"SIGN ME up for the Ultimate Holiday Dinner," Nat said, gripping the freezing-cold steering wheel with her gloved hands. "I'll need turkey—the whole bird—with stuffing, cranberry chutney, the works."
She was driving her cherry red Ford Ranger through the icy roads. She'd spent far too much time at the antique store getting her mom to open up about her fight with Joel. Now she was running late, which meant she was planning the menu as she drove to get the Christmas tree.
"Are you sure you don't want my Holiday Hotdish?" Zoe asked through the truck's outdated speakers. "It's a must for the authentic Minnesota experience."
"Thanks, but no thanks. These are sophisticated New York people. I don't think they'll go for the tater tots casserole.
"How about dessert?" Zoe asked. "Are you calling Jecca for that?"
Zoe's voice was barely audible under all the static. This is what happened when you retrofitted a cell phone system into your old truck. The technology was barely adequate.
"Yes," Nat replied, adding that to her to-do list. "I need to ask her for cake and ice cream."
"How about appetizers? Are you calling the Brathaus?"
"Already done," Nat replied, happy to have that crossed off her list. "They're doing the little sausage things you love, and the mini pretzels."
"Did you get the burger sliders and the popcorn balls? Those are great for kids."
"Yes, Karl said he'd take care of it." Nat slowed down over a particularly slick part of the road. "I think I have everything under control."
"Famous last words," Zoe said. "Something always goes wrong."
"Don't jinx me," Nat replied. "And something has already gone wrong. You guys were right. Mom and Joel broke up."
"Did she tell you why?"
Nat swerved to avoid a pile of snow. The snow plowing was a disaster this year. She fully intended to attend the next town meeting and give the road maintenance department a good talking to.
"No, she didn't explain," Nat replied. "She just kept repeating self-help statements like growing apart and better as friends. I still have no idea what happened."
"They seemed so happy together," Zoe said. "I saw them going in to see a movie last week and they looked adorable."
"Last week?" Nat asked. "They only just called it quits?"
"They must have. They looked pretty lovey-dovey that night."
"What could have happened in one week?"
"Good question," Zoe replied. "It's not business worries. I can tell you that much. We're having a record year in this town. The antique shop has been bustling and Joel ran out of trees."
"Yes," Nat agreed. "Mom said she would have a hard time finding decent decorations—wait, what do you mean he's out of trees?"
That last question came out a lot shriller than she'd intended. It was greeted with an ominous silence.
"He just updated his Facebook," Zoe said. "Wait, you don't have a tree yet? I thought that was the first thing on your list."
"I'm on my way," Nat replied, stepping on the accelerator. "I spent too much time picking out decorations with my mom."
"You mean you spent too much time trying to get her to 'fess up about her break-up."
"That too." Nat took a deep breath and lifted her foot off the accelerator. A car accident was the last thing she needed right now. "But Joel can't be out of trees, Zoe. He has a Christmas tree farm. They literally grow from the ground."
"I'm just the messenger," Zoe said. "Don't blame me. I'm certainly not running out of turkey any time soon."
"Well, that's a relief," Nat replied.
"Are you sure you want the traditional menu, though? There isn't much time, but I could try to whip up something more upscale for you. Our chestnut stuffing with brandy, for example, is quite good and the Hagens gave it rave reviews."
"No," Nat replied. "Just the regular stuffing. I want this to be very traditional. The keywords are fun and festive."
Zoe laughed. "That I can do."
Then she hung up, and Nat kept on driving, now a bit more cautiously. Asking Zoe to do something "fun" may have been a mistake. The owner of the Holiday Lake Inn had a pretty extreme idea of what constituted amusement and a deep love for obscure European liqueurs.
Hopefully she would remember that there were kids involved.
Nat smiled as a large tree-shaped sign came into view. It read "Northstar Tree Farm" and it announced that the driver was now approaching "the largest Christmas tree lot in the US."
That wasn't an exaggeration. Joel Schmidt was no ordinary lumber salesman. Northstar shipped trees to every corner of the country, and the Schmidt family was known for its heritage arboreal strains, which made for a lovely, old-fashioned look. They'd provided trees for New York's Rockefeller Center several years in a row. This made their trees wildly popular, which explained why they were sold out.
Nat nonetheless pressed on the accelerator and entered the lot. There was a tree in there somewhere. She was sure of it.
Her boots crunched on the frozen snow as she stalked through the empty parking lot. The place was deserted, with no people and, most significantly, no cut trees.
She walked to the trailer in the back, a shingled box covered with wreaths and garlands and a piece of wood with a list of species and prices. At least the rest of the greenery would not be a problem. Thank heaven for small favors.
"Joel?" she shouted. "Are you around?"
The trailer door opened and a head, topped with Joel's trademark fur hat, peeked out.
Nat waved.
Joel frowned, then his eyes grew wide.
Nat waved again. "It's me. Nat. It's an emergen—"
The trailer door slammed with a loud bang. Nat's arm dropped to her side.
This was not the welcome she'd expected.
She steeled herself and headed for the trailer. This was going to be harder than she'd thought, but she was determined to get a tree—a real, live, evergreen.
She had never decorated a plastic tree and she wasn't going to let Cyrus Blackstone's untimely demands spoil her perfect record.
"Joel," she shouted more loudly. "Wait, I just need a Fraser fir, just a normal, er, tall-ish tree. Nothing fancy."
The door did not open.
Not for the first time, Nat wondered what her mom saw in the irascible tree farmer. Marisol kept comparing him to Luke from the Gilmore Girls, but Nat did not see any resemblance, other than they both wore flannel shirts and operated small businesses. After all, Luke talked to people.
She raised her hand, but her phone rang before she could knock on the trailer door. She took off her right-hand glove and reached into her pocket, wincing at the cold. Mexico seemed more tempting by the second.
She almost groaned out loud when she saw the caller identification. It was Cyrus Blackstone.
Was he going to be one of those micromanaging clients who asked about the tree provenance and wanted vintage, hand-painted ornaments? She'd thought not, but it must have been late evening in New York. Why was he calling now?
"Hi, Mr. Blackstone," she spoke into the phone, trying to sound as cheerful as one could while freezing one's booty off in Christmas tree Siberia.
"Hello, Ms. Quinn," he replied in that warm-whisky voice that made her melt, or would make her melt if the temperature around her weren't somewhere in the negative teens not counting wind chill. "I don't think we need to be such sticklers for formality. Please call me Cyrus."
"Very well, Cyrus," she replied, the name rolling a little too easily off her lips. "And you can call me Nat. Now, what can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to check in and see how things were going."
The trailer door opened again. A hand came out and hung a "closed" sign on the door.
"They're going great," Nat replied between clenched teeth. "Absolutely fantastic. Couldn't be better."
Her eyes narrowed. Was it her imagination, or was that a chuckle she'd just heard? Oh, this man definitely deserved a gnome Christmas.
"Glad to hear that," Cyrus said, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. "My kids are really excited about our stay at Holiday Lake. They are looking forward to all the traditional trimmings—the wreaths, the lights, and, of course, the tree."
He drawled out the last few words, as if they held a special significance. Which, of course, they did. Not that he could possibly know that.
Nat smiled through gritted teeth. "Of course they are. The tree is the best part."
And she dearly hoped they would have a tree. That, however, did not look promising at that moment. Joel Schmidt was locked up in his trailer and the only living things nearby were her and someone heading down the road in an old Toyota 4Runner.
"Gigi has been watching videos about the town," Cyrus said.
"That's lovely," Nat said, mentally going through her options.
She could camp out here and wait Joel out. She could settle for an artificial tree. She could—
Wait, videos?
"What is she watching?" Nat asked, dreading the answer. The town council were enthusiastic marketers and there were tons of videos on the Internet about Holiday Lake.
"Mostly the tree decorating competitions," Cyrus replied with a chuckle.
Oh, he was definitely laughing at her. How did he know that she couldn't get a tree?
"You checked the town website, didn't you?" she asked.
"Guilty," he admitted.
"I'm happy your daughter is enjoying the movies," Nat said. "We have tons of Christmas movies filmed in this town. Mad for Mistletoe is gorgeous. I did the sets for that one. The Santa Connection is also good. I'm particularly proud of the wreaths we did for that one. Wreaths are lovely, you know. In many ways, they are a more traditional decoration than a tree."
Cyrus laughed out loud. "You don't say."
"They are older," Nat said. "And they symbolize the eternal wheel of time."
"That sounds...interesting," Cyrus replied, still laughing.
"Wreaths are the new black," Nat said. "So to speak. Better than trees. Trendier. Avant-garde."
Cyrus kept laughing. He had, she reluctantly admitted, a nice laugh.
"That sounds very appealing, but Gigi has her heart set on a tree. She showed me a video of a tour of the town, a guy driving around in an SUV. There were lots of trees."
Nat groaned. "Well, that was filmed years ago. That montage is hideous. Noah filmed it as a college project and most of it has to do with the old movie theatre—"
Her eyes widened. Speak of the devil, the guy in the 4Runner was none other than Noah. Noah Schmidt. Joel's son.
Noah, home for the holidays, driving his old SUV into the parking lot. The same SUV in which he'd filmed his college montage.
"Noah?" Cyrus asked, clearly interested. "Who's Noah?"
"I'm sorry," she replied. "I have to go now. I'll call you in the morning and give you an update."
"But—"
She hung up before Cyrus could finish the sentence, and put her phone back in her pocket.
Joel was a stubborn old goat, but Noah was an apple who had fallen far from the proverbial tree.
The young man had left Holiday Lake to attend film school and had achieved modest success in Los Angeles. His crowning achievements, however, were made-for-television movies.
Christmas made-for-television movies. All of them filmed in Holiday Lake.
And all of them staged by Nat Quinn.
Nat walked back to the parking lot to meet the SUV. Noah's movies were filmed in the summer with fire-retardant foam substituting for snow and woebegone actors sweltering in wool coats, so December was a slow month for him. He had plenty of time to help out with the family business.
And he owed her favors, many of them. That huge Santa Connection wreath, for example. That had been a huge hassle.
She waved as the SUV parked next to her truck. This was her chance.
"Noah?" she called out. "Remember when you said that you owe me?"