The men began to laugh. “You did tell us,” Jack said, giving his face one more wipe. “We should have listened.”
Miles was grinning when he leaned forward, brushing a drop of milk from my cheek with his finger. “But at least we get to count it.”
“You sure about that?” Jack teased, leaning forward to finish milking the cow. “I don’t think she swallowed any of it.”
“It counts,” I insisted strongly, and for once, both men gave me no grief.
* * *
“You don’t have a Christmas tree,”Miles said as I opened the door to him and his incessant knocking exactly two minutes after he had just dropped me off from the cow-milking debacle.
According to the list, today we were supposed to cross off the milking of a cow, drinking chocolate milk, and watching a Christmas movie.
“What?” I asked, moving back to let him inside again.
“I just realized. The lodge never prepped this cabin to have a tree. Nobody was supposed to be in here. We need to get you a tree.”
Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it. In my mind, this Christmas was a wash. Maybe next year I’d be more open to a real Christmas, but this year…I had a cold, dead Scrooge heart, and a Christmas tree wasn’t going to help that.
“I’m okay. I promise. Besides, it’s not part of the bingo thing.”
He looked at me, his hand sweeping across his chest in mock offense. “My mom would murder me if I knowingly let a guest spend the week here without a tree. I’m adding it to the list. Today. After lunch.”
It was pointless to argue, so I didn’t.
“Fine. Should we just run to the grocery store and grab one off their lot?”
He looked mortally wounded. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
After lunch, he picked me up, wearing more dang flannel that was beginning to mess with my head. I’d always thought of flannel as something old men wore, but this was…different. It was flannel I had touched during a kiss. Not just touched either. My greedy fingers roamed all over it. It was a soft and sturdy fabric. The kind a girl could depend on to keep her warm. He looked like the cover of a book Chloe would love. Curse her and her endless lumberjack comments.
He handed me a pair of black gloves and pulled a white beanie onto my head, slinging it low across my ears. I pulled on the gloves, marveling at their warmth, and followed him like a stray puppy down the cabin steps and directly west into the woods.
“Did you buy these gloves?” I asked hesitantly, noticing the tag still on them. I hoped they were a pair his parents had been gifted or something. A pair they just had laying around the house.
“Can’t take my freezing-cold girlfriend Christmas-tree hunting without gloves.”
“I have gloves,” I said, trying to keep up with his long stride.
“I know. But you need gloves that don’t look like you ripped them off a three-year-old.”
He tossed me a smile over his shoulder and seemed to realize he was moving too fast, so he slowed down and grabbed my now warm, grown-up-glove-covered hand into his.
“Just in case anybody sees us heading to the woods,” he stated, holding up our clasped hands. My eyes narrowed, but I allowed the touching breach to continue—for our cover.
“What’s in your pack?” I asked, referring to the bag slung across his shoulder.
“A bow saw.”
“Is this the part where you kill me in the woods?” I asked, slowing my footsteps dramatically.
He stopped and turned to face me. “There’s a lot of things I could do with you in the woods. Should I start naming some off?”
My breath caught. “Well, I don’t see any mistletoe out here, so…”
He leaned closer, his flirting game on level one thousand, and whispered, “I’m not a big traditionalist.”
Having sufficiently rattled me, he smiled and began moving again.