‘Shit,’ she whispered, already turning and hustling over to them. ‘Let me help you with that,’ she said, plastering her customer-service smile back on her face. It was very similar to her ‘attending her mother’s parties’ smile. The last thing she needed was to have elderly people crushed by a Christmas tree. Definitely not the vibe she was going for.
‘Oh, thank you, dear. We thought we could manage, but we might have picked one that’s a bit too big.’ The woman smiled at her from under her knit hat.
‘I told you it was too big,’ the old man grumbled. ‘Should have just gotten a small tree from the grocery store again.’
Kira’s stomach dropped. Losing customers was almost as bad as killing them.
‘No such thing!’ said Bennett as he strode up behind her. ‘Can never have too big of a Christmas tree! Right, Kira?’ He smiled, and before she could stop him, before she could even get her hands on the tree, he was shoving it on top of the car.
Oh, hell, no.
She nudged him aside with a hip check. ‘I’ll take it from here, thank you, Bennett.’
‘Kira, I really don’t mind––’
She shut him up with a glare. She must have done a pretty good job communicating with her eyes that she was two seconds away from strapping him to the roof of the car instead of the tree because Bennett stepped aside with his hands up in surrender.
Good. Perfect. She could do this.
Right. How exactly was she going to do this?
She stared at the tree. It was enormous. How the hell had these two got it down here in the first place? The man had to be at least eighty years old and the woman was all of four feet tall and maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. The physics didn’t make sense, but Kira now had Bennett, the old couple, and several other customers watching her, waiting for her to perform this very unlikely feat of strength.
‘Okay, let’s get this strapped on, shall we?’ she said, still sounding less chipper and more unhinged than she intended. She took the rope from the man’s hand and flung it over the top of the tree. It got about halfway and then got tangled in the branches.
Shit.
‘I’m just going to open the doors,’ she explained with a smile to the man. She refused to look at Bennett, even though she could feel the barely restrained ‘I must help you’ energy emanating from his direction.
She put a foot up on the floor of the back seat and tried to reach the rope, but between the height of the SUV and the tree branches, she couldn’t reach it.
‘Just a minute!’ she chirped, racing to the other side of the vehicle. Sweat dripped down her back. She climbed up on the other side and stretched across the tree, branches jabbed her in the face like Christmas was personally assaulting her. How festive.
She almost had it…
‘Ben! Why are you just standing there?’ Jeanie’s voice pierced the silence around the car.
‘Let me get that.’ A large arm reached past her, grabbed the rope and pulled.
‘I told you––’ She started to snap at the unwanted helper, but reeled it back in when she saw it wasn’t Bennett but Logan who had grabbed the rope and was now very expertly and efficiently tying the tree to the car. ‘Oh…’
She stepped down from the car and let him work.
Jeanie and Hazel came up beside her. The other guy they’d come with, Noah, had taken it upon himself to help a mom with two little kids get her tree tied to the roof of her minivan. The kids were running around his legs cheering. Bennett was helping Logan make sure the gigantic tree was secure and politely fighting off tips from the old couple.
Kira blew out a long sigh.
Damn it.
She’d failed again.
‘I can’t believe Ben was just standing there watching you struggle,’ Jeanie said, shaking her head. ‘That’s not like him.’
‘I know it’s not,’ Kira said, faintly. ‘I told him not to.’
‘Oh. Why?’
‘I wanted to prove I didn’t need his help. I’m trying to be … independent and all that…’
Jeanie huffed. ‘Being independent doesn’t mean you don’t need help. And besides,’ she said, gesturing to the men, ‘they love it. Makes them feel all manly and stuff.’
Hazel laughed. ‘Wow, Jeanie. How very feminist of you.’
Jeanie scowled at her friend. ‘Oh, please. Logan and I are equal partners, but try and tell me it doesn’t do something for you to see Noah with his sleeves rolled up and hefting that big tree up over his head. Look at those forearms…’
All three women tipped their heads to the side, pausing a moment to appreciate the sight in front of them. Noah was tying up the tree for the mom, now that the kids were buckled safely in the car, Logan was chatting with the older couple, his muscular frame leaning on their open window, and Bennett had rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and was helping another man carry his tree to his truck. His forearms flexed as he lifted the tree, and Kira was not going to lie, he looked damn good doing manual labor. She didn’t hate it.
She shook her head. No. Nope. This was not happening.
She cleared her throat and broke all three of them out of their daze. ‘Well, that was very nice of them and all, but I can take it from here.’
‘Oh, really? How do you plan to do that? You clearly don’t have anyone here to help with the trees and you still have two hours until close. Do you plan on putting all the trees on the cars yourself?’ Jeanie asked, her hand on her hip.
‘I … well … I will just…’
‘We’re staying,’ Hazel announced. ‘Let’s get some more rope.’ She walked off toward the cabin before Kira could argue.
Jeanie just grinned and followed her friend.
