Chapter Ten
By the time he and Claire had finished sweeping the snow off the tree, it was late afternoon. Liam was surprised to see a plow had actually cleared the road to the lodge. Claire had a perfectly intact four-wheel drive truck that would have easily handled the fresh snow—maybe even better than the packed ice that was left after the plow went through—but a layer of ice had melted from the snow and made driving dangerous.
The plow driver had stopped in to make sure she was okay, and she’d offered him a bowl of stew. They’d sat there chatting over it like old friends, and when he left, it was with a full thermos of coffee, with Claire standing on the porch waving like they were all in one of those schmaltzy movies.
Meanwhile, Liam was left staring down a truck-crushing spruce that needed to somehow go through the front door. He sincerely hoped in that twenty-four hours since the tree had hit the ground—or, rather, his hood—that any creatures that might have been living in it had taken a hike. He hadn’t noticed any while brushing off snow, but that didn’t mean anything. Stanley sure hadn’t bothered to hit the bricks.
“What are you thinking?” Claire asked. She stood beside him, the expression on her face reflecting none of his concern over getting that thing through the door.
“That you’re probably going to want to cut ten feet off the bottom to get it in the lodge. And for future reference, I don’t think you’re supposed to ask men what they’re thinking. It’s never the touchy-feely stuff like women want it to be.”
“Clearly not. Your thoughts are murderous.”
He gave her a blank look. “Are you not the one who cut down this tree?”
“Yeah,” she shot back with impassioned defiance. “But I’m not asking to dismember it.”
He had a feeling that blank look of his hadn’t gone anywhere. “Okay, you’re going to have to help me pull. And I can’t guarantee there won’t be a loss of life or limb, considering the size of these bottom branches.” They were the size of entire trees, some of them, and he had no idea how Claire expected Liam to finagle them sideways through the front door of the lodge.
But he’d try. He twisted the tree so the largest of the branches faced up, giving them the height of the door for clearance. “You ready?”
Of course she wasn’t. She was still giving him a look.
“I know I’m amazing,” he said, “and even godlike, but I can’t move this tree through this door by myself. So unless you want to call the plow driver back to help you…”
“Godlike.” She laughed.
He let go of the branch. Pointedly. “You might want to save the mockery for after we get this thing up.”
“Noted.” Still, she didn’t exactly bother to hide her laughter as she took a spot next to him and gripped a branch.
Together, they pulled. To his surprise, the tree moved about six inches.
“That was easy,” she said.
“Yeah. Only about twenty-four and a half feet to go.”
An hour later, after much shoving and twisting and scratching the door frame, he was convinced no tree of any substantial size had ever before graced the main room of that lodge, but they had the thing in there. Together, they stood it against the front wall. When he took a step back, he had to admit it looked great.
“I can see why you wanted such a large tree,” he said. “I have a feeling this room would swallow anything less.”
“It’s perfect,” she said. “Or as perfect as it’s going to be. This is the first one since…well, the first one without everyone here.”
Everyone. More like anyone. He came from such a huge family—three brothers, all significantly hitched—that he couldn’t imagine being the last one standing. “Do you have a tree stand?”
Her face fell. “I forgot all about that. I don’t know what they did before, but I haven’t seen a stand around here.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said, but it must not have been much comfort. Tears welled in her eyes.
She threw out her hands. “I’m sorry. In the city, I have a fake tree with a built-in stand, and every time I came here, the tree was already up.”
He took one look at her exasperated, near-tears face and dragged her in and kissed her. Her mouth was the most addicting thing he’d ever tasted. She was so damned innocent, always with that little gasp of surprise before she melted into him and gave him everything. Surrendered. Not with some limply waving white flag, but with a promise of passion he couldn’t believe belonged to a woman who had been hurt like she had.
“There are about a thousand reasons that was a bad idea,” she said, her fingers lightly clutching his shirt.
He could only think of a couple arguments against it being an excellent idea—one, that he was there on a job and two, he didn’t ever want to see the headline Runaway Bride Hooks Up with Hot HVAC Guy—both points they’d already discussed. “I only need one reason it’s not,” he said.
“I like bad ideas,” she said, surprising, though not entirely convincing, him.
“You?” he almost laughed. “I would have never guessed it.”
A frown teased her lips. “Am I that boring?”
He put his hand over hers, willing her to hold on. He must have been crazy, not wanting her to let go. Forging any kind of connection with her put him somewhere in the territory of certifiable, but resisting her seemed crazier. “I have a feeling you’re anything but boring.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
From any other woman, those words might have been coy. From her, they felt like a genuine question—one for which he had a ready answer. “There’s not a boring woman in the history of womankind who can make fire from a condom.”
A smile played at her lips. “That was pretty awesome, wasn’t it?”
“Definitely awesome. And I think I saw some stuff we can use to make a tree stand. It’s all wet, but the tree won’t care.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Make that happen, and I might actually swoon.”
Well, that was one tactic he’d bet wouldn’t show up in the typical advice column, but hell, he’d do what he could. If she could build a fire from a condom, he could figure out a tree stand.
“Prepare your swooning parts. I’ll have this tree taken care of in no time.”
He hoped.