I returned his grin, the same recent memories flooding my mind.
Van reached for my hand. “Well, first I’ll get the fire going and then the real work begins.”
“Work?”
Van’s green stare went out the windshield to the forest surrounding the cabin. “Yes, we have a tree to find.”
“A tree?”
We both walked to the cabin on a newly shoveled path. When he opened the door, on the floor near the small kitchen area were bags and boxes. “Van?”
“It’s not easy to find decorations on Christmas Eve. I may have pillaged these decorations from my office. By the time we’re done, the cabin will be festive and ready to celebrate.”
Van’s desire to celebrate for me, something he claimed he hadn’t done as of late, brought the holiday to life in a way that decorations alone could never do.
I looked from Van to the window. “I’ve never cut down my own tree.”
Van reached for my hand and brought it to his lips. “Another first.”
As Van started the fire in the stone fireplace, I straightened the bed as it was as we’d left it. I also found some food Van had already delivered to the cabin and organized it along the small counter. The jug of water made me laugh. “No boiling water.”
“There are advantages to being prepared.”
The flames snapped and crackled as the kindling caught fire. Soon the chill within the small cabin began to fade.
“Are you ready to find the perfect tree?” Van asked, his green orbs shimmering in the firelight.
I pulled the orange hat down over my hair and ears. Apparently, the color orange signaled to hunters that we were people not animals. No one should be hunting on Van’s property, but it was better to be safe. I pushed my hands into the wool-lined mittens. “I’m ready.”
Julia
With an ax in his other hand, after closing the cabin door, Van took my hand, our mittens wrapping around one another’s grip. My total experience around the area of the cabin was limited to the journey to and from the truck and to and from the outhouse. This time, we headed into the forest, our boots sinking in the deep snow.
“They’re all so tall,” I said, looking up through the big trees to the blue sky above. I wasn’t only speaking of the pine trees, but also deciduous trees such as the white birch whose white trunks highlighted the landscape.
“There are places on my land where I’ve planted saplings,” Van said. “I’m hoping at least one will still be small enough.”
“You planted trees? There weren’t enough?”
Van grinned, looking down at me with pink cheeks from the cold. “There’s never enough.”
“Oh,” I said with a shake of my head. “I forgot.”
“When I decided to live here, I purchased multiple five- and ten-acre lots. Many had structures. Some were willing to sell, others needed convincing. I had most of the structures demolished. Those spaces then needed trees.”
“How did you convince people to leave their homes?”
“Everything has a price.”
I gave that some thought as we trudged forward. “You didn’t want any other buildings?”
“I kept a few, but nothing I chose to keep is too close to the house.”
Taking a deep breath of cool air, I stilled. “You know, I think I’m in pretty good shape.”
“I think you’re in fantastic shape.”
“Then why is walking through this snow wearing me out?”
Van laughed. “Just wait until we have to drag the tree.”
“I think we should have considered cross-country skis.”
“We should have. A snowmobile would have been a good idea too.” He grinned as his words came out in vapor puffs. “Next time.”
Those words were so simple and yet held more meaning than I could comprehend.
Next time inferred there would be more times like this, more times with the two of us and adventure. It was unfamiliar to me to imagine spending so much time alone, only the two of us. Skylar was all about appearances. Together meant out to eat at one of Chicago’s finer restaurants, the symphony, or the philharmonic, where we were going the night I walked out on him.
Van’s and my journey continued for another fifteen to twenty minutes, at times walking through knee- and thigh-high accumulations of snow. The good news was that due to the excessive cold temperatures, the snow was basically powder and easier to be displaced than heavier snow farther south. Cresting a hill, I saw what Van had described. The giant pine trees were gone, replaced by smaller ones.
At first, I was preoccupied with walking between the trees, comparing their height to Van’s and mine. Even the smaller ones seemed too big when I thought about putting it in the one-room cabin. When I looked up, the cold air caught in my lungs.
The scene before me was simply spectacular—the crystal-clear sky above and the beautiful white bowl.
“This view is gorgeous,” I said, my words floating through the air in puffs of vapors. “I bet it’s amazing in the summer.”
Van pulled me close, looking down at me. “My view is stunning, no matter the season.”
“Honestly, Van, how did you choose which home to keep? If they all had beautiful views like your house, it must have been difficult.”
“Location. I wanted to be remote. Where we are is a lot closer to the edge of the property and to the civilization of Ashland. Some of the homes were older. I weighed the pros and cons. The one where we live won. I had it gutted. The contractor said it had the best bones, making it sturdy. It was also near the size I wanted.” He grinned. “With room for expansion. More. Bigger. Better.”
I spun toward the younger trees. “I feel bad that you’re going to chop down one of these. They’re just babies.”
“There are hundreds if not thousands on the property.” He lifted my chin with his gloved hand. “You have a beautiful heart, Julia. I tell you what, we chop down one for our celebration and in the spring, we plant ten or one hundred more.”
“We can do that?”
“We can do whatever we want.”
After we decided on one of the smaller pines, I stood back as Van knelt in the snow and began chopping the tree. First, he chopped off the lower branches before his ax began notching the trunk.
As the ax flew with vigor and force, I wrestled with the dichotomy of the man Donovan Sherman. The man my parents warned me about was such a small part of him. I truly didn’t know all there was to know about him, but I was getting to know the man that others didn’t.
A smile came to my cool lips as I remembered the way Van warmed our dinner and cleaned the plates after we ate, and the way he fed me with coffee and nectarines. This man working up a sweat in the cold air was the one who chopped wood for a fireplace that saved me from freezing.
Would the people who only know Van as a business tycoon recognize the man before me?
“Timber,” Van called as the pine fell to the soft snow.
He handed me the ax. The pass-off made me wobble as I tightened my grip. “That’s a lot heavier than I thought.”
I wasn’t good at judging weight, but now that I held the handle of the ax, I was even more impressed with the way only a few minutes earlier, Van had been rapidly reeling it at the tree’s trunk.