CHAPTER1
“This is our year, Sugar Plum. Our noble fir has less than two inches to grow and at the rate it’s been climbing this last month, it’ll get to the twenty-foot mark in no time flat.”
Rachel Joy wanted to share her dad’s enthusiasm, and in any other circumstance she would have been more chipper. But only ten minutes remained until her meeting with the executives at December Décor, and she’d pinned her entire professional future upon this presentation, not to mention given up the better portion of the last year creating the prototypes for her exclusive line of holiday greenery.
Her father’s unexpected phone call only highlighted that at Christmastime, nothing existed in the Joy family’s world if it wasn’t red, green, or holiday themed. Sure, her new products technically fell into that category, but her parents weren’t aware of that. Rachel had kept her latest work endeavor a secret, like a perfectly wrapped present tucked into a stocking for safekeeping. It was finally time to tear into that packaging.
She wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear and pretended not to hear the request. “I’m sorry, Dad. Now’s not a good time. I’ll have to call you back. Heading into a meeting.”
“You’re next up on rotation to sing. Are you ready to do the honors?”
The excitement in her father’s voice was palpable, but it was little motivation to croon holiday tunes to an evergreen over the phone. And it did nothing to eradicate the tremor in Rachel’s stomach each time her thoughts traveled to her upcoming presentation.
“I’ll call back tonight, Dad. Promise. I’ve gotta run.”
“Just a few lines,” Stewart Joy bulldozed right through her insistence. “I’m propping up the phone on those leafy, green branches right now. A-one and a-two and a-three….O’ Christmas tree, O’ Christmas tree!”
Giving up what little fight she had left, Rachel joined in with all the reluctance of a preteen forced to take pictures with a mall Santa. “How lovely are your branches,” she humored in a key she couldn’t quite find.
She trailed her father a few notes, plodding through the song while she gathered the last of her papers from the printer and placed them into their respective folders. Then she straightened her posture, smoothed down her slate-gray pencil skirt with her free hand, and threw her shoulders back in an act of manufactured confidence.
“I really do have to go now, Dad.” She backtracked across her office to collect her laptop, sweeping her gaze over her desk one last time. “Give Mom all my love.”
“Will do,” Stewart said. “And thanks for playing along. You know I’m a firm believer that singing to plants helps them grow. I think it’s going to be that extra push that ensures our tree will be the one in the town square this year. If we can beat out the Hart’s noble, that is. Believe it or not, theirs is creeping up to that twenty-foot mark too.”
Rachel’s heart and feet stalled, and the young man pushing the coffee cart around their company’s floor locked the wheels on his mobile display only seconds before colliding into her. That act didn’t, however, lock the large coffee pot into place, and even the scalding splash of liquid dousing her brand new suit did nothing to keep her blood from running cold. She froze where she stood, covered in hot coffee and flushed with sheer disbelief.
“Did you say the Hart’s tree?”
“Yep,” Stewart carried right along as though he hadn’t flung a sack of coal right into their conversation. “Hard to believe those little saplings you and Holden planted back when you were youngsters will be ready to harvest right around the same time. Though I suppose they always were neck-and-neck over the years, weren’t they?”
Oh, more than just the trees had been neck-and-neck.Rachel and Holden had been in direct competition with one another their entire lives. From gingerbread decorating contests to snowman building to sledding races down their backyard mountain, Holden Hart had been Rachel’s only nemesis. Even after all of these years and nearly two-hundred miles separating them, the fine hairs on her neck rose like hackles at the mention of his name.
“The Harts are not going to win.”
“Hopefully not, but only time will tell,” her father offered noncommittally. “Suppose it’ll just be a race to see which tree gets to the twenty-foot finish line first.”
That wasn’t good enough. Rachel took a handful of napkins from the barista and blotted the liquid soiling her outfit, suddenly much less concerned with the presentation before her superiors than she was in righting this age-old rivalry. Apparently, that near-knock from the coffee cart had also knocked the common sense straight out of her.
“Not on my watch,” she huffed as she crumpled up a napkin and tossed it into the metal waste bin en route to the conference room, her stride and resolve more determined than ever.
“Hard for it to be on your watch when you’re in San Francisco and we’re up here in Snowdrift.”
“Then I won’t be. As soon as I’m finished up here today, I’ll pack my bags and head up to the summit.”
“You know you are always welcome here, Sugar Plum, but don’t you have a job to do?”
“I absolutely do, Dad,” Rachel said behind both a growing smile and plan, neither of which she could keep from forming. “I’m finally going to win the Christmas Competition, once and for all.”
CHAPTER2
Holden Hart grabbed onto the handles and jerked the snowmobile hard to the left, fresh bits of snow spraying out from the skis in a fan of white powder. The husband and wife duo trailing behind cut along the same path, and their hoots and hollers that reverberated in the winter air confirmed the money they’d spent at Major Hart Mountain Sports hadn’t gone to waste.
Another happy customer in the books. Mission accomplished.
Like he did on every backcountry excursion, Holden took the pair through the zigzag of towering conifers, past rushing streams flowing with recent snowmelt, and out into wide, sweeping spaces where they could open up the throttle and really feel the horsepower. This was always the favorite segment of the tour for the true adrenaline junkies. Anyone could travel sixty-five miles-per-hour along a paved highway, but carving a path without the parameters of painted lines—only Mother Nature to serve as a barrier—was an experience only found on the slopes of the Sierra Nevadas.
Holden felt like a winter cowboy, the snowmobile his trusty steed, faithfully taking him everywhere he needed to go, whether that be an hour and a half adventure with paying customers or a day-long mission with his Search and Rescue volunteer team. On days like today, with the sun shining and the air crisp, he was grateful it was the former.
