Jay stopped working, resting his hands on his thighs. "She said you aren't really married to each other. Why are you doing all this?"
I cinched a knot tight, gritting my teeth. "She's a family friend and she needed help." I gave him a hard glare that I knew freaked people out. I was all jovial affability until someone gave me a reason to be otherwise. Questioning my motives about Arabella was a surefire way to pull out my scowl. "That okay with you… sport?"
Jay looked away, adjusting his hat nervously. "Just don't think we need people poking around the ranch."
Or, more likely, he didn't wantmehelping Arabella. "Sure. Because you're here, right? You've got it covered."
The steel in my tone compelled him to hold my gaze again. Cold silence separated us for a moment, and for once, Jay didn't fidget or avoid my gaze. He just stared, expressionless and clearly turning over his thoughts in his mind. Finally, he shrugged one shoulder and finished tying the top of the tree. "Yeah."
"Yeah," I repeated a little more caustically. If Arabella's ranch hand was carrying a torch for her, and he'd been hoping to make a move, then he sure as hell wasn't going to do it with me around. Not that I was willing to examine that impulse tooclosely. It brought up painful memories of an empty hotel room and years of silent longing I didn't want to dwell on longer than necessary. I wanted to be here for Arabella. I had to leave it at that.
Also, Jay wasn't getting within five feet of her anymore.
Chapter eighteen
Arabella
As soon as Spencer dragged that stupid tree into my living room, I knew it was going to be too big. He had guessed the height correctly, and with only nine-foot ceilings, I supposed I was glad of that. But the minute Spencer propped it up to the right of the wood stove where it blocked a front-facing window, I knew. And petty creature that I was, I didn't say a damn word. I just watched from my pod of blankets with a mug of honey tea warming my hands and laughter already threatening to bubble over.
Spencer got the thing adjusted, and the twine around the boughs strained for mercy as he popped it into a tree stand and screwed it tight. Spencer had pine needles in his hair and beard, and he looked every inch the brawny lumberjack while he fought with a tree and wiped sweat off his temples.
Finally, he stood back, and I could tell by the pride on Spencer’s face, he had no idea what was going to happen when he took a pair of scissors to that thing. "Okay," Spencer puffed. He wiped his face again and then snipped a pair of scissors inthe air for effect. "I admit, I didn't think pine trees could look so ugly." I snorted, burying my smile in my mug. "But I think I found a decent one." He eyed it critically. "It might be the only acceptable tree in that forest, actually. You should invest in a fake tree."
"Noted," I said, my voice straining with mirth.
"Big reveal," Spencer said, his tone already lined with uncertainty. The first few cuts didn't make much of a difference. The boughs loosened, filling out the space nicely, and I started to doubt my understanding of Utah timber. And then, with one well-placed cut, the tree exploded. The heavy bottom boughs sprung out violently, flinging pine needles halfway across the house and spattering me in the face. The fluffy branches poofed out so wide, it had to be fifteen feet around, and they squashed against the corner of the wall, flopped over the wood stove dangerously, and swallowed the rocking chair to my right entirely.
Spencer made a strangled sound of outrage, thrashing amid the tangle of branches, and I fell against the couch, cackling. "The fuck?" Spencer demanded. He stumbled back, fighting the clinging boughs like an adventurer with a machete.
I howled with laughter until I triggered a coughing fit, and Spencer glared at me. "Calm down, peanut gallery." But then his gaze lingered on me, and his irritation softened a little. He watched me for a moment longer and then returned his focus to the tree. "That is not how that looked outside."
"It's massive," I croaked between laughing and coughing.
Spencer scratched his head, mussing his long, thick hair. His gaze tracked the girth of the tree from where it nearly reached my couch and all the way to where the flammable boughs were hugging the stove. "Did it grow on the way here? Is that possible?"
I chuckled, taking a sip of tea and admiring how the bright green fluffball took up half of my living room and filled it with a crisp pine scent. Suddenly, things didn't seem quite so dreary. I didn't know how the addition of one stupid green thing could affect my outlook so starkly, but there it was. I liked it. It was just absurd enough to fit in with the rest of my life, too.
Spencer shifted his gaze to me again, a smile pulling at his mouth, and I relaxed against the couch, taking in the way the tree looked. After he sawed off its branches, creating a hilariously uneven shape, Spencer filled the stand with water. When he stood with the pitcher in his hand, I gave him a tentative smile. "Maybe I'm just loopy, but… I like it."
He scratched his beard, his lips twitching. "I am now very unsure about the amount of ornaments I bought. This monstrosity is going to eat them all."
"I guess you’ll just have to take it back out,” I sighed.
He glared. “Over my dead body, Grinch. Just wait. I’m going to Christmas the shit out of the place.”
It took a couple hours to string the tree with lights and trim it with ornaments. From the couch, I opened new packages of ornaments, and Spencer wrestled with the hilariously enormous tree to get it lit and decorated. I untangled ornament hooks before attaching them to red and green ornaments that I handed to Spencer, and he did his best to not get impaled by aggressively long pine needles.
We didn't have Christmas music playing or any kind of ambiance other than the companionable silence between us, butI couldn't remember ever feeling the holiday spirit more in my life. Spencer took breaks now and then to throw a log in the wood stove or make me more tea, and I eventually felt well enough to get up and help him with the pine bough runner he'd bought on a whim. We popped batteries in it and stretched it out along the kitchen island. When he lit it up, I stood back to admire what we'd done.
Warm lights sprinkled my living room and dining room, dotting the tree and sparkling in the little decorations Spencer had chosen. The ornaments on the tree reflected the light, warming the dark space with a cozy glow. It was perfect.
Spencer came to stand next to me, surveying our hard work. "Shit. That looks legit."
I breathed out a laugh, rubbing my sore chest. "It kind of does, doesn't it?"
Spencer glanced down at me, his strong arms folded, and his eyes traveled from my lips to my lashes. "It's good to see you laughing, Bee."
I tempered my smile. "I laugh."
