Page 83 of The Christmas Tree Farm

The other corner was filled with Kira’s Christmas tree decorated with the attic ornaments and more lights than really seemed necessary, but Bennett had insisted. He’d also strung white lights across the mantle and suddenly Kira was living inside one of the holiday movies she’d once loved to mock.

But surprisingly, she didn’t hate it.

The whole thing was very different from her mother’s professionally decorated trees that she had in nearly every room of their house, each with a different theme, making the house feel like a Christmas museum. Whereas, this little tree, with its hand-me-down ornaments felt … cozy. Homey. It was an entirely new type of Christmas, one she was making with Bennett. One she’d never forget.

She sighed, tossing herself onto the couch, exhausted from removing her boots and outerwear.

‘Winter is so hard,’ she groaned, snuggling into the dogs’ warm bodies.

‘Why did you pick a farm so far north?’ Bennett asked as he hung up his coat in the hall.

‘Trying to get as far from home as possible,’ she said through the blanket door. ‘Also winter seemed pretty theoretical at the time.’

Bennett appeared back in the room a minute later. ‘Why not California?’

‘Too expensive. Too earthquakey.’

‘Right.’

Right. Maybe in some other timeline, some other dimension or whatever, Kira and Ben would have met in California. Maybe their lives would have fit together better. Maybe she wouldn’t have had to let him go.

But she didn’t live in whatever timeline that was.

She was here.

In the winter.

He sat down on the other side of the dogs, laptop on his lap. ‘Got a few things to finish up.’

‘Sure. Of course.’ He’d been fitting in his work in between loading trees onto cars and filling in for Iris when she’d come down with the flu. Guilt had been Kira’s constant companion. He was doing too much for her.

Kira grabbed one of Edwin’s old letters from the stack she’d gathered on the coffee table. She’d been going through them looking for clues about where he’d hidden his treasure, but so far had found nothing but smut. She’d also spent a few evenings sorting through the boxes in the attic. But besides a few boxes of old books, she hadn’t found anything valuable.Yet. She was still holding out hope for a Christmas miracle.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out.

‘It’s Chloe. FaceTiming. Do you mind?’ she asked Bennett.

‘Go for it.’

‘Hey, Chlo.’ She smiled at her sister’s face.

‘Kiki!’

Bennett gave a little snort at the nickname and Kira nudged him with her foot.

‘God, you’re hard to get a hold of lately.’

‘I’m a very important business owner.’

She said it with a self-deprecating laugh, but Chloe beamed. ‘I know. I’m so proud of you.’

Heat flooded Kira’s face as her sister went on. ‘I was worried about you at first. There were a few times you really looked a mess, I mean, like really bad…’

‘Okay, Chlo. I get it. Thank you.’ She didn’t need Ben to hear exactly how much of a hot mess she had been, not that he hadn’t seen plenty of it himself.

Her sister tipped her head to the side, studying Kira, her dark eyes seeing everything. ‘You look different.’

Kira shrugged. ‘Same old me.’