Unfortunately, the Christmas tree lot was complete chaos when I arrived.
“I’ve been waiting ten minutes for a tree! This is outrageous!” a middle-aged woman in an elf hat raged. “Absolutely ridiculous.”
“So sorry,” a muffled voice called, “we’ll be right with you.”
I did a double take as a Christmas tree walked past me then tripped and pitched forward. I grabbed a handful of a familiar green velvet jacket.
“Merrie?”
The tree was almost twice as tall as she was. She had a smudge on one cheek and smelled like pine.
“What happened to your shop?
“Sold out in like two hours,” she said. “I made a crap ton of cookies to distract me from…er…never mind. Then I got a job slinging Christmas trees.”
“Can you put that on my car?” a guy asked absently, not looking up from his phone. He must have felt my icy glare because he looked up and gulped.
“Take your own tree to your own damn car,” I growled at the man.
“He’s a customer,” Merrie cried. “Customers can’t work the tree bagger.” She tried to reach for the tree.
I grabbed it from her one-handed and carried it over to the machine. In two seconds, it had wrapped the tree in plastic mesh. I handed the tree to the waiting man.
“Thank you for your business.” I smiled.
He shrank back.
“You looked like you were about to eat him,” Merrie whispered to me.
“Actually, I really want to eat you,” I said in her ear.
55
Merrie
Aaand that was exactly what I had avoided thinking about all day long. That kiss with Matt had been intense and way more than just a kiss. It was the type of kiss that would lead to Matt coming down my chimney.
It had been the type of kiss that would make me say, “Screw it, I’m just going to get laid instead of baking five thousand cookies, which are the only thing standing between me and living in a tar paper shack built out of old Christmas trees come January.”
That was a problem. Matt was a distraction, one I literally could not afford.
But now he was here, tall and sexy with a slight scowl on his face, with a backdrop of the gorgeous Christmas tree—and all the people wanting to buy Christmas trees.
“I have a tree all picked out,” an elderly woman said, coming up to me. “Would you mind lending me a hand? My elbows aren’t what they used to be.”
“Of course,” I told her, happy that someone wasn’t screaming at me about their tree being crooked, (because it was grown outdoors…), or that it smelled, or that it had a mouse in it.
Actually, that last one was fair.
“Where’s your tree, ma’am?” Matt asked the woman.
Ugh, that was not what I needed. I needed him to be the asshole billionaire so that I could convince myself that it was perfectly rational to ignore his text messages.
But now he decides to be nice.
I snuck glances at him while I wrote receipts. Matt chatted with the elderly woman then offered her his arm as he carried her Christmas tree over to have it bagged.
“You have a very nice boyfriend,” the elderly woman told me when she paid me. “And he has a very fine ass.”
