Cinderella & the CEO

by Maureen Child

  “Maude says to tell you she sold the Wedding Ring quilt to that young couple from Fresno.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” Ivy said, remembering the couple who had wandered the farm area for hours before coming in and booking their wedding. Satisfaction rolled through her but not just for her own operation’s success, but the town’s, as well. Every piece of handcrafted beauty the shop sold, helped a craftsman in town. And with every job saved, they made Cabot Valley a little more secure.

  As they approached the shearing crew, Dan walked on ahead, but Ivy stopped in her tracks. She turned her head and glanced over at Tanner’s house. She could just see the roof and chimney from this perspective, and she wondered what he was doing. If he was lonely in his self made prison.

  But mostly, she wondered what he would say if he could see her here.

  Where she really belonged.

  Five

  Ivy’s nervous bride was taking a lot of her energy.

  Patsy Harrington had lots of ideas, but most of the major decisions had already been made and changing them now was only going to create chaos. In dealing with the brides, Ivy had learned that being firm but supportive was the only real way to survive.

  “We talked about this last time, remember?” Ivy pointed to the creek where a new bridge was being constructed. “You wanted to be able to pose for photos at the bridge, with the trees in the background.”

  “Yes,” Patsy said, hitching her designer handbag higher on her shoulder, “but I was thinking that maybe it would be better to be in the middle of the trees instead. That way, we’re surrounded by the greenery and our wedding clothes will really pop in the photos.”

  Ivy gave a small, inward sigh. She had her crew building the very bridge that Patsy had insisted on. And, she didn’t really want an entire wedding party trooping through the tree lines. “But, your dress could get ruined that way, too, with the dirt and fertilizer…” She purposely stopped, letting her words trail off so that Patsy would come to the right decision as she considered things.

  “True…” The woman chewed at her bottom lip and looked back at the creek and the graceful arch of the soon to be finished bridge. “And it is very pretty down by the stream.”

  “It is,” Ivy agreed. “Plus, as we discussed, we’ll have pine boughs attached to the railings with white ribbon and the flowers you selected. “It’s a gorgeous spot for pictures, Patsy. Couldn’t ask for better.”

  “I suppose,” she said, nodding. Her expertly cut hair swung out from her chin in a graceful arc as she turned back to Ivy. “Okay then, never mind. Honestly, I don’t know how you put up with me, Ivy. I’m driving my own mother insane and my fiancé keeps threatening to kidnap me and elope!”

  “Oh, can’t have that!” Ivy had one brief, hideous vision of the wedding being canceled and her loan coming due. No, no. “The wedding’s going to be beautiful, Patsy. You’ll see. You’ve made all the tough decisions, now all you have to do is trust us to pull it together.”

  “You’re right,” the woman said, checking her slender wristwatch. “And I should get going. I’ve got an appointment in town to talk to the florist.”

  Carol Sands owned the only flower shop in town and hardly ever got he opportunity to show off her artistic abilities. The Harrington wedding was giving the whole town a chance to shine and they were all eager to prove themselves.

  “Carol’s very excited about doing the flowers for your wedding,” Ivy said. “And we all appreciate the fact that you’re using the local suppliers this way.”

  “Only makes sense,” Patsy told her as they started walking across the farm toward the front gate. Laughing, she added, “I know I don’t seem like it lately, but I’m actually pretty level-headed.”

  “All brides get a little weirded out at times,” Ivy reassured her.

  Patsy let her gaze slide across the rows of trees and what looked like endless miles of bright blue sky. “I just loved this place the moment I came across your Web site. And when Tom and I came to look around, I knew this was where I wanted to hold my wedding.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I think it’s beautiful here, too.”

  “Oh, it really is,” Patsy agreed. “And, since I live in Sacramento, it would be crazy to try and use city florists and musicians when I can get everything I need right here in Cabot Valley.”

  “Exactly what we love to hear,” Ivy told her. This is what she’d been hoping for by expanding her farm. Her friends and neighbors would be part of the enterprise and the entire town would eventually benefit.

  The two women continued to talk over plans as they wandered across the farm.

  Maybe, Tanner told himself, Mitchell and Ivy were right. Maybe he had been too closed off since he moved to Cabot Valley. Maybe the mistake he’d made when angry about the Christmas tree farm was in going to the sheriff instead of dealing with the owners directly.

  He stared out his office window at the swarms of people wandering the farm’s long neat rows of trees. From his vantage point, he could see one corner of the parking lot where dozens of cars were clustered behind a partial screen of bushes. It was definitely a booming business that he’d already learned was important to the locals.

  So perhaps what he should do, he thought, was talk to the owners. See if they could find a way to work together in this. Not that he was looking to make friends. He still wasn’t interested in that, but there was no reason to have an enemy either.

  It was early afternoon and he hadn’t even begun work yet. What better time to take a walk and meet the neighbors? Before he could talk himself out of it, he headed downstairs.

  A few minutes later he was a part of the scene he’d been complaining about for two months. Here, the Christmas carols were impossible to ignore. With the summer sun slamming down onto him, he lost himself in the crowds and caught snatches of conversations as he went.

  Kids whining, fathers grumbling, mothers soothing. He smiled in satisfaction that he wasn’t one of their number, until it hit him that he was the outsider here. Everyone else had a mission. They were there to enjoy each other and their day among the trees. He was alone. As always. The solitary man in an ocean of families and couples.

  And for the first time in his life, Tanner didn’t care for it.

  His smile faded as his gaze swept the area, taking in the tiny café with outdoor seating—not much more than a snack bar, really. The menu was simple. Hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and drinks. But there were plenty of people in line. Just as the gift shop bustled with customers. He shook his head as women left carrying huge bags filled with who knew what. At least that much in life was a certainty, he told himself. Give a woman the chance to shop and she was off and running. Though the women he was accustomed to preferred to shop where items came in pale blue boxes.

  Looking around, Tanner could admit to himself that he was really out of his element here. Not only didn’t he normally do crowds, but the very idea of being in the thick of Christmas central was absolutely not him. Yet, here he stood and he had to admit that it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. The rise and fall of the voices around him, blending with the inevitable Christmas music wasn’t hard to take.

  He’d never been to a Christmas tree farm and seeing all the different types of trees spread out in front of him was…pretty. The scent of the pines filled every breath and even in the heat of summer, he got the draw. The appeal. Kids ran up and down the rows, playing in safety in the man-made forest, their squeals of laughter echoing in the air. Parents wandered, keeping an eye on the kids, while clearly enjoying themselves. Tanner wandered, too, wanting to take his time and make up his own mind about this operation before introducing himself to whoever was in charge.

  He didn’t know a pine from a fir, but he could see that the place was well cared for. There were few weeds growing in the separating rows and a glance at the old farmhouse told him that upkeep was important to the Angel family. The Victorian had to be at least a hundred years old, but its sky blue paint and w
hite trim was tidy. Flower pots sat on the porch railings and hung from hooks attached to the ceiling. Window panes gleamed in the sunlight and the door stood open as if welcoming visitors. He shook his head in wonder that the owners weren’t worried about someone walking into the house and stealing them blind. But apparently, small town life was a far cry from life in L.A.

  “Can I help you with anything?”

  Tanner turned to the younger man smiling at him. “No thanks. Just looking around.”

  “And you’re welcome to. But if you do need something or if you find a tree you want to adopt, you just give a yell, someone will find you.”

  “Right, thanks.” Adopt a tree? What kind of person was it who came up with something like that, anyway? He kept walking and didn’t stop again until a little girl of about six stepped out in front of him.

  “Mister, can you lift me up?”

  He glanced around, looking for the girl’s parents, but there were no other adults nearby. Wasn’t anyone watching the kid? He stared down into a pair of big brown eyes and asked, “Why?”

  “So I can reach Lisa.”

  Even more confusing. “Who’s Lisa?”

  She laughed. “My tree, silly. Her name is Lisa. I got to name her cause Mommy said I could and Daddy said everything should have a name and she’s too pretty to just be ‘tree’.”

  “You named your tree?” Tanner could hardy believe he was even having this conversation. But now, like it not, he was sucked in. The tiny girl was all shining innocence, with her pigtails, cuffed Levi’s and bright red sneakers.

  “Yes, and now Lisa’s tag is all turned around,” she said, pointing at a wooden disk inside a plastic sleeve, hanging from one of the top branches of the nearest tree. “I don’t want somebody else to buy her because she’s my tree. My daddy said.”

  The girl spoke so fast, her words tumbled into each other, but Tanner had gotten the gist of the problem. “I can fix the tag for you,” he offered, reaching for it.

  “No!” She stopped him with that single word and when he looked again, she was shaking her head hard enough to send her twin pigtails flying. “I have to do it because she’s my tree and it’s my job. So can you lift me up?”

  Tanner frowned when she held up her arms, clearly expecting him to do just as she had asked. He hadn’t been around kids since he was one, yet he didn’t see a way out of helping the girl without looking like a complete jerk. So sighing, he bent down, lifted the child and held her as carefully as he would have a ticking time bomb while she reached out with both hands to turn the plastic-covered tag around.

  “See?” she asked, “that’s my tree’s name right there on the bottom. My name’s Ellie and I didn’t have room to put me on there, too. So just Lisa’s name is on it, but that’s okay, don’t you think?”

  Sure enough, in uneven letters was the word Lisa painted in a sunshine yellow. There was also an uneven candy cane done in red and white and a lopsided star in blue. At the top of the tag, an adult had printed the words, Callendar family.

  “Very nice,” Tanner said, looking at the girl in his arms. “Are you finished?”

  “Almost,” she assured him, and straightened the tag again, turning it so that the artwork was facing out. Then she patted the pine needles and smoothed her little hand right up to the top. “That’s where our angel will go at Christmas time. Mommy says it will be a perfect fit, too. Lisa’s gonna look so pretty in our house.”

  “I’m sure she will,” he said, shooting a worried glance at the surrounding area, positive that the girl’s parents would show up any second and he’d be accused of trying to kidnap the girl or something.

  “Do you have your tree picked out yet?”

  “What? No,” he told her, staring into those brown eyes again. “I don’t get a Christmas tree.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  Why? Because Christmas had never been anything but a misery to Tanner. He didn’t have lovely childhood memories like this little girl was busily making. He didn’t have fond recollections of a happy family gathering. When he thought of Christmas, he thought of empty hotel rooms, a room service menu and a holiday movie on the television. Not exactly something he longed to repeat. But this child didn’t need to know any of that—nor would she understand it. Their childhoods were not just years apart—but worlds apart as well.

  “I just…don’t.”

  She patted his cheek. “That’s why you look sad. I could help you find a good one if you want and then you could be happy again. I always find our trees and Daddy says that I’m best at it.”

  He didn’t know whether to be touched or appalled that a little girl was feeling sorry for him.

  “Thanks, but—”

  “Ellie?”

  Thank God, Tanner thought, turning at the sound of the woman’s voice. He was still holding the little girl, still standing stiffly, as if half afraid to move.

  “Hi, Mommy! This man helped me fix Lisa’s tag so no one else can buy her!”

  A pretty woman with light brown hair and eyes just like her daughter’s stepped up beside them. She gave him a measuring stare and then must have decided he wasn’t a danger because she relaxed and smiled. “That was nice of him, sweetie. But we’ve got to go now. Daddy’s waiting for us with hot dogs and cookies.”

  “Oh, boy! You can put me down now, mister.”

  Almost surprised to find he was still holding the girl, Tanner reacted immediately and set her on her feet.

  “Thanks a lot,” Ellie told him as she slipped her hand into her mother’s.

  “Yes, thank you,” her mom said. “I hope she wasn’t a bother.”

  “No,” he told her, realizing it was only the truth. “Not at all.”

  Both mother and daughter gave him brilliant smiles, then they walked off, hand in hand, toward the snack bar and the lucky man waiting for them.

  Lucky man, Tanner mused. Funny, not so long ago, he would have thought a married man with kids was more to be pitied than envied. But now, he thought having a child like the precocious Ellie might not be a terrible thing.

  Stunned at the stray thought, he told himself it was probably Ivy’s influence. The woman was relentlessly cheerful and optimistic. Clearly some of that was wearing off on him. And he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that.

  Continuing on through the forest of trees, he nodded at people he passed and even began humming along to one of those insidious carols. When he realized what he was doing he stopped, but the fact that he’d hummed along to it at all surprised him. Was it some sort of brainwashing? he wondered. Play Christmas music all day every day until it gets to even the most hardened of hearts?

  Well, he’d never thought of himself as having a hard heart. Still, in comparison to those who thought Angel Christmas Tree Farm was a paradise, he probably sensed the Scrooge Mitchell had named him. Uncomfortable with that particular label, he shrugged it off. He wasn’t that bad, he assured himself.

  As he stepped out into a patch of sunlight Tanner saw that the full grown trees were now behind him. Ahead of him, were shorter versions and beyond them, were rows and rows of seedlings, barely a foot high. The farm was laid out well, he thought, recognizing the planning and the care that had gone into the Angel Christmas Tree Farm.

  While he swept the area with a cool gaze, he stopped when he spotted a familiar blond head walking with a pretty brunette. Ivy and the other woman couldn’t have looked more different from each other. Ivy wore jeans, a T-shirt and boots while the brunette wore a short-sleeved silk blouse with gray slacks and a pair of heels that were completely inappropriate for walking through trees.

  What was Ivy doing here?

  As they came nearer, she looked up and spotted him. His heart did a hard roll and crash in his chest that disturbed him a little. And if he was any judge, she didn’t look real happy to see him, a fact that irritated him more than a little. Still, too late now to back out, so he walked to join them.

  “Tanner,” Ivy said, pleas
ure in her voice, “I didn’t expect to see you over here.”

  “I could say the same thing to you,” he admitted, then shifted his gaze to the brunette. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” Ivy told him, then said, “Patsy Harrington, this is our neighbor, Tanner King. Tanner, Patsy is here to talk about her upcoming wedding.”

  “Lovely to meet you,” Patsy said, then quickly added, “but I’m afraid I have to run. The florist awaits. Ivy, thanks again for talking me off the ledge.”

  “No problem,” Ivy told her, and Tanner was struck by the warm smile on her face. “Happy to help. Any time.”

  “You may regret that,” Patsy told her with a laugh, then gave Tanner a sly look before grinning at Ivy. “You don’t have to walk me out. You two go ahead.”

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” Ivy smiled at him. “She’s just nervous about her wedding and wanting to change everything around at the last minute.”

  “Well, that’s irrational,” he said.

  “No, that’s a bride,” Ivy told him. “But I talked her out of it. Really, all she wants is reassurance that everything’s going to come off beautifully.”

  “And is it?” he asked, looking into her eyes.

  “It will even if I have to do it all by myself,” she said firmly. She paused as if considering something, then admitted, “Angel Christmas Tree Farm took a big loan out for the expansion. There’s a big payment due soon. The Harrington wedding is going to take care of that. If anything goes wrong…”

  He frowned, both at the proprietary way she was talking about the farm and at the worry in her voice. “What?”

  She looked around at the all the trees and sighed. “We could lose the farm.”

  Interesting, Tanner thought. So the farm was in danger of going under if it couldn’t pay back a loan. Then what she’d said hit him and he asked, “We?”

  Ivy looked at him. “I mean, we as in, we who work here.”

  “So…what? Housekeeper, Christmas tree farm worker and bridal consultant?”