Page 13 of The Humbug Holiday

Honestly, that should have annoyed me. I worked for myself for a reason. I’d had my fill of macho dudes who liked to play the big swinging-dick games, and I vowed those days were long gone. Yet, here I was, playing chauffeur for a well-dressed man with deep pockets. Apparently, some things never changed.

At least Cameron was pleasant company.

He tapped the passenger side window, hitting me with a barrage of odd townie questions. Were the residential lamplights new or replicas? Was every street named for a type of tree? Was the bandstand in Pendergast Park still used?

They were the type of geeky inquiries no one under seventy should know the answer to. Even in Fallbrook. I snorted as I slowed at the stop sign on Willow Road.

“Seriously. You really think I know those things?” I huffed.

“Do you?”

“Well…yeah,” I admitted sheepishly. Okay…I was a bit of a geek.

“And?” he prodded.

I cast a sideways glance his way, pointing at an ornate iron lamplight next to a bus stop. “The lights are new. They’re replicas of the original art deco ones the founder’s grandson insisted would make the town feel like a cosmopolitan destination. That never panned out. As for the street names…that one is kind of interesting. Fallbrook was officially founded in 1854 by Nathaniel Pendergast, but before that, the folks living here used the natural flora and fauna as landmarks. There’s a three-hundred-year-old elm on the corner of Elm and Second Street and a giant maple on Maple and Fourth. The town is a grid. East to west streets are trees and flora, north to south are numbered. And of course, Main Street runs through the middle.”

“Interesting.”

“You think?” I snickered. “You can get all that and more on Wikipedia.”

“Not quite,” he replied cryptically. “How do you know these things? Did they teach them in school?”

I had to think about that.

“No. I suppose with a population hovering at just over a thousand, facts and folklore get passed on in some form or other from generation to generation. My grandfather told me about the trees, and my grandmother loved the art deco designs around town. According to my mom, Gran had a fit when they installed modern streetlights on the bridge leading into town. Called them atrocious,” I confided with a laugh.

“Comparatively, they probably are,” Cameron commented.

“Gran agreed. It didn’t matter that the ugly ones were confined to one area. She thought they should have been banned altogether. She wasn’t the only one. There’s a reason this place looks like a movie set of an idyllic village from the early twentieth century. Preservation is a big deal here. Which is why that shell-shaped bandstand is used only between May and October, regardless of the weather. I believe that was one of your questions,” I said, turning into the tree lot. “That’s also why houses like the one you bought haven’t been torn down. It’s not a historic landmark, but it’s always been there and no one likes change here.”

I parked my truck next to Grady O’Donald’s Suburban and killed my engine, waving a greeting to the older man before unbuckling my seat belt. I caught Cameron’s stare in my periphery and braced myself for another round of questions I should have passed along to the tourism board.

But he surprised me.

“Is that why you came home?”

I started as though I’d been slapped. Not sure why. It was a fairly innocuous query, yet…personal to the point of being invasive. Yeah, I’d been right about Cameron Warren’s ulterior motives. The house and holiday stuff were a means to get closer to a muse.

Me. I was the muse. Fuck, that was almost comical. I was the least inspirational person he’d ever meet. I didn’t have to tap into my impressive education to surmise that he’d decided our incognito sexy time had created a bond that could be useful in his work. And that maybe I was the key to unlocking mysteries in his mind. Yeah fuckin’ right.

I snorted derisively as I reached for the handle.

“No, Mr. Warren. I came home after my boss attempted to frame me for insider trading. Things got dicey when the prosecution realized he was also my lover,” I reported in my best monotone voice. “Long story short. Everyone got fucked. Wanna buy a tree?”

I hopped out of my truck and strode toward the entrance with my head down and my hands in my pockets.

Anonymity didn’t exist in Fallbrook, so there was a decent chance of running into an old classmate who’d wonder what the hell I was doing in Monaghan’s Merry Christmas Tree Farm. But maybe not. The steady light snowfall and the fact that it wasn’t quite noon on a weekday meant we pretty much had the lot to ourselves.

Cameron met me in front of a row of eight-foot noble firs. He fussed with his red scarf, then set his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

I widened my eyes in a universal “yeah right,” but decided to let it go, inclining my chin toward the trees meaningfully. “You have a few options here. Douglas, noble, balsam, blue spruce, and Fraser fir. A few varietals are precut, but you can chop down your own tree, if you’d prefer. And before you ask how a non-elf knows this stuff, I worked here during the holidays from the time I was thirteen till my freshman year in college.”

“You’re full of surprises this morning. You’re more of a holiday elf than you let on,” he teased.

“Fuck off and choose a damn tree,” I huffed without heat. I strode ahead of Cameron, hiding my smile in the collar of my jacket when he guffawed merrily behind me.

We spent the next fifteen minutes haggling over size and type, twisting the trees on their trunks to make sure they didn’t have any egregious bald spots.