Getting In the Spirit: a Sapphire Falls novella (13 page)

Levi watched as the loose snow ball exploded against his chest and scattered dirt and needles over the expensive wool.

“That’s better,” Travis said with a nod.

Levi sighed. He was recalling some of the reasons he wasn’t really an outdoorsy guy. He liked boating and skiing. He wasn’t a bad surfer, liked to snorkel and could absolutely lay on a beach or a pool with the best of them. Digging, cutting and building things…not as much.

“Okay, let’s load it up.” Travis pulled gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then he grabbed the trunk. “Get the branches. We’ll tie it up and throw it in your truck.”

Levi wished he had gloves. He grabbed the prickly branches. “It’s Joe’s truck,” he felt compelled to say.

Travis nodded. “Yeah, I know, man.”

But Levi didn’t feel judged. He did, however, feel determined to learn how to turn on a chainsaw at some point in his life.

“How about this one?” Lauren asked, holding up a gorgeous, hand-painted ornament. It read
Our First Christmas
.

Kate’s throat got a little scratchy and she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t want to remember this Christmas?”

There was no way she was ever going to forget this Christmas. “It’s just that it implies there will be other Christmases.”

“You don’t think there will be?” Lauren asked.

Kate definitely remembered that Lauren was a straight shooter.

“I know there won’t be,” she said, though her voice sounded funny. “This was only supposed to be a date for the formal anyway. And it was supposed to be with Tucker. Levi and I don’t live in the same place and we’ll both be going home after Christmas.”

“Long distance sucks,” Lauren said. “But it’s not impossible. There’s the phone, texting, email, Skype. Sexting. Sex-Skyping.” She grinned.

“You’ve sex-Skyped?” Kate asked.

“Of course. Travis travels with me when he can, but it’s not always possible.”

Kate knew all about Lauren’s company that she owned with her best friend, Mason Riley. Lauren traveled between Sapphire Falls, Chicago, DC and Haiti—where their primary growing program was flourishing in some of the poorest villages in the country—and to some of their newer program locations in Africa.

“But you guys make it work.” Kate couldn’t deny that her heart thumped at the thought of seeing Levi again after Christmas was over.

“We sure do,” Lauren said with a grin. “Married and expecting a baby.”

Kate’s eyes widened and her gaze dropped to Lauren’s stomach. “Really? Congratulations.” The stunning brunette wasn’t showing a bit and looked positively radiant.

Lauren’s hand went to her lower abdomen. “Thanks. It’s terrifying but wonderful.”

“You moved here to Sapphire Falls from Chicago, right?” Kate asked. “And you love it here?”

“Even when I tried
not
to love it here.” She laughed. “I didn’t want to be stuck here, tied down.”

“Why not?” Kate asked before she could stop herself. “This seems like such a great place.” Part of her wanted Lauren to tell her that her impression of Sapphire Falls wasn’t real, that it wasn’t nearly as wonderful as it seemed. Part of her also wanted Lauren to confirm that it was, indeed, everything that it seemed to be.

Lauren’s smile was full of affection. “Their coffee sucks and I have to shop online for almost everything. Heaven forbid you need an ingredient for a recipe after six p.m. I’ve had to teach them to make a decent appletini and you can’t keep a secret—like, I don’t know, being
pregnant
—for more than three seconds. You end up spending all your time with the same people over and over again and hearing the same stories over and over again and going the same places over and over again.” She sighed happily. “And it’s awesome.”

Kate felt choked up.

It was the stupidest thing to desire, but part of her wanted to be in a place where everyone knew everything about her—and loved her anyway.

That was the key, of course. Being accepted. She was accepted with her colleagues and friends in San Francisco, but she also kept a lot of herself hidden.

She had a feeling the people in Sapphire Falls could get her to spill her secrets.

Her gaze landed on an ornament. It was a ceramic depiction of the Sapphire Falls town square, hand painted in blues and whites and silvers. The gazebo was there, the hot chocolate stand, the four big trees…everything.

“I think this is the one I want.” She lifted it from the box.

Lauren nodded. “Definitely.”

They paid for their purchases, including more Christmas cookies and some fudge from Scott’s Sweets.

“Think the guys are done with the tree?” Kate asked. She took a bite of fudge and moaned.

Lauren laughed. “Yes, I’m sure they’re done.”

“Really? I have no idea how long it takes to cut a tree down.”

“Yeah, well, longer than this, but they’re not cutting it down.”

“They’re not?”

Lauren shook her head. “I’m sure Travis talked Levi into getting an already-cut one. But play along. It makes them feel manly to have us think that they did it.”

Kate laughed. “You guys showed up because Phoebe and Joe called and told you they were concerned about our safety out here with a chainsaw, right?”

“Actually, Adrianne called us after she stopped by this morning and heard the plan.”

Kate was amazed. “You all really do take care of each other, huh?”

Lauren linked her arm with Kate’s. “Some call it meddling. We like to refer to it as semi-forced love.”

Kate felt her eyes sting and had to blink rapidly. Only one thought was on her mind—they wouldn’t have to even semi force the love here on her.

It took Kate and Levi far longer than it should have to haul their tree from the truck to the porch, through the front door and into the perfect corner in the living room.

Of course, it also took a while to rearrange Joe and Phoebe’s living room to make that corner perfect.

Still, Kate could not deny that it was everything she’d imagined as she stepped back and took in the sight of the evergreen towering to the ceiling in the corner between the staircase and the fireplace. It would be the first thing seen when someone stepped in the front door.

She felt Levi move in behind her. When he wrapped his arms around her, she leaned into him and wished that this Christmas could last for a year. Or ten.

And to think that only a few days ago, she’d been planning to skip Christmas entirely.

She turned in his arms and went up on tiptoe to kiss him.

Levi didn’t even hesitate. He tunneled his fingers into her hair, pulled her closer with a hand on her ass, and deepened the kiss.

Fire seemed to lick through her, and Kate wrapped a leg around one of his. She pulled her lips away only enough to say, “We have candy canes.”

“We also have decorating and movies and cuddling to do.”

She pulled back farther. “You don’t want to have candy cane sex now?”

“I do. You have no idea how much.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

“Once I get you naked, that’s all I’ll be able to concentrate on. Until possibly January twenty-something.”

That was sweet…and frustrating as hell.

“Should I tell you how
I
plan to use my candy cane?” she asked.

He flexed the hand on her butt but shook his head. “Please don’t.”

“It’s really good. There’s licking and sucking involved.”

He groaned. “Decorating, movies, cuddling. Decorating, movies, cuddling,” he muttered. “Decorating, movies, cuddling.”

She laughed. “Repeating it will help?”

“I sure as fuck hope so.”

She wanted him. There had been chemistry from minute one, but the intensity of her desire for him now was amazing. She’d never felt anything like it. And she knew it had a lot to do with Christmas cookies and tree farms and the fact that she’d caught him Googling
how to string Christmas lights
on his phone. She also knew it was about falling in love with the little town of Sapphire Falls that had turned out to be all she’d imagined and more.

And it had a lot to do with the realization that they had an expiration date.

This Christmas wonderland wouldn’t last. The holiday would end, the snow would melt, Levi would go back to Vegas and she’d go back to San Francisco and all she’d have left was the ornament and her memories. The deadline, the ticking countdown, was also making this all feel so much more bittersweet. It was part of the whole illusion. Like a dream that she knew she had to eventually wake from. She wanted to pack as much as she could into their time together while it lasted.

“Maybe we could—”

“I’m trying to get to a light dove-gray here,” he said.

She had no idea what that meant. “What?”

“My cold, black soul is coming back from the dead. I think I’m in the middle-gray tones now versus black. If I can sit on that couch and cuddle with you for an entire movie, I think I can make it a light gray.”

She laughed. “Cold, black soul, huh?”

“I was this close to a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future, I swear.”

He had a tiny grin partially curling one corner of his mouth, but she could see that there was some truth behind his words.

“That bad, huh?”

“Let’s just say that whatever Christmas movie we decide on, I would appreciate it not be any retelling of
A Christmas Carol
.”

She pretended to pout. “I love
Scrooged
.”

“Let’s put it this way—” He pulled her up more securely against the erection behind his fly. “If I watch one of those, I might not be able to perform later.”

She wiggled against him and enjoyed his quick, sharp intake of air. “Oh, we can’t have that. I have some Christmas wishes that still need to come true.”

“And I’ll make them all even better than you imagined,” he said, squeezing her ass. “As long as there are no ghosts.”

If she hadn’t seen the bit of truth in his eyes when he talked about trying to turn his black soul light gray she would have teased him further, and maybe even cajoled him into watching the original
A Christmas Carol
. Or maybe the Muppets version. But he was trying to be a good guy here. The least she could do was let him. For a while.

“How about
Elf
?” she suggested.

“Buddy the Elf?” he asked.

“You know the movie?”

“I’ve been living in Vegas, not under a rock.”

They pulled the tree decorations from the attic, along with three boxes of decorations for the windows, mantel and pretty much every other available space in the house. Phoebe had either inherited a bunch of stuff from family or she was a Christmas hoarder.

The lights went onto the tree with only two start-overs—and Levi only consulted his phone six or seven times and used the F word three or four—and they eagerly covered the branches with ornaments.

However, there were a handful that Kate felt they should leave. One was a
Baby’s-First-Christmas
with a photo of Kaelyn, another was an
Our-First-Christmas
ornament, not unlike the one Lauren had showed her. There was no photo, but the date painted on it was the first Christmas Joe and Phoebe would have been married. There were a few others from trips, including their honeymoon, that Kate left in the boxes next to the tree for when Phoebe and Joe got home.

She hoped they hadn’t taken anything away from Phoebe and Joe by not letting them decorate the tree this year.

“Damn,” Kate said quietly.

“What’s wrong?” Again Levi moved in behind her and wrapped her in his arms.

She really liked it there.

“Kaelyn. And Phoebe and Joe. This is their tree. They should decorate it together as a family,” she said.

Levi was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “You’re absolutely right.”

Kate sighed. “We screwed up.”

“Nope,” he said. “We put up a tree for us. And we’ll enjoy it tonight and then we’ll take it all down in the morning and they can decorate it together another day. We’ll tell them we got them the tree as a hospitality gift.”

“But the lights…” She stopped right there. He’d done it. It didn’t matter that it had clearly frustrated the crap out of him. It was something new to him, but he’d tackled it for her. “And we hauled all this down.” She looked up into his eyes. “You’d do that?”

“Of course.”

She turned and put her arms around him. “Your soul is so light gray it’s almost white.”

“Well, worrying about
all
of these people having a perfect Christmas isn’t hurting, I’m sure,” he agreed with a grin. “But let’s not get crazy. I passed white without a chance of going back when I was about sixteen.”

“I want to hear these stories.”

“Someday. Maybe.” He kissed her on the nose.

Someday. That word held so much…promise.

But someday was far beyond Christmas. Far beyond when she was back in the real world in California.