Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy

Her gaze jerked to his as if she’d felt the same zing as he had when their skin grazed. Her eyes sparkled more beautifully than any of the lights, giving off more magic than any tree that had existed in the history of Christmas trees.

Good grief. She was turning him sappy and he could barely even bring himself to mind.

Sophie’s throat worked as she swallowed, then she looked away from him and back at the tree. “If we work together, this will go much faster.”

“Are we in a hurry?”

She shook her head. “No, I…no…no rush, we just want to make this tree amazing for the residents, so that when they come to the dining hall tonight, they’ll oooh and aaah and feel Christmas spirit fill their hearts.”

“I’m sure it will be, and that they will.”

She nodded then, turning toward the tree. She sounded a little breathy when she next spoke. “When decorating, it works best if we start at the top and work our way down with the lights. That okay?”

“Fine.” He didn’t have tree-decorating preferences. He didn’t recall having ever decorated a tree at all before, though perhaps he had helped his mother at some point in the period between his parents’ divorce and his mother’s remarriage.

“I’ll go up the step ladder to where I can reach the top and get the lights started. Will you move them around the tree for me, so I don’t have to go up and down over and over again?”

She climbed several rungs up the step ladder, reached out and wove the lights in and out of the fake evergreen branches. When she indicated, Cole moved around the tree, trying not to feel nervous as she leaned in to reach far branches. But he was unable to squelch the uneasiness in his stomach.

“Be careful.”

“Afraid you’ll have to catch me if I fall?” she teased, shooting him a look that could only be labeled flirty.

Lord help him.

“More like I know how you are with trees,” he countered, holding onto the ladder to help keep it steady. “I don’t want to have to come up there to rescue you.”

Sophie giggled. “No worries. You’re safe. I doubt I’ll go climbing on these little branches in search of Stitches.”

Cole arched his brow. “You’ve officially made friends with your tree cat and given him a name?”

“He comes to visit me every night, but I don’t fool myself that it’s for reasons other than that I feed him,” she admitted, sighing a bit dramatically. “He’s never let me get more than a few feet away but now sits outside my bedroom window every night. Sometimes, he’s still there when I wake in the mornings.”

“That’s better than his waiting on a tree branch for you to come save him,” he teased.

Pausing in draping the lights to look his way, Sophie’s eyes danced. “Ha, ha, you’re so funny.”

“Not that I ever saw him in the tree that night,” he mused, “but I suppose I’ll give you the benefit of doubt.”

She laughed. “You think I was walking home that night and just thought to myself, ‘Hmm, it’s been a few years since I climbed a tree, I should try my luck with that one’?”

Had she said that was what had happened, it wouldn’t have surprised him. Sophie had an impulsivity that had probably gotten her into a bind on more than one occasion.

“I’m a firefighter. That doesn’t sound too farfetched to me. Have you heard about some of the rescues we’ve assisted with in this town?”

As they wound the lights around the tree, then began placing ornaments, Cole told Sophie a few stories of the more unusual rescues he and the guys had made. He’d never been much of a talker but recounting the tales to Sophie was easy.

“I know I shouldn’t laugh,” she admitted as he told her about a person they’d had to rescue who’d gotten stuck on Halloween when he’d tried to slip through a narrow row of metal fences so he could surprise his pregnant wife. “But the image of you and Andrew having to rescue a grown man wearing a diaper, bonnet, and booties strikes me as hilarious.”

“Once we knew he was okay, we found it funny, too. Apparently, his wife had found out she was pregnant a few days before, and he hadn’t taken the news so well, initially. He was trying to make it up to her with the costume and gifts he’d stashed in his goodie bag.”

“Strange man.”

“We thought so, too, but hey, by the time we got him out, his wife wasn’t mad at him anymore, so I guess it worked out for him in the long run. What about you? Any funny tales at the quilt shop?”

“We have some interesting customers, but none who get stuck in iron fences.”

“Just trees?”