she ends the call.
“Yep.”
“Your sisters seem to have the tree sales under control.”
“Mm-hmm.” Rory glances around. “Are you heading back to the skating trail?”
“I think they’re okay without me. You want to get a hot chocolate?”
She shakes her head, then flicks her gaze over the tree lot.
“Do you want to walk the lines and do a tree count?” I guess.
Her cheeks turn pink. “How did you guess?”
“It’s Christmas Eve. You and your dad are both creatures of habit.”
“Are we?” She looks genuinely delighted at that. “That’s a very nice way to say dogmatically hyper focused.”
“That’s a very critical way to say creature of habit.”
“Touché.” She starts counting, and it doesn’t take long. “Eight! We only have eight trees left!”
I’m laughing as she jumps up and down in excitement.
