Chapter Four
“You’re sure it’s a dragon?”Myra sorted the box of ornaments on the coffee table making sure each one had a good hook attached. “Crow is atrickster.”
They were brand new red, gold, silver, green, and blue bulbs. They came with hooks. I didn’t know why she was double-checkingthem.
“Pretty sure, yes.” I stepped back from the six-foot tree that Myra and I had wrestled into the house a couple hours ago. It was not a prime example of itsspecies.
It had missing branches down one side. Clumps of brown needles ringed the bottom third of the thing and shed at the slightest touch, like a porcupine had had an unfortunate run-in with a bottle ofNair.
The whole tree leaned precariously to the left. I’d tried to counter-weight it by adding an extra string of lights on the right, but that made the tree’s deficiencies stand out, like a neon sign with too many blownletters.
“Think that’s enoughlights?”
Myra glanced up. Her black-lined eyes, page-boy bob, and bright lipstick gave her that sweet-but-tough rockabilly look. “If you put any more lights on that poor tree you’re going to blow afuse.”
“The house has breakers, notfuses.”
At least I thought it did. Ryder and his dad had pretty much built this house on the lake just east of the main road that ran through town. Since Ryder was an architect, I didn’t think he’d live in a house that was still usingfuses.
“And the tree isn’t poor. It’s…well, I’m not going to lie, it’s way past its sell date. Maybe I’ll just add one morestring.”
“Step away from the twinkle lights, crazy woman,” Myra said without looking atme.
“It’s perfect. A couple dozen ornaments, some tinsel, and he’ll never know you installed it all at the lastminute.”
I lifted my hair off the back of my neck, thought about binding it back in a ponytail, then decided it didn’t matter. “Okay, ornament me.” I held out my hand like a TV show doctor demanding ascalpel.
“You put a star on top,” Myranoted.
A shiny red five-pointed star crowned the tree. Ishrugged.
“I didn’t think you liked stars on trees,” shesaid.
“Seemed like the right thing to do. Atradition.”
“Why did you even get a tree,Delaney?”
Myra walked over with the ornaments and nursed a fragile glass orb into my hand. “You haven’t gotten a tree foryears.”
“It always seemed like a lot of work.” I placed the first bulb. I smiled. The glass orb glittered so prettily, it made mehappy.
Then it hit me. This would be the first Christmas I’d ever spent with Ryder. This was the first ornament I’d ever hung on ourtree.
Our tree. A warm hum thrilled beneath my skin. I had the sudden urge to put on a Santa hat. To make hot cocoa and stir it with a candycane.
It was almost like I was starting to catch the Christmasspirit.
I blamedJean.
“Delaney?”
“What?”
“Why the Christmascactus?”
“You mean thetree?”
“That’s not much of atree.”
