Page 50 of Mistletoe All the Way

“Please,” Noah says dryly. “You’d have to say my heart was made of coal for it to be me.”

“True, true,” Hank says, and I watch—there’s some real affection between the two of them. It’s lovely to see the way Hank ribs Noah and Noah pokes right back.

“How was the drive from Colorado?” I ask Noah.

“We made it through the entire season of Dying to See You,” Noah says.

“Rusty listens to your serial killer shows?”

“He insists on them,” Noah says, then returns to adjusting the reins, which leaves me no choice but to whip out my phone and snap a shot of him.

“You didn’t get enough photos in Colorado?”

“The Internet can never have enough. Also, this is gold,” I say, giving an appreciative hum as I take some more shots. “Now, smile for the camera.”

Hank chuckles. “You’re ambitious, Eloise.”

That’s probably true. Noah doesn’t smile, but he does look right at home taking care of Honey.

A few minutes later, the couple arrives and Noah takes them for a sleigh ride. I snap a picture of them dashing through the snow till the sound of sleigh bells grows fainter. I’m about to tuck my phone into my jacket pocket, but I seize another opportunity. “Did you want to see these pics?” I ask Hank, who’s playing tug-of-war with Rusty, a rope toy in his hand.

“It’s like you can read my mind,” Hank says, lowering the toy.

He looks on with pride as I show him the pics I just took. “Let me show you some others,” I add, and fine, I have ulterior motives with the show-and-tell. I want him to see that Noah meets his qualifications when it comes to holiday spirit, charm, and personality.

Hank smiles at each photo on the Cowboy Vet feed, especially the ones at the rescue pet event in Mountainville. “How’d you convince him to wear a Santa hat in so many shots?”

“Easy,” I say, then in a stage whisper, I add, “I forgot to tell him to take it off.”

“Smart,” he says, then tips his chin toward the phone, squinting closely at a picture taken in Noah’s cabin. “Look at this one of him hanging an ornament. He loved decorating the tree as a kid.”

My heart squeezes. “He did?”

“Oh yeah. His favorite thing,” he says, and I try to picture a young Noah, brimming with childlike excitement over the holiday. It’s an incongruous image to the man who went kicking and screaming when I suggested a tree.

But I think I know why. Gently, I ask, “He used to decorate the tree with his mom?”

With a heavy sigh, Hank nods. “The day after Thanksgiving. Every year. They’d take the boys to a tree farm. She’d pick it out. Their dad would chop it down. They’d come home, invite us over, put on Christmas music, hang the ornaments, then read Christmas stories in front of the fire.”

Warmth fills me, chased with sadness too.

Hank is quiet for several moments, back in time. Soon, he seems to shake it off. “Funny thing. When my daughter, Sadie, met her husband, she always joked that it was meant to be because they had the same last name—Lennox.”

I smile. “That’s a sweet coincidence.”

“It seemed like that. They were so in love. But she also wanted her husband to move on afterward. He did in time. He eventually met someone else. His new wife.” Hank’s expression is soft, eyes filled with fondness for the new wife perhaps. “It’s nice to see. Sadie would have liked that.” A soft sigh. “She’d have liked to see Noah move on too.”

My throat tightens, and Hank points to the screen again.

“I haven’t seen him decorate in a long time.”

Guilt balloons in me. Hank is so clearly touched by this moment that seems bigger than tree decorating. We’re kind of faking Noah’s newfound Christmas appreciation, aren’t we? To show off his spirit. To win. That’s deceitful, isn’t it? But when I flash back to the night at Noah’s cabin, to the care he showed when deciding where to hang the cowboy hat ornament, I decide the photo feels true enough.

Maybe the contest can bring back some of Noah’s childhood love for the holiday. “We had a good time decorating,” I say, speaking from the heart. “And I think it shows. Everyone loves this picture. I posted it an hour or so ago, and it already has more than five hundred likes.”

Hank looks up, his gaze more serious, perhaps a little scrutinizing. “Why are you so keen on helping him with the contest?”

I freeze for a split second. I don’t want to say I’m trying to impress him or the town. That sounds so… Machiavellian.