Page 1 of Wish You Faith (Christmas Sweethearts #1)

CHAPTER ONE

“I f you had started work in October like everybody else, you wouldn’t have to struggle to learn as you go during our busiest season of the year.”

Trainer Bellina’s words were factual, but they still slighted Evan Cavanaugh in the process. This wasn’t the first time today that she had said cutting remarks to him or to someone else.

However, Evan didn’t want to counter her or argue with her about the meaning of “struggle,” not when she was driving the delivery truck and yelling at every driver who cut in front of her.

She couldn’t have driven any faster because the truck was still loaded with boxes of Christmas decorations.

Thanks to her lack of planning, they had to drive from the Christmastown warehouse in Pooler, just outside of Savannah, all the way to Tybee Island to deliver five boxes of pop-up Christmas trees.

Then they had to double back to greater Savannah to the Christmastown Tree Farm where they would pick up some fresh wreaths and live Christmas trees to deliver to area businesses by five o’clock.

Talk about inefficiency and incompetence.

That was because somebody forgot to tell the tree farm that they needed a hundred fresh wreaths by eight o’clock this morning. The workers and volunteers there had worked all night to make the wreaths, and they could only finish by noon, and not a minute sooner.

All morning long, Bellina had been rude to nearly everyone beneath her in the Christmastown warehouse.

When nobody was around but the two of them, Bellina turned her fangs and talons at Evan, fussing over the slightest things, like when it’d taken him an extra minute to come out of the men’s restroom or when he used up all thirty minutes to eat his lunch.

For that, he had an explanation. They had begun work at seven o’clock because of shift changes in the warehouse. Regardless of when they started work, everyone was supposed to get two fifteen-minute breaks in an eight-hour workday.

Well, Bellina hadn’t allowed Evan his full fifteen minutes this morning, so he figured out how to get it in other ways.

He didn’t want to tattle on his first day at work, especially since this was a seasonal job only until January.

Besides, he was supposed to be hiding from his family, and not make a ruckus.

Evan figured that he’d write Cyrus and Amy a note in January after he left Savannah. That would be his parting gift to them so that they could improve their holiday decorating business. After all, he owed Amy one for not telling his mother where he’d been hiding.

Ah, he wasn’t a prodigal. He just needed a break from his overbearing mom—er, family. Mom wanted him to marry by thirty, and he was three years late on her calendar.

Evan had done his best to push off her demands, but Mom was keeping up with the Wangs and Zhaos from her extended family. Evan wasn’t sure if it was entirely an Asian thing because some of his Chinese friends were still single in their late thirties, and their parents were cool with it.

What’s with my mother?

Sometimes he wished he didn’t have a tiger mom, but being born into a family of high-achieving billionaires made it difficult for Evan to carve a path of his own. Everything revolved around keeping the family shipping business afloat. Even Dad kowtowed to Mom, and that told Evan everything.

Big brother Connor was the perfect Cavanaugh. Always toeing the line. He was Mom’s favorite son, a position that Evan couldn’t fill—and never wanted to. Sometimes he felt sorry for Connor, though maybe he shouldn’t. After all, Connor was happily married to the woman of his dreams.

And then it happened on Mom’s birthday two weeks ago.

She had invited several potential daughters-in-law whom Evan called interviewees for a job they would never fill.

He did not want to date anybody whom Mom approved.

There was no need to give her any more leverage than she already had, holding his trust fund hostage until he turned thirty-six, for example.

You know what? I don’t want any of your money.

So Evan left Seattle the next day. He didn’t want to spend the next four years groveling for Mom’s approval and getting nagged well into his mid thirties simply to get access to his inheritance. He’d rather take his freedom and run.

He told no one for a week until he arrived on the east coast. Camping out on Cumberland Island over the weekend, he saw Cyrus and Amy Theroux on television, being interviewed about the booming business at Christmastown.

He remembered the couple. Amy was Connor’s wedding photographer.

She’d done such a great job that the Cavanaugh family hired her to take photos of all their family events, including reunions and birthdays.

Eventually, Amy and her husband were invited to Cavanaugh family gatherings, and that had been how Evan had met and befriended them as well.

Evan called Cyrus and told him about his situation, how he needed to unplug from his high-maintenance family.

Cyrus said that he could hide at Christmastown if he worked.

They could use another floater, someone who filled in wherever he was needed.

He would be paid by the hour, but he’d get a bonus if he also doubled up as an undercover inspector, reporting directly to Cyrus.

Free lunch would be included Monday to Friday. Overtime was expected.

Evan had never worked minimum wage in his entire life.

First day at work, Evan had already found issues?—

A loud honk jolted Evan from his thoughts. In the driver’s seat, Bellina slammed on the brakes behind a dump truck and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

Evan thought that Bellina was about to let out expletives.

If Bellina lost her job after January, it would be her own doing. It wouldn’t be because Evan reported her shortfalls to the CEOs of Christmastown.

“Have you been to the tree farm?” Bellina asked as she took the next exit.

Evan shook his head. “Never worked at Christmastown before.” And never again after this.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

That was out of the blue. What kind of a question was that?

“No.” What else could Evan say?

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” Bellina chuckled. “Otherwise, going to the tree farm is like entering a spider’s web.”

“How’s that?”

“A brown recluse lives there, and she will steal you away from your girlfriend.” She seemed to want to say more but was waiting for Evan to ask.

Evan wasn’t taking the bait. If he pointed out that in North America, the black widow was more dangerous than the brown recluse, then Bellina might say that he had called that person a more insidious label.

Nope. He wasn’t playing that manipulation game.

So he said nothing.

Bellina had no fuel to fan her flame, so she shut up after honking at a bicycle that nearly cycled into oncoming traffic. “You want to die?!”

After five hours with Bellina, Evan was about to quit. It had been a torturous morning listening to her gripe about everything.

Evan wanted the workday to end, but they were only halfway though. Now they had to go to the Christmastown Tree Farm to pick up poinsettias for delivery.

He had been to tree farms as a kid, back when Grandpa had lived in Seattle—before Grandma died and Grandpa moved to Tybee Island, where he lived his last days.

He recalled how Grandpa had nicknamed him Rusty II after himself—a name no one else had called Evan since Grandpa died—after he stepped on a rusty nail at the Christmas tree farm. The nail went through his sneakers into his foot, and they rushed him to the emergency room for a tetanus shot.

That had been his memory of his last Christmas tree farm excursion with Grandpa: a night in the ER.

So this better be different.

At least he got paid to do this, even though it was minimum wage, a far cry from his corporate job at Cavanaugh Shipping at the Port of Seattle. Then again, here at Christmastown, he wasn’t in his older brother’s shadow.

Down the road, a sign appeared at the street corner. It said “Christmastown Tree Farm.”

“It’s Christmastown Tree Farm now, but it used to be called Amy’s Christmas Tree Farm,” Bellina explained. “We all expected the merger because Amy was running the tree farm on the side while she was VP at Christmastown. Good thing too because the tree farm was a fledgling business.”

A fledgling business? Was that for real or was Bellina putting in her two cents?

Evan didn’t know about that. Prior to talking to Cyrus the day before Thanksgiving, he had no interest in this sort of seasonal business. He was in shipping with no days off. Any day they missed a shipment of goods, a cascading effect happened down the supply chain.

Bellina parked in front of the building. “I need you to drive the truck to the back where the greenhouse is. I’ll meet you there. I need to make a stop at the front office.”

“Okay.” Yes, Evan had a commercial driver’s license, which was one of the reasons Cyrus hired him on the spot on Wednesday.

For thirty seconds, Evan had peace and quiet as he drove the red-and-green Christmastown truck to the back of the building, where someone waved him down. He wore a red apron and held an iPad in his hand. He came up to the driver’s side.

Evan rolled down his window. “Bellina sent me. She’s in the building.”

“She told me she was bringing someone new.”

“That’s me.” He extended his hand out the window. “Evan Cavanaugh.”

The man gave him a fist bump. “I’m Lorenzo Flores, the assistant manager at Christmastown Tree Farm.”

Flores. Evan wondered if he was related to Pastor Diego Flores at Riverside Chapel, but he didn’t want to make assumptions. Just because they had the same last name, it didn’t mean they were related.

“Nice to meet you,” Evan said. “I was at Riverside Chapel…”

“Yes, Pastor Flores is my younger brother.” Lorenzo smiled. “No, I didn’t go to seminary. Yes, I’m happily married. No, I don’t have kids at the moment.”

Evan laughed. “At this point, I should ask you for your autograph.”