“Come see my tree!” she insists, and I follow to where she’s pointing.
“It looks great. Nice work on the decorations.” I play with one of the artificial needles. “You could probably leave them on all year since it’s not a real tree.”
“What do you mean, ‘a real tree’?”
“A live one. One that smells like the forest.”
I realize my mistake the second Sophie’s smile fades.
She turns to her dad, summoning the reigning king of rock with a pleading tone and two little outstretched arms. “Daddy, I want a live tree.”
“Sophie,” Haley says, “there’s nothing wrong with this tree. We’ve always had this one.”
“I didn’t know I could have an alive tree.”
I expect Sophie to cry, but she doesn’t, just crosses to the tree and plays with one of the bottom branches, pouting.
Jax groans. “It’s a while still till dinner.”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Haley points out. “The rest of our guests are arriving this afternoon.”
“The rest?” I ask. I thought this was going to be a small, low-key holiday. Evidently not.
“A few surprise additions,” she says to me with a smile.
“But we have a couple of hours until the catering comes,” Jax points out.
Haley folds her arms. He steps toward her, the ink poking out of the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt as he takes her reluctant arms in his hands and drops a kiss on his wife’s lips.
“Our kid wants a tree, Hales.” His murmur is just audible. “There’s a place thirty minutes away. We’ll be there and back before you know it.”
“We?” she asks.
Jax tosses me a look. “Yeah. Loudmouth earned himself a ticket.”
I exchange a look with Annie. We haven’t talked yet about what went down outside, but we can both tell it’s not the time.
Jax grabs Sophie and boosts her up on his hip. “Let’s go get your tree.”
I brush a kiss over Annie’s cheek. “We’ll talk after.”
She nods. “You two strong guitarists go get the girl a tree.”
But I’ve messed with two Jamieson girls, and while I’m going to help one, it’s the other I care most about.
“You mean you cut the tree and kill it?” Sophie’s horrified expression as we stand beside the sparse row of cut trees that remain contrasts with the handful of other people at the tree lot: an excited family and a harried man on a cell phone doing last-minute shopping.
“That’s how it works,” Jax tells her.
“I want an alive tree.”
“And it is,” he repeats.
“But alive plants need to be in the ground. Can we put it in the ground at home?” She squats next to the cut end of one wrapped tree.
Her dad exhales. “No, Sophie. In January, it goes to tree heaven.”
We’d hoped to be here and back with a tree inside of an hour. Now, the prospect is unlikely—at least the “with a tree” part.
Until an idea hits me. “There are services that bring a live tree to your house, then replant it after the season.”
I reach for my phone, then realize I’ve forgotten it. Dammit. I hope I left it at Jax and Haley’s and not on the plane or something. Jax offers me his. My quick search turns up photos of trees with the root balls intact.
“Beck got one in LA last year. But I doubt we could get one same day.”
Sophie’s hopeful face determines our action before Jax huffs out a breath. “We better figure out a way.”
Normally my assistant would handle these things, but I’m not gonna pull my staff away from their families. “Says there’s a place in Dallas that does it, but they’re closing in an hour and they’ve already delivered all their stock.”
“Let me try someone.” Jax places a call and hangs up a few moments later. “Shay hooked us up.”
I stare at him incredulously. “Shay your recording artist?”
“She started as my receptionist,” he reminds me. “You’re the one who made me listen to her demo. And she’s resourceful as hell.”
Turns out Shay went to school with the guy who runs the tree place, and she called to tell him to expect us. So, we head over there in the truck we borrowed from Jax’s guitarist, Mace.
By the time the three of us get to the other shop and load up the tree—which has a huge root system the guy warns should not be transplanted without mechanical help—and tie it down, my eye’s on the clock.
On the way home, Sophie falls asleep in the car seat we strapped into the back. The truck is sagging under the weight of the tree.
Jax catches me watching his daughter. “You’ll get there someday.”
“Someday.” It feels like a long fucking ways away sometimes.
“And the wedding?” he asks.
I shove a hand through my hair, staring at the near-empty road ahead of us. Jax and I don’t have a lot of personal conversations, and the ones we have had tended to make things between Annie and me worse, not better. “We agreed to put it on hold for now. I’ve never needed to stand up in front of a bunch of people and declare my intentions.”
“She might.” I cut him a look, and he continues, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Haley and having two girls, it’s that there’s always something going on under the surface. Ignore it at your peril.”
I turn over his words as we bump down the road. The clock radio says almost two hours have passed since we left. We’re half an hour from Jax’s place, moving slowly on a quiet back road. The temperature is near freezing, and I swear I saw a snowflake.
I’m still dwelling on that when the truck hits a pothole and swerves.
Sophie squeals.
I brace a hand on the dash, scanning the empty road for signs of danger. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t steer.” Jax’s voice is low and tight.
I feel the uneven weight of the truck pulling and look over my shoulder through the rear window. The ropes holding the tree have loosened, and it’s dangling off the back of the truck.
A moment later, we’re no longer on the road.
Chapter Three
Annie
“These were going to be done earlier in the week,” Haley says as we work together in the kitchen, making gingerbread.
The cavernous space, decked out with marble and gourmet appliances, could host a dozen chefs, but it’s just us, plus baby Mason sleeping in his bassinet. She takes the dough from the bowl and rolls it out.
I peruse the collection of cookie cutters. “Sophie didn’t want to help?”
“That was the problem. She helped too much the first time—I didn’t see her sneak half a cup of salt in place of the sugar.”
I wince. “Ouch. Who found out?”
We exchange a look.
“Jax,” she says as I say, “Dad.”
Haley’s laugh can’t solve the dull ache in my stomach, but I find a smile for my stepmom.
Today’s not going how I’d hoped either.
“Why do you make cookies anyway?” I ask as I choose a reindeer cookie cutter and shift next to Haley. My stepmom is wildly successful in her own right. She might not have screaming fans, but she’s a borderline genius who started her career designing software that optimizes songs and predicts which new ones will be hits. “You’ve probably been working your ass off on some computer program for your company. You could’ve asked the caterer to bring cookies with dinner, especially after the first batch failed.”