Teacher's Christmas Cowboy (Trinity Falls Sweet Romance - Icicle Christmas #5)

“Wow,” Sylvester said. “That’s a big tree.”

“Is that for us?” Cora asked, suddenly feeling shy.

“It sure is,” Jared said. “I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty. I was over at Cassidy Farm anyway, and since little Rocky here didn’t seem to have any bad reaction to our tree yesterday, I thought I’d pick you up the exact same type, just in case he’s good with a fir but not a pine.”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” she replied, impressed that he had even considered whether a different variety might not work for Sylvester.

“Nah, it was no big deal,” he said, smiling down at her in a way that made her stomach flutter.

“It must have been very expensive,” she heard herself say out loud. Immediately she felt embarrassed. She shouldn’t complain about the price of a tree he had been kind enough to bring over.

It was just that on her salary she had to be careful. She would have bought a much smaller tree if it had been up to her. But of course she would pay him back.

“Not at all,” he told her. “And anyway, it’s a present. You’re not supposed to worry about the cost.”

“Thank you,” Sylvester yelled, trying to squeeze past them both to get a better look at the tree.

“It’s too much,” Cora said softly to Jared.

“Nah,” he told her. “Why don’t you let me bring it in?”

“Come on, Sylvester,” she said, trying to ignore the warning bells going off in her mind.

It was one thing for the man to help out around the house a little to work off his guilt for yelling at her, even if that had been more than covered by the mailbox.

She had been trying to ignore the extra time he spent here, and the fluttering in her belly from the intense way he sometimes looked at her.

But expensive presents meant something. She couldn’t afford to ignore this.

Why not see where it goes?

She tried to shut down the little voice in the back of her head. It didn’t understand that she was still trying to pull their lives back together. It was only since the move that she had stopped waking up sometimes expecting Arthur to be on his side of the bed.

But the moment to say something had passed, and Jared was already lifting the tree up to see if it would fit her ceiling height.

“Almost,” Sylvester crowed excitedly as Jared slowly lifted the tree. “Almost.”

She couldn’t help smiling as she realized that Jared was moving slowly on purpose, to let her boy get more and more fired up.

“Oh wow,” she said, amazed when the tree fit perfectly, with just a few inches to spare for a star or an angel on top.

“I’ll get the ornaments,” Sylvester yelled, darting upstairs before she had time to warn him that the tree would need to rest for a day or so before they started decorating.

“Thank you,” she told Jared quietly. “I can’t believe you did this, and I really can’t believe how perfectly it fits.”

“I measured your ceiling height last time I was over,” he confided, winking.

She could see the smug little smile that was partially hidden by his beard and once again there was a flutter in her belly.

“I brought a tree stand too,” Jared said. “It’s on the porch, if you want to grab it for me.”

“Oh, yes,” she said feeling a little flustered. “Sure, I’ll get it.”

She was happy to drink in a little of the cold, crisp air outside, and relieved that he had thought to bring her a stand. They had only ever had a small plastic Christmas tree in the past.

By the time Sylvester scampered back down the steps with a bin of decorations, Cora and Jared had the tree just about secured in the stand.

“Wow,” Sylvester said. “It smells good in here.”