“Are you kidding?” she teased. “From the moment I met you, you’velivedto irritate me.”
“Youwere the one who said you had a gun,” he said. “WhenIwas there helping your mom.”
“Well, she didn’t tell me,” Lark said. “I can’t be blamed for that.”
“You can’t be blamed.” He laughed. “This has been a great week, Lark, and I’m really glad you came with me today.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Lark said. “But so far, this has been fun.”
“There’s the check-in booth,” Cash said, and sure enough, a little wooden booth came into view. Lark couldn’t even imagine having a job where she worked outside in the cold, and she hunkered down even further into her coat to stay warm. A couple of people moved away from the front of the booth, and Cash stepped right into their place.
“We just want to get one tree,” he said.
“Are you looking for something ten feet or taller?” the woman there asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“All right.” She looked down at a book there. “Sorry, I’m still figuring a lot of this out.”
“Take your time,” Cash said, almost as if the woman needed his permission to do so. “You know, I think we went to school together. You’re Andrew’s daughter, right?”
The woman looked up, and it seemed to take her several blinks before she said, “Cash Young.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Chrissy, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “My goodness, what are you doing here?”
“Getting a Christmas tree,” he said.
Chrissy blinked. “Oh, duh, of course.” She slapped her hand down on the notebook. “Anything less than ten feet is fiftydollars,” she said. “Sorry, I’ve only been in town for a couple of days, and I’m still trying to figure all this out.”
“Where were you before?” Lark asked, because she wanted to be part of this conversation between this woman and Cash, who so clearly knew one another. Maybe she was a little jealous of the way Cash grinned at the woman, and she wondered if they’d ever dated.
Chrissy looked at her and smiled. “I just finished up my master’s in business,” she said. “My father’s been the PR director at Springside Energy for a long time, and I’m going to be working there in the New Year. I’m running the Christmas tree cutting for the next few weeks, though.”
She smiled prettily, but Lark wasn’t sure she was entirely happy about it. She handed Cash a blue ticket. “There are height markers in the meadow,” she said. “And we’ve got a couple of attendants out there to help if you need it.”
“It sounds great,” Cash said.
“Do you have a saw?” Chrissy asked. “We don’t allow chainsaws.”
Cash pocketed the ticket with one hand. He reached around and patted a backpack with the other. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”
He certainly was, because Lark didn’t even know he’d brought a backpack. She gave Chrissy a warm smile and moved away with Cash.
Thankfully, they only had to walk about another twenty yards before the meadow opened up. The first sunlight that had been out in the past couple of days streamed through the trees.
“All right,” Cash said. “I want something that has some character.”
“Character?” Lark repeated as she gazed around at the pine trees populating the mountain. They were everywhere, and shehad no idea how to tell if one had character or not. In fact, they all looked the same to her.
“Let’s go over here,” Cash said, and his boots made crunching sounds against the hard snow.
Lark followed him because she didn’t want to be in the woods by herself. Moreover, she wanted to be at his side. She could hardly believe the depth of her own feelings in such a short time, but she and Cash had literally spent every waking minute together in the past several days. The highlight of the week for Lark wasn’t the Country Quad concert or even the searing hot kiss that had happened during it, but the calm, peaceful nap she’d taken with him yesterday in the master suite. The fact that she was that comfortable with him told her a lot.
He moved from tree to tree with surprising purpose, muttering things like, “I like the branches on that one….” or “This one’s too tall,” and “I don’t like the top of that one.”
After several minutes of following him through the snow like a lost puppy, Lark came to his side and looked up at the tree.
