“This one’s nice,” he said, glancing over to her. “What do you think?”
Lark thought they were all nice, but she didn’t want to throw any sass his way. “Yeah, this one’s great.” She walked over to it and lifted her arm above her head. She could almost reach the top of it. “It can’t be more than ten feet.”
“I think this is the one,” he said, and as she turned back to him, she found him absolutely beaming.
“What are you going to decorate it with?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s Future Cash’s problem.” He laughed as he actually got down on the ground and started to clear away the snow so he could get as close to the ground to cut the tree trunk.
Lark certainly wasn’t going to help with that, and she waited until he’d sawed the tree enough to push it over. Acrackling of limbs moved through the forest, and then Cash rose triumphantly.
“You know, there’s a great Christmas shop in town,” Lark said. “After we have our hot chocolate fix, we could stop there and get lights and ornaments.”
“Yeah, all right,” Cash said. “Does your family have a tradition for decorating the tree?”
He walked away from her before she could answer. He only went a few feet, and then he raised his hand. “They’ll bring us a sled now,” he said, and he returned to the felled tree and Lark.
“My mother had four or five different varieties,” Lark said. “Whatever she felt like that year is what we would decorate with. What about you guys?”
“My childhood tree depended on where I was,” he said. “In Utah, my momma had a tall, skinny tree, artificial, with white lights. She hated red ornaments, so she always decorated our tree with blue and silver instead of the traditional red, green, and gold.” Cash shrugged. “I didn’t hate it.”
“What about at your daddy’s house?” Lark asked, though she felt a bit like she was treading out onto thin ice.
“I think the first year, we put up a tree and went to the store and bought whatever we liked. After Daddy married Faith, we had a doughnut tree one year because she used to own Hole in One. And then she and Daddy started having kids, and they decorate with all sorts of colorful ornaments now.”
He smiled, and that made Lark so happy. “Then they started a new tradition, where every year we make an ornament for them as our Christmas gift to them. That way, neither parent has to take the kids shopping for the other, and they can go over their best memory of the year as a family.”
“Oh, I like that,” Lark said, smiling. “What are you going to make this year?”
“I haven’t decided,” Cash said, his voice turning a bit more guarded. “There’s been a lot of ups and downs this year, and it’s hard to settle on one thing.”
She laced her arm through his just as someone came through the snow with a sled. Cash shook hands with the man, and together the two of them tied the tree limbs so it was skinnier and easier to load into the back of the truck. Then they lifted it onto the sled. Lark simply got to walk through the snowy, pine-scented woods with her boyfriend, with plenty of good times still to come that day.
Tomorrow was Future Lark’s problem, as was Sunday, when she would have to make her bed, pack up her car, and drive away from Cash.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
“What do you think about these?” Cash held out the box of ornaments depicting Peanuts characters. Lark frowned at them, and that answered his question.
“I’m not into the cutesy stuff for the holidays,” she said. Cash wasn’t really sure what he was into for the holidays, because he didn’t spend very much time at home in December.
He’d managed to fill his days with working out and testing new recipes, spending time with his family, or working with Bryce at his horse rescue ranch. He also spent a considerable amount of time out at Cousins Creek, chatting with Boston and Beth, and Cash had enjoyed the slower-paced lifestyle he’d had for the past few months.
“So we’re talking traditional red and green?” He put the box with Charlie Brown and Snoopy back on the shelf.
“Or silver,” she said. “Or gold, or blue.” She plucked a box of ornaments from the shelf further down the aisle. “These are purple, and they’re nice.”
Cash stepped toward her and took the box from her. The ornaments weren’t a tacky bright purple, but a really prettyeggplant, and they had silver swirls through them. “Yeah, these are nice,” he said.
They’d already agreed upon white lights, and Cash thought the tree would be real pretty with lots of colored ornaments. Lark seemed to only want metallic ones, and they’d provide a nice shine.
“These will reflect the lights real nice,” he said, and he pulled the cart forward and put them in it. “What else do we need?” He peered down into his cart, honestly not quite sure what it took to decorate a house for the holidays. The tree still sat tied in the back of his truck, and they had lights, a crimson tree skirt with white fur around the edges, a couple of stocking holders and stockings, and now eight or nine boxes of ornaments.
Lark looked in the cart too. “I think this will be fine,” she said. “Unless you want some washcloths and kitchen towels?”
He raised his head and blinked at her. “Do Ineedwashcloths and kitchen towels?”
