“I’ll think about it.”
She didn’t seem happy with his response but murmured her love before they said goodbye.
Rhys shoved the phone in his pocket on his way through the suite to the door.
Whether subconsciously or not, hedidmourn the life he’d hoped to have, and it was time to stop. He’d always loved the holidays, to the point of being that ridiculous person driving everyone insane with holiday cheer, going overboard with presents and trips and all things good in the name of Christmas. His grandmother was to blame, and since he’d spent so much of his childhood staying with her while his grandfather and his parents traveled on hotel business, her love of the holidays had seeped into his blood.
He had a life and lifestyleanyone would envy. It was time to come up with a plan. And the first step?
Decking the halls.
ChapterTwo
Nothing said it was the season like grumpy, indecisive customers and frozen toes.
Sara Zennick stared at the group giving her a headache because every time they chose a tree and she rung them up, they suddenly had second thoughts and found another they liked better. She fought her impatience, trying to maintain a friendly smile while keeping an eye on the others roaming the tree lot.
Her family had supplied Christmas trees to Carolina Cove for generations and was the only tree lot permitted on the island. A long-ago contract made with the powers-that-be guaranteed them the coveted position.
She stared at the couple as the woman wandered off again, despite sayingthiswas the tree she wanted—for the fifth time—and Sara tapped her frozen toes in her too-thin boots. She hadn’t had to sell trees since her senior year of high school, so she’d forgotten just how cold the air could be on the island between the Atlantic and the Cape Fear River once the sun set.
The woman’s husband gave Sara a shrug and followed dutifully off after his wife. Sara dragged the fifth not-good-enough tree back to its spot and left it, turning in time to see a different couple fast-walking toward an SUV with a tree they hadn’t purchased. “Excuse me. Hello? You need to pay for that!”
The couple broke into a run, neither looking back at her as they tossed the tree on top of the vehicle and hurried inside, taking off with a crunch of tires on gravel before she managed to make it around the trees and people to the parking area. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The thieves nearly hit a car on the way out of the lot while she fumed and wondered how she’d tell her father. They lost a few trees every year due to them drying out or damage, but outright thievery was usually a middle of the night thing—not right there during regular hours. “The spirit of Christmas is officially dead because ofyou!”
“What happened?” a man asked as he exited an SUV and approached her, a frown on his handsome face.
She continued to glare at the vehicle speeding away, the thieves’ arms out the window to hold the tree atop the roof.
It was bad enough she’d lost her job due to an unexpected company layoff, but the stolen tree hit her like a smack in the face, hard and without warning.
With a car payment, student loan debt and her ridiculous rent, she’d been forced to give up her tiny yet beautiful apartment and return home to the tree farm.
The timing helped her parents, though, since her dad refused to be anywhere but at the hospital after her mother’s car accident. Still, the blows kept coming. During her time working the lot since Thanksgiving weekend, she’d now had a blatant theft—and spent countless time being made fun of by teenagers because of the costumes her parentsinsistedshe wear as part of the Zinnick’s Tree Farm buying experience.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she yanked it out to see her father’s face. He called every hour or so to check in, but she needed to get back to the desk and the— “No, no, no,” she said, running as fast as she could in the constricting costume to the checkout table only to see that nightmares could indeed get worse.
The cash box was gone.
She whirled around, vaguely acknowledging that the man from the SUV and his companion had followed her, and searched for any sign of whomever might’ve taken the metal box.
Other than a few people wandering idly through the trees or helping themselves to coffee and cocoa, she saw nothing unusual.
They couldn’t have gotten away already, could they? She hadn’t left it unattended forthatlong.
Words flitted through her mind, none of them PG as she desperately searched for the culprit, fighting back the hot sting of tears.
“What are you looking for?”
She sank onto the chair behind the portable table, unable to hold back a derisive sound. “Someone stole a tree—while someone else took the cashbox.”
The man turned to search the crowd as she’d done, as did the other guy near him obviously listening to the conversation.
She ignored them both and buried her face in her black-gloved hands.
The cash box held the card reader, earnings for the day,andthe spare change, and without it… “We’re closing,” she called out, her voice hoarse. “I’m sorry, but—unless you have exact cash for payment, I-I’m afraid I can’t sell any more trees tonight. I’m sorry.”
