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“It’s not going to be easy,” he warned, loading his truck with the supplies they’d need for their first appointment. “Mrs. Kowalski wants her entire colonial wrapped in warm white lights, plus three trees in the front yard. It’s a lot of ladder work, and the forecast is calling for snow flurries this afternoon.”

“I understand,” Nicole replied, climbing into the passenger seat determinedly. “Where do we start?”

The drive to Mrs. Kowalski’s house gave Henry time to second-guess his decision. Nicole sat quietly beside him, watching the picturesque view roll by, but he could sense an underlying nervousness in her that matched his own. They were both venturing into uncharted territory, he thought—her with physical labor he doubted she’d ever attempted, him with a partnership he’d never wanted.

Mrs. Kowalski’s colonial sat on a generous lot surrounded by mature oak trees, their branches now bare and stark against the cold December sky. Normally it would have been a fairly simple installation for Henry. Now, with an inexperienced assistant and a schedule that left no room for mistakes, the job felt considerably more daunting.

“Okay,” Henry said, beginning to unload equipment from the truck, “we’ll start with the porch, then move to the roofline, and finish with the trees. We need to work systematically, but safety over speed. Make sure you’re careful.”

Nicole nodded seriously, reaching for a stack of boxes of lights in the bed of the truck. She struggled for a moment to keep them balanced, fingers clutching the edges as she struggled to find a comfortable way to carry it across the yard.

Henry let out a concerned—and slightly frustrated—breath as he watched her try to help unpack the supplies alongside him. Everything that was second nature to him—how to carry rolls of extension cord without them coming unwound, how to stage equipment in the order he’d need it, balancing multiple boxes of lights at a time. Nicole was going slowly, clearly unfamiliar with handling anything that was loaded in the back of his truck.

“Here,” he said gently, taking the extension cord she was wrestling with, “let me show you a trick for keeping these manageable.”

He demonstrated his preferred method for coiling cords to prevent tangles, and Nicole watched as intently as if she were learning how to do surgery. When she tried to replicate it, she was still clumsy, but it showed promise, he thought. She was, as she’d said, a quick learner.

The real challenge came when they reached the point where they had to get up on ladders. Henry had set up his extension ladder against the side of the house, and was preparing to climb up with the first string of lights when he noticed Nicole positioning a second ladder on the opposite end of their work area.

“Nicole,” he called, “you might want to⁠—”

He stopped mid-sentence as he realized she’d forgotten to bring the boots they’d purchased. She’d probably expected to stay in the office today like the last two days she’d worked, and had dressed accordingly. She was wearing a jacket at least, even if it was a sleek leather style that looked expensive instead of the work jacket, and she had her gloves. But she was wearing heels, he saw with dismay. She must not have wanted to mention that she’d forgotten the boots, or ask to go back to get them and take more time out of his schedule.

He would have been irritated, he had to admit. Would have seen it as another reason she was unsuitable for the job. Which made this, he realized with a sinking pit in his stomach, essentially his fault.

She began to climb the ladder, her heels clicking against each rung and making his teeth clench with worry. Watching her attempt to navigate a ladder in three-inch heels was like witnessing a slow-motion disaster. Any minute, she was going to slip and fall.

“This is… more challenging than I expected,” Nicole admitted from halfway up the ladder, her voice slightly breathless as she gripped the rails with white-knuckled intensity.

“Nicole, please come down before you hurt yourself,” Henry said, abandoning his own ladder to spot hers. “Those shoes are going to get you killed.”

She looked down at her heels as if seeing them for the first time, then up at the work that needed to be completed. Her jaw set stubbornly—an expression he was starting to recognize.

Without a word, she began climbing back down. Before Henry could say a word, she calmly removed both shoes, setting them carefully beside the ladder’s base before starting her ascent again.

He stared up at her, shocked. “Nicole,” he protested, “there’s snow on the ground. You’re going to freeze.”

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, her stockinged feet finding much better purchase on the ladder rungs. “Cold feet are better than broken bones, right?”

As she reached the top of the ladder and began working with the lights the way he’d instructed, Henry had to admit that her problem-solving instincts were sound, at least. She might not have experience with ladders and electrical installations, but she understood how to adapt when circumstances changed, and she wasn’t afraid to look foolish if it meant getting the job done properly.

That didn’t mean the installation went smoothly. Far from it. In the end, Henry realized, the installation went nearly twice as long as it should have, because Nicole needed help with almost everything. She was tentative in everything she did, overly careful, and she needed constant guidance and sometimes intervention when she was confused about how to string the wires or place the clips so it all stayed up. She dropped things, got tangled in light strings, and asked questions that revealed just how much she didn’t know about basic electrical work.

It should have frustrated Henry to no end. But instead, he realized that instead of being upset, all he could think about was how determined she clearly was to learn. She listened carefully to every instruction he gave her, never made the same mistake twice, and approached each new challenge as if she was insistent on conquering it.

When she struggled to reach a particular section of roofline, she problem-solved until she found a safe solution. When her hands became too cold to work effectively, she borrowed his thicker spare gloves without complaint. When she realized she was slowing down the process, she doubled her efforts rather than making excuses.

And she looked remarkably lovely while doing it, he thought. That kind of determination was attractive to him. She wasn’t giving up, no matter how hard it all was, how foreign and challenging this job clearly was to her.

She wasn’t the assistant he’d imagined in the slightest, but despite the length of time it had taken to teach and help her with the installation itself, he had to admit that having her along had helped more than he’d expected. She’d carried supplies, handed him tools, held ladders steady, and even managed to install several sections of lights under his supervision. It hadn’t been efficient, and it certainly hadn’t been smooth, but it had actually worked out in the end.

It was clear that she was a quick study, and capable of learning. She wouldn’t hold him back for long, and he found himself feeling a concerning amount of pride as they packed up to head to the next job.

What was slightly concerning, he thought as he drove, was how curious he was rapidly becoming about her. As they headed to their next appointment, Henry found himself wondering once again what had brought Nicole Peterson to Fir Tree Grove, and why someone with her obvious management capabilities was so determined to succeed at a job she was clearly unsuited for. The questions had been rattling around in his head all morning, and they were becoming a distraction he couldn’t afford, especially with a schedule that demanded his complete attention.

As Nicole sat next to him in the passenger seat, her stockings ruined and her perfectly styled hair slightly disheveled from the morning’s work, still looking stubbornly determined to keep going, Henry realized that his curiosity about her was probably going to be a bigger problem than her lack of experience with Christmas lights.

She was proving to be a puzzle that he couldn’t solve, which was an alarming thought. He wasn’t a puzzle-solving kind of man. He liked his life simple, and he pushed away things that might complicate it.