Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

And then, way too soon, he reeled back from her, and stared at her, and the chill crept back across her lips and into his eyes, that were narrow again, darkly angry.

“Look, mistletoe girl—”

Mistletoe girl? Hanna thought furiously. It was another dig at her family’s Christmas tree farm, and it made her feel as if she was standing in front of him in the elf costume once again.

“—don’t play with a fire you can’t put out,” he warned her, his voice stern and flat, and his brown eyes turned black. “You are heading for all kinds of trouble that you don’t have the first clue how to deal with.”

The anger at what she perceived as his rejection—as him acting like her father, instead of a potential boyfriend—chased the chill away again, for a far less satisfactory reason. Anger flared, white hot and consuming, inside her.

It was made worse by the fact he pushed off from his bike, and gathered her fallen books, held them out to her casually, as if nothing at all of importance had happened between them.

As if he, the town bad boy, was a gentleman who had spurned her kiss for her own good.

“As if I would ever start a fire with the likes of you,” she had snapped, grabbing her books from his outstretched arms and holding them like armor against her heaving chest.

She could have and should have left it there, but he had cocked his head at her, unperturbed by her anger, forcing her to go on.

“I know where you live, Sam Chisholm, and I know what your father does.”

It had been so childish, proof really that he was entirely correct, that she was not in the least ready for what his lips had just told her existed in the world.

Looking at the man now, she could still remember the look on his face back then.

It was about the furthest thing from the look he had now: of confidence and composure, a man in control of his world.

No, that afternoon, her words had hit him hard, dashed that self-assured look from his face. He had momentarily looked completely stunned. And then his face had gone cold as he had leaned once again, his rear against his motorbike, regarding her with those turned-earth eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

Because here was what she knew about his father, since her own father hired him sometimes to work on their farm.

Sam Chisholm’s father was a drunk, who took work as a farm laborer if anyone was desperate enough to hire him.

The school’s sexiest boy lived in the most dilapidated trailer on the worst road in Smith, the one right by the railway tracks and the shut-down flour mill.

His face had gone cold as ice, and he’d looked at her hard enough and long enough for her to feel ashamed, but not to take back words that could not be taken back.

And now he was back in Smith, and she was back in Smith, and he wanted her family’s farm and presumably had the means to buy it.

Was it a moment of vindication for him?

“So, what do you want my farm for?” Hanna asked.

My farm? Where had that come from? Hanna had not thought of the farm as hers, or even as home, since she had left here—in disgrace that it seemed Sam might have been predicting that afternoon all those years ago when he had admonished her so sternly not to play with fire.

“I own Old Apple Crate. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

It was a moment that should have brought Sam great pleasure, because Hanna struggled to hide her awe. Old Apple Cratewas a model of success that was drooled over in business circles.

Relatively new on the business front, Sam’s company specialized in locally grown produce, much of it organic. The company was taking advantage of people’s desire to shop closer to home and know about what exactly they were getting, how it was grown and who grew it.

“I’ve heard of it, of course.”

She noted he looked pleased, but not smug.

Really, he had no reason to be so pleased that she had heard of his company. She was in business. Success stories like his were what businesses like hers paid attention to.

“And Christmas Valley Farm would be a good fit for you because?”

“I like this property for two reasons—one, it’s got a great location, with highway frontage. And two, to certify produce as organic, I need soil that hasn’t been altered by chemicals for a specified number of years.”

“So, you wouldn’t keep it as a Christmas tree farm?” She evaluated the tone of her voice with a bit of dismay.

“Are you disappointed by that?” he asked.

Hanna wanted to say no, and found she couldn’t. He had read her with alarming accuracy.

“Christmas tree sales,” he said mullingly, as if to appease her. “Personally, I’m not a Christmas kind of person, but maybe professionally it could make sense.”

Don’t pursue it, Hanna begged herself. It was way too personal. But he was the one who had mentioned it.

“What does that mean, not a Christmas kind of person?” She had remembered he had also said something tonight about not even shopping for a tree. And not being a sipping cocoa kind of guy, either. So, despite his denial, he still was a bit of a renegade, out of step with the very kind of wholesome family image this business catered to.

Sam hesitated. When he spoke his voice was gruff, stripped of emotion.

“I always just felt, in that season of good cheer and merriment, I was on the outside looking in. We never even had a tree when I was a kid.”

He looked as if he regretted having said that, instantly.

She regretted his saying it, too, because it was hard enough keeping up your defenses around such a good-looking, confident man.

But then to picture him as a small child, feeling left out on Christmas, wrenched at Hanna’s soft heart. “Oh, Sam, we always had some we gave away. Fully decorated. We had a contest every year. You could have had a tree.”

He gave her an annoyed look that rejected her sympathy at the same time as letting her know the impossibility of what she was suggesting.

She felt driven to show him he might not be alone in his sentiments about Christmas.

And so Hanna offered something, too. “I’m not sure it was much better being on the inside looking out. I haven’t bothered with a tree since I left here, either.”

“Really?”

“I grew up believing artificial trees were the devil’s own work, and somehow I couldn’t bring myself to pay what they wanted for a real one in the city. Never mind working out the logistics of getting it home and thinking what to do with it in my tiny apartment once I got there.”

It was, of course, way more complicated than that.

“Oh, well, I’m sure they always had a giant one up when you arrived home.”

Easier to let him think they had remained the family he thought they were, and not to share the truth about that with him, and yet the words came out of her.

“My dad died the year after I finished high school. My mom remarried and moved away, which is why it was left to managers to run. This farm hasn’t been home for me for quite some time. And Christmas...well, Christmas.” Her voice drifted away.

He was looking at her way too closely. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” she said tartly.

“So,” he took her cue and changed the subject, suddenly all business, “a real tree fetches a pretty good price in the city?”

Hanna nodded. “A king’s ransom. Mistletoe is even more dear.”

Oh, gee, did she have to bring up mistletoe around him, of all people? she berated herself, silently cringing. Mistletoe girl seemed to suddenly be there between them.

“Oh, I know mistletoe is pricey,” he said. “I bought some once.”

Not remembering mistletoe girl at all then, but something else, from the faraway look on his face.

“You have never bought a tree but you bought mistletoe?” Crazy to be curious, but she was. “Why?”

He still looked off into the distance. “I think I had this cheesy idea that if I carried it around in my pocket, I could haul it out and hold it over my head, and collect lots of free Christmas kisses.”

“Did it work?” She felt a shiver along her spine at the thought of meeting Sam under the mistletoe.

“Lost my nerve,” he said, but she had a feeling she was not hearing all of this story, and she wasn’t sure why.

“You know, mistletoe was popular around the turn of the last century because the only time people could kiss in public was underneath it. That would hardly seem to be the case today.” Least of all for a guy like him.

But he was not going to have his personal kissing history probed. His interest in mistletoe, now at least, was all about business.

“Do you grow that here?” he finally asked. “I remember you selling it, all those years ago.”

“No, we imported it,” she said stiffly, “from a grower in Texas.”

“Hmm. Mistletoe. Trees.”

“Wreaths,” she filled in helpfully, trying to stay focused on what was between them now, which was strictly business.

“I already have the stores, and keeping local product at the forefront can be a problem during the winter months. I wonder. I’ll check on the viability of a line of Christmas products. It could be a good fit for our company.”

Hanna was taken completely by surprise by what she felt when he said that, because it seemed to her any research on his part would only serve to seal the fate of the farm.

She already knew what he would find out. Christmas products of the natural, home-grown variety were not particularly viable. Or at least they hadn’t been on her family’s farm, certainly not in comparison to a success story like Old Apple Crate.

For as long as she could remember, her family’s business had limped along from year to year, barely making ends meet.

And so why, at the thought of it not being a Christmas tree farm anymore, would she feel these emotions? Loss. Sadness. It seemed impossible. She should feel nothing but relief. And yet...that’s not what she felt.

Not at all.

CHAPTER FIVE

HANNA WAS TRYING not to let all the feelings that were washing through her show on her face.

“That would be ironic,” Sam said. “Me, getting into the Christmas tree business.”

“And me getting out of it,” she added softly. Out of the business, her last remaining link to her family. Good grief! She had the awful feeling she might start crying.

He was looking at her too closely and she turned away from him, acting as if she had just noticed she had a horse on the loose.

“You’re here a day early,” she said, her tone neutral. “You should come back tomorrow. I’ll be ready for you, then.”

She’d been in the house only briefly, to grab a jacket and boots, and she had barely glanced at the barn when she had run in to get a halter and lead rope. But even peripherally, it had been hard to miss that things looked a touch shabby. If she had until tomorrow at noon, when he was supposed to arrive, she could do a few cosmetic spruce-ups.

And talk to Mr. Dewey, and then be on her way.

“My appointment was for tonight,” he said.

She certainly wasn’t going to argue with his word against Mr. Dewey’s.

“I have to catch the horse,” Hanna said, fumbling through her pockets for the limp carrots she had found in the barn. “You know tonight just isn’t going to be a good night to discuss business, Sam. If you could come back tomorrow, around noon?”

She left it hanging, realizing she wasn’t sure when she wanted him to come back, which, given how eager she had felt to sell the farm, was just plain dumb.

But there was something about being back here, even with Molly misbehaving, that seemed to be pulling on a place in her that she hadn’t thought she had anymore.

A place that wanted.

That wanted all the things she had lost a long time ago. Tradition. Family. The warmth of the kitchen at night. Cookies fresh out of the oven. A gathering around a board game. Laughter.

Maybe she even wanted the kind of Christmas her family had once had: yes, they had worked hard.

But they had worked together.

And Christmas had been the day the madness stopped, and they enjoyed the same things they had tried to give everyone else: a beautiful tree, a fire in the living room hearth, laughing around a turkey dinner, a sense of closeness and family that she had never recaptured since she had left the farm.

But hadn’t she thought she and Darren would recapture all that was best about being a family? That they would have that sense of family and all that came with it, safety and security?

From what he had said, Sam hadn’t even had that.

Every single year, Hanna remembered, she had always gotten what she asked for. Even if sales had not gone well, there it was under the tree. The impossible: new skates, the down-filled parka, or a silk blouse. And her dad smiling one of his rare smiles, with such shy, proud pleasure.

Oh, Dad, I am so sorry.

Those things, she reminded herself, when push had come to shove, were the very things that had hurt her the most. Love had hurt the worst of all.

And Sam had just reminded her of that, anew. That love, that holding out hope and then having it utterly dashed, was what hurt worst of all.

She suddenly needed Sam—with his double threat, her awareness of him and the fact he could take the farm and her remaining sense of family from her for good—to be gone.

“Come back tomorrow,” she said again to Sam, her tone now clipped and much sharper than she wanted it to be, “if that’s convenient.”

She turned toward Molly, proffering the carrots.

Sam did not take the hint. He came and took one of the carrots from the bunch in her hand, uninvited.

“I can manage,” she said too snappishly, and took a step toward Molly, who snorted and leapt away.

“Maybe I better just stay until you have her under control. I don’t want you to hurt that hand any worse than it already is.”

And again, that forbidden place of wanting breathed itself awake within her. Wanting someone to lean on, someone to share with, someone to laugh with, someone to love...

But when she looked at the fiasco of her now-ended relationship with Darren, it seemed to Hanna all that wanting had led her to a poor relationship choice; all that wanting had left her vulnerable, weak instead of strong, way too ready to read things into situations that were not really there.

So she said uninvitingly, firmly, “I can manage on my own.”

And she felt both exceedingly irritated and exceedingly vulnerable when Sam said, his voice a seductive croon, “Come on, sweetie. Give it up.”

For a moment her heart stood still.

Then she threw back her shoulders and tossed her head. Sweetie, indeed! It was as bad as being called Elfie! She was not starting her new relationship with Sam Chisholm in the very same way as her old one.

No, wait. Relationship was way too strong. They might reach a business agreement. In the distant future.

But not if he was going to be like that. What did he mean, give it up? Give up what? Her precious hold on control?

Hanna sucked in a deep breath, and turned to face him. She meant to tell him in no uncertain terms not to call her sweetie, and to tell him she didn’t intend to give up anything.

Maybe not even her family farm.

She was contemplating with alarm the troubling thought that she might be reluctant to part with the farm, when she realized Sam was totally ignoring her, and sidling toward Molly.

“Sweetie,” he said again, his voice that same croon, though now there was absolutely no mistaking he was talking to the horse, “Give it up.”

* * *

Sam held his breath as the pony took one tentative step toward him, and then another.

He glanced over his shoulder at Hanna. “Ah,” he said, wagging an eyebrow at her, “that old irresistible charm.”

That desire to tease her had come back to him as naturally as if nearly a decade had not passed.

And her reaction was about the same as it always had been. Hanna folded her arms over her chest. She was unaware she was favoring her hurt hand, and letting him know in no uncertain terms that his irresistible charm was wasted on her.

It suddenly occurred to Sam she might have thought he was calling her sweetie.

She wouldn’t like that any more than she had liked being called Elfie. The very thought filled him with an almost irresistible urge to continue teasing her.

But then sanity regained its foothold and Sam knew the last thing he needed in his life was the complication of teasing a girl like Hanna Merrifield. She was the kind of girl who would see teasing as interest and interest as the potential for things to go deeper and further.

And he knew what deeper and further with her would mean.

She was the kind of woman who would deny she needed traditional things. But she would need them nonetheless. Hanna Merrifield would need an old-fashioned courtship, followed by a wedding with her floating down the aisle in a white gown. And then there would be babies and a house with a picket fence.

She would need a man who knew how to give her those things, as if by second nature. A man who had grown up with those concepts of family as ingrained into him as his own name.

Hanna’s man, when she settled on one, would probably come from a farm not unlike this one, one that had been in the same family for generations, and had produced stable, trustworthy, hard-working men of the earth who liked sipping cocoa and bringing home the family tree for Christmas.

Even while the thought of those things created a physical sensation in him—a throbbing ache at the back of his throat— Sam was not like that man. In fact, he already knew he was the man least likely to give her the cozy traditional life—cocoa and the Christmas trees she had so obviously missed even while she denied herself the pleasure of having one—and he knew that because he had already failed, spectacularly, in the traditional department.

“I’m divorced,” he told Hanna bluntly. There was no sense her thinking the teasing—or worse, the electricity that had jumped between them when their hands had touched—could ever mean anything.

He did not miss Hanna’s slight flinch at the word divorce, confirming what he already knew.

“That would interest me, why?” she said coolly.

“I just know my charm to be completely superficial and unworthy of a girl like you. Don’t worry about me trying to exercise it on you, though I don’t mind trying it out on the pony.”

Despite how she wanted to hold the fact that she was a career accountant out in front of her like a shield, he knew she was solidly traditional. Her dreams were written all over her.

“What do you mean, a girl like me?” she asked, her voice stiff, as if he’d insulted her instead of giving her a gift.

“You want things a guy like me could never give you, Hanna.”

“I don’t want you to give me anything! You don’t know me well enough to make presumptions about what I want,” she said huffily. “You never did, and you don’t now.”

He went on as if she had not protested. “You’re a forever kind of girl. When you get married, you will never ever get divorced, will you?”

“I’m never getting married, so it’s a stupid question.”

“You? Never getting married?” It was too easy to picture her amongst the Christmas trees, with a doting husband, two or three chubby babies in a sled and a golden retriever gamboling through the snow. “That’s ludicrous.”

“It isn’t,” she said, tilting her chin up, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Just because I never made it to the altar doesn’t mean that you are the only one with a failed relationship under your belt. I was engaged for two years.”

Despite her attempt to say it lightly, as if it didn’t matter one little bit to her, a world of pain swam in her eyes.

“That louse,” he growled.

“Wh-wh-what do you mean?” she stammered.

“He dumped you.”

Her mouth fell open, and then snapped shut. “How do you know?”

“Because if you said yes to a proposal, that would be as good as taking a vow to you. You would hang in there long after you’d figured out it was a mistake.”

“I never thought it was a mistake,” her tone was tight and did not invite any more comments.

“Louse,” he said again.

“No,” she said firmly. “He did me a favor. I love being single.”

He said nothing, and she apparently felt driven to continue.

“Not that I would want you to interpret that as an invitation to exercise your charms on me.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“I have been able to absolutely devote myself to my career.”

“Terrific,” he muttered. Sam knew he should let it go right there, but he couldn’t. Hanna Merrifield in love with her job? As an accountant? Ludicrous! He had to let her know he did know things about her...and they were things she would do well to know about herself.

“It is,” Hanna said stubbornly. “Terrific.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re acting as if you know me!”

“You’re a certain type. You’re the type of girl who stays inside and drinks cocoa on a snowy night,” he said softly. “You long for the very things you have denied yourself, like a Christmas tree.”

She was glaring at him with naked annoyance, which was a good thing, an antidote for the way he knew they both had felt when their hands touched.

There had always been something between them. Always.

Once, she had been too young.

Though, even then, had he not recognized that she needed something a person like him could never give her?

His failed marriage was ample evidence that he had been right then, and he was right now.

He was not a man accustomed to failure, and that one still had the power to sting. Though he would take it, instead, as a reminder not to tangle too deeply with the lovely Miss Merrifield.

He knew it would be a good note to leave on—with animosity shimmering off her like a heat wave off the desert.

The problem was that he felt honor bound to help her catch the horse. What was he going to do? Leave her here to deal with it when her hand was probably more injured than she was admitting?

Sam looked away from her impaling gaze to see the pony watching him. Who knew a horse could manage an expression of such deep suspicion and dislike?

It was almost identical to her owner’s.

And then, with startling swiftness, Molly leapt forward, snapped off the carrot with her slanted yellow teeth—nearly taking his fingers with it—and leapt away again. She stood just out of reach munching on the carrot, leaving him holding the green top part, all the while watching him out of the corner of her eye.

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