by S Doyle
“That would be very unprofessional of me, now wouldn’t it?”
“Sometimes that’s how those high-powered executives roll.”
I used to work with a lot of them who never got the memo on #metoo. One more reason to leave that rat race behind and look for something profoundly more simple. Like cutting down a tree for a mother and her son for Christmas.
There was nothing better than that.
Except maybe sparring with Kristen Kringle.
“What brings you out to the tree farm today?”
“You told me to come. I want to see the one profitable operation we’re running right now. You’re doing more than selling trees out here.”
“I’m selling a Christmas experience,” I told her. “Come with me.” I glanced down at her shoes first. I didn’t need her tramping around out here in a pair of fancy shoes, but I was pleased to see she’d worn a practical pair of snow boots.
In fact, everything she wore looked practical. Her down winter vest, her wool hat and scarf. The leather gloves she wore on her hands.
“You really are from these parts aren’t you?”
She gave me a funny look. “I told you I grew up here. That old guy back at the house where you’re living is, in fact, my father.”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “I know. It’s just sometimes hard to reconcile the woman in front of me with that woman I met by the side of the road with the spiky shoes and the cashmere coat.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” I asked.
“Not many Christmas tree farmers would recognize cashmere. My dad sure wouldn’t.”
“I’m not your average Christmas tree farmer,” I said, as we walked between the rows of trees, avoiding some of the people who were poking around searching for that one perfect tree.
We stopped at the front gate to the farm and I pointed over to the booth I had set up just inside of it.
“Oh, I didn’t notice that when I came in. That’s new,” she said, walking over to it.
The booth had been my idea. Again, all adding to the experience. A one-stop shop for your Christmas-tree-cutting-down needs.
“Hot apple cider, hot chocolate, hot apple cider donuts…and the money makers. Spiked homemade eggnog, spiked Irish Cream, and peppermint schnapps.”
She whipped around to stare at me, but I already had her question covered.
“All perfectly legal, as long as it’s homemade and not intended for wide distribution. I had to get what amounted to a brewery license and everyone is carded before serving. The kid stuff I get about thirty percent markup, the adult beverages one hundred and twenty-five percent markup.”
“That high?”
“Free labor,” I said pointing to me. “I make the products and I have two interns from the University of Colorado, studying agriculture, who are spending their winter break here.”
Her eyes widened and I felt a small thrill at knowing I’d impressed her.
“Anyway, the kids gobble up anything we put out there, and the moms and dads love a little treat after they’ve cut down their own tree. I thought it would be more fun than profitable, but it’s been both.”
She was looking at me funny. Like something I’d said didn’t make sense.
“What? Do I have pine needles in my beard?” I asked, scratching at my face. “It’s an occupational hazard.”
“I’m just trying to fit all the pieces I know about you into one picture and I have to tell you, it looks like a Picasso.”
“Because I look like a million dollars?”
She snorted. “No, because you’re crooked and a little disjointed.”
“Fair enough.”
“Can you break away to show me around? I would actually like to see what you’re doing with the cabin.”
“Ah, you want me out of the house sooner rather than later.” I had my suspicions.
“Absolutely not. Who doesn’t want to wake up to a creepy guy sitting on my bed and staring at me while I sleep? It’s every girl’s dream.”
“A creepy guy with good coffee,” I reminded her.
“Fair enough. The cabin?”
I nodded. “Let’s go.”
“What in the heck…” She was staring up at the structure, her mouth open and gaping.
“A little over the top?” I asked.
It was one of my biggest concerns. The goal was to keep things simple. To blend into the environment and the surrounding land. But I wanted to make it comfortable too.
For a family.
Me, a wife, children if we were lucky. I wanted a place that would be sustainable, but I didn’t want to skimp on beauty either. If you were going to live in the most beautiful place in America, the house should reflect that.
Essentially, I’d leveled what had been there previously, and built what amounted to a two-story modified A-frame structure where the roof didn’t slant all the way to the ground. What I had saved, to some extent, was the placement of the cabin. So the view from the front and back porches would be the same. Everything else, however, had been done from scratch.
“It’s massive!”
“It’s…big,” I admitted.
She looked at me again. “Are those solar panels?”
I nodded. “Yes, on either side of the roof with a special enhanced battery backup. Should be completely self-sustaining and off the grid. Let me show you inside.”
The structure of the house had been completed. The wraparound porch, the walls and the roof. As well as the plumbing and electric wiring. Only the kitchen and cabinets were being worked on now. The crew had taken a break for the holiday, but would be back after New Year’s to finish the job. With any luck I’d be moved in by the end of January.
Technically, it was livable. I could bring out a blow-up mattress and some pillows and blankets and be comfortable enough. There just hadn’t been a need given the room at Pops’ place. Not to mention being there for him when he needed an extra pair of hands.
I pushed aside the plastic where the front door would eventually be placed and backed off to let her check it out. Having impressed her with my business acumen, I felt this little tug to keep on going. To show her my vision and see if she liked it.
Pops had seen a blueprint of the plans, but Kay-Kay would be the first person to see, and hopefully understand, my vision.
“Watch for debris and nails and stuff,” I said as she stepped inside.
The main room opened up all the way to the steepled roof with large exposed beams that showcased the structure.
“Stairs over there, to an open plan second floor, and a loft above that, if needed,” I said. “This is basically a great room and dining room. The kitchen will be at the back of the house along that wall, opening up the back porch.”
She was staring up at the roof beams.
“Glass walls front and back. So you can get as much light inside as possible, and there should be a view of the surrounding land no matter where you are in the house.”
I was rambling. I knew it, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Mostly because she hadn’t said anything. Not a word. Finally, I broke.
“Well?”
“My brothers and I used to play in this cabin. Okay, not this cabin. That place is gone. But it was our own fort. A place for us that was free of adult supervision. Where any adventure we could dream up was possible.”
Damn, I thought, feeling slightly deflated. I’d taken a simple cabin and turned it into something ostentatious.
“You hate this, then.”
“No,” she said quickly. “When I played here, when I used to envision what the cabin looked like in my imagination…it was this. Grand and spacious, but still of this place, of this land. Like it belonged here. This…this is amazing.”
Praise had never been something I was comfortable with. I didn’t get it growing up, so when I did receive any accolades as an adult, I usually went straight to sarcasm as a diversionary tactic.
I didn’t want to do that now. Having her see th
is, someone who had grown up here, belonged here, herself, it meant something to me.
“Thank you,” I said, a little more gruffly then I would have liked.
“You designed this, didn’t you?”
“I had help. A friend I went to school with is an architect. He made sure it was physically sound, while giving me everything I wanted.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and I could see her mind had gone someplace else.
“It’s about as far away from Manhattan as you can get, huh?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know that I could ever live in a city again,” I said. “Not after being out here. It’s like I didn’t realize it, but the whole time I was there I couldn’t really breathe.”
“What city?”
“San Francisco.”
“Seems like a funny place for an arborist to work,” she said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Don’t forget I’m an agricultural scientist, too.”
I don’t know why I was bothering to hide who I was. She was going to figure it out eventually. People didn’t often take jobs with no salary attached.
“Hmm. So when were you going to tell me that you’re rich?”
My eyebrows shot up. Okay, she’d figured it out quicker than I’d expected.
“You know, loaded. Independently wealthy. Dripping in it,” she added.
“I’m…comfortably well-off.”
“Bullshit,” she laughed. “This cabin doesn’t say comfortable. It says I can be as comfortable as I want to be. Who are you, Paul Bunyan who drives a Tesla, who doesn’t take a salary, who makes homemade eggnog? Who took a plot of land in the middle of literally nowhere and built a paradise?”
“I’m Paul McCleer,” I said honestly.
“Yes, but who are you really? McCleer? Wait…McCleer. Why do I know that name?”
Shit. The fun was over. In a few minutes she’d put it together and then I’d go from being the grumpy, sarcastic, somewhat difficult tree farm manager to…
“Holy shit, you’re the Paul McCleer?”
“No. That’s my father. I am, however, his son,” I admitted, stuffing my hands in my jeans and moving to look out the window.
Not everyone would have bumped on the name. But Kay-Kay was no doubt a woman who read all the financial news that was available. She’d need to, to stay in her position. Corporate agriculture was about as far as it got from her industry, but it didn’t surprise me she would have heard of the family name.
Finance, technology, service, and agriculture. Anyone at the top of those industries was simply a known entity.
“What is the heir to the McCleer Agriculture empire doing on a Christmas tree farm in Salt Springs, Colorado?”
“I’m retired.”
“Do you get to do that?” she asked, with some wonderment in her voice.
“Depends who you ask. If it’s my father, he would say no. He would tell you I’m having a bit of a temper tantrum.”
“Are you?”
Was I? I hated to think that. I hated the idea that any of this was temporary.
“It felt that way at first. I was suffocating under the weight of corporate bullshit. Any thoughts I had about the direction of the company were being ignored by my father and the entire management team. I was this utterly useless vice president and I thought, is this it? Is this what my life is going to be? I wanted out. Running away felt like my only option. I saw the advertisement for a manager of a Christmas tree farm and I thought, that’s it. That’s what I want to do. Something that has meaning. Something that brings happiness to people. A place to plant a tree and watch it grow.”
“Uh. Your company is responsible for feeding, like, half the planet.”
If my eyes could have shot laser beams at her, I’d have made that happen.
“I’m just saying!” she said, putting her hands up defensively in a way that suggested she understood invisible laser beams were being fired at her. “That’s pretty meaningful work. Way more meaningful than making insurance profitable.”
“You would think so. If the goal was actually feeding the planet and sustainability, instead of solely profits.”
“Oh no, you’re not one of those guys are you?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Businesses can’t grow without profits.”
“I don’t know what you mean by one of those guys, but of course I know that. I’m not anti profits. Maybe you weren’t paying attention to my markup on the schnapps. I’m just about doing it right. Nothing I was doing in that life felt right. Unlike you, I suppose.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, and I could hear the defensiveness in her voice.
“Just that, from everything I’ve heard, you’re killing it in New York. Promotion after promotion. You certainly fit the corporate killer type. High-style metropolitan. From the outside looking in, it looks like you have everything you want. I don’t know that I was ever that content.”
“Yeah, well looks can be deceiving.”
“Kay-Kay, you got something you want to get off your chest? I am your brownie buddy.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I’m brownie buddies with the heir to the McCleer fortune. That’s not something I thought would happen on this trip home.”
“Can I say something you’re probably not going to like?”
She dipped her chin once.
“Your dad needs more regular help. Ethan stops by a lot, but it’s not enough. He’s carrying too much weight with the business, and to look at him, you can almost see it breaking his back.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I mean, I didn’t know. Or I pretended not to notice, because it was easier to mentally deal with it. But I’m here now.”
“For how long?” I pressed. And for absolutely no reason, I felt myself bracing for her reply.
“That is a very good question, Paul Bunyan.”
9
The Kringle Inn
Kristen
“Knock, knock.”
I looked up from the set of spreadsheets I’d been staring at for the last twenty minutes while making absolutely zero progress. It was hard to generate money out of thin air.
I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. Only that it was hard.
But that wasn’t the reason my mind kept drifting.
Paul McCleer. Freaking Paul McCleer was the tree farm manager?
After I’d left him yesterday, I had immediately found the nearest computer and searched for information online.
There were articles upon articles about him throughout the years. Puff pieces about agriculture’s latest heartthrob.
Okay, maybe he was a little handsome, but heartthrob? The guy couldn’t even change a tire.
There were articles about his work to reduce greenhouse emissions through better farming techniques, and how he planned to convert other farmers to the preferred practices.
Like feeding the planet, that was also not a meaningless endeavor.
There was an article about his announced engagement to the CEO of a major social media company. Talk about a power couple. But then, six months later, there was an article announcing the end of their engagement.
Now he was looking for a wife to come live with him in his cabin in the woods.
I had to imagine that any one of a million women would take him up on the offer. Was he seriously thinking about using a dating app?
Why am I thinking about him? Why do I care? I’ve got so many other…
“Helloooo,” Jasmine crooned, her head inside my office door. “You were looking at me, but you weren’t really seeing me. Is everything okay?”
I shook off my musings. “Yes, sorry. Just have a ton of stuff on my mind. Come in, come in. I’m excited to get started.”
She clapped her hands with enthusiasm and sat down in the chair in front of my desk.
This was not like my office back in New York. Back there you had to ride forty-three floors to get to the second highest floor in the building. My office had been massive
, almost five hundred square feet (yes, I’d measured when I’d been promoted) with a desk, a mounted sixty-inch monitor behind my desk for visitors, a couch, three guest chairs, and a full-time administrative assistant.
Now I was sitting in what amounted to a storage closet, just beyond the front desk of the inn, with a desk, a short couch, and one metal chair that barely fit inside the office if the door was closed.
At least I was still dressing the part. Silk blouse, sleek pants, fabulous shoes.
They might put me in a closet, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look the part of an executive.
“Okay,” Jasmine said, opening up the laptop she’d brought with her. “So the goal is to fill the inn over the next few weeks. Given how late it is in the season, basically that means local folks. Spur of the moment people, who want a little extra holiday cheer. So I’m focusing on Denver and Boulder and the surrounding suburbs of both to attract customers. Which means I need some local feel-good stories. Things that might pique people’s interest. I’ve reached out to Kane Co.”
“Who?”
“You know, Kane Co. They make those super fancy glass blown ornaments? The company is actually located in Denver. And I know someone, who knows someone, who knows Joy Darling.”
“Joy Darling? That’s an actual name?”
“Ha,” Jasmine laughed. “I know, right? Anyway she is the head designer of said ornament company and she hosts these glassblowing workshops at the factory in Denver. If we could get her to come here…”
“Ah,” I said. “I like it. Denver artist. Christmas ornaments. Kringle Inn.”
Jasmine smiled and rubbed her hands together. “Exactly. Now, I know you said it might be an impossible get, but I really think we need to talk to Matt.”
“Talk to him about what?”
“About all of it. Helping out with the publicity for the Inn and the tree farm. He could show up at the mayor’s Christmas Jamboree. Plus all sorts of other smaller events. Sign autographs, meet the fans. If I can get him in a Santa suit, well…then the sky is the limit.”
I laughed. “Jasmine, that’s never going to happen. I told you. Matt’s not coming home.”
