Ultimate Christmas Box PREORDER

I came home to save my family’s Christmas tree farm. I did not come home to get arrested by my ex-fiancé.

Five years ago, I left my small town of Cedar Valley. Now I'm back home because a luxury resort developer has decided that the Christmas tree farm that my late mother gave her everything for is prime real estate.

After polite phone calls and legal paperwork prove ineffective, I turn to Plan B.

Minor crimes

Nothing violent. Nothing permanent. Just a little trespassing. A little sabotage. The occasional unauthorized relocation of an inflatable Santa.

Unfortunately, the deputy tasked with handling Cedar Valley’s sudden outbreak of Christmas- related public disturbances is Cal Brooks.

My almost-husband.

The man whose heart I broke when I left town and never came back.

With Christmas closing in and Garland Pines running out of time, I'm willing to risk just about anything to save the farm. My reputation. My criminal record. Maybe even my dignity.

But my heart?

That might be the one thing I can’t afford to lose twice.

“Camera one stays on Sloane,” I said with a point of my finger, even though the livestream director already knew where camera one should stay. 

Nashville Christmas Extravaganza was the largest holiday contract my company had ever trusted me to run. If I pulled this off, I was going to get the bigger, nationwide events. Drop it, and the powers that be would stop handing me expensive things. 

On the monitor, Sloane Vale stood under the blue-white stage lights with her fiddle tucked under her chin. The first notes of “Tennessee Snowfall” carried through downtown Nashville, clean and bright, with enough pride to quiet twelve thousand people holding branded cocoa cups mid-sip. 

Five minutes earlier, the finale had been one sulking country legend away from becoming a live streamed municipal embarrassment. Roy Rivers had locked himself in his talent trailer wearing a burgundy velvet jacket, refusing to perform the headlining set. His ex-wife was in the VIP tent with Brent Haywood, his former fiddle player and former best friend, which meant my entire event now depended on a country music star’s emotional capacity to rise above. 

“Brent is reacting,” the director said. 

Of course Brent was reacting. Men like Brent Haywood were predictable. They didn’t betray their best friends, arrive in VIP with the talent’s ex-wife, and then sit stone-faced while a woman in silver boots out-performed him on his own fiddle solo. That would require humility, and Brent’s hat alone suggested that he was running deficient on that specific character trait.

I adjusted my headset. “Let him.” 

Sloane seamlessly shifted into Brent’s famous fiddle line and played it better than he ever had. All I needed was Roy to walk onstage looking generous and unbothered, then I could finally swallow my nerves.

Roy walked out on cue and the crowd erupted.

I let myself breathe. A little.

Beside me, my assistant Talia, who had been hiding her panic all evening, sighed. The cold had flushed her cheeks pink. Or maybe that was adrenaline. At this point, half of my crew was operating on caffeine and the shared hope that they would soon be able to sit down.

“I still can’t believe you pulled that off,” Talia said. She glanced toward the stage, where Roy started the first chorus with Sloane right beside him. “Most people would have just begged him to go on.”

I lifted one hand toward the stage, where Sloane started the second verse. That girl had enough charisma to make every camera operator develop a temporary crush. “I had help,” I replied.

“Help?”

“You. Sloane. Allie with backup vocals. The choir director who moved seventy children as if commanding an infantry.” I paused. “Let’s not forget whoever got Roy’s manager a seltzer before she committed a felony.”

“That was me,” she said.

“See? Essential personnel.”

Talia looked pleased for half a second before her headset crackled and her expression snapped back to work mode. She pressed one finger to her earpiece, listened, then glanced toward the sponsor tent, Black Ridge Tennessee Whiskey.

“They want official language regarding the lineup change.”

“Surprise Nashville holiday collaboration,” I said. “Community spirit. Passing the torch. No mention of Brent, divorce, or cowboy hats. Tell them, quote nothing says heritage like a fiddle and a man choosing growth on camera.”

Talia headed toward the tent, smoothing my answer into something that legal and PR could endure. I watched her go, then checked the monitor again. 

If Black Ridge wanted the feeling of having belonged somewhere for generations despite having opened just six weeks ago, I could arrange that. I was dang good at my job. 

It was just inconvenient for me that I could manufacture belonging for a room full of strangers but I had no idea what to do with the real version. My father. Cal. The farm.

Even thinking their names in the middle of an event made my chest tighten, which was exactly why I avoided thoughts of my home town of Cedar Valley, which was three hours east of Nashville.

My mother used to say I ran a mile a minute because slowing down meant somebody might catch me and hand me something else to carry. I could picture her now, standing in the small office shack of Garland Pines, our family Christmas tree farm, with a pencil tucked behind her ear and wreath wire caught on her sleeve, like she hadn’t built a whole life out of carrying things nobody else noticed.

I closed my eyes and shut thoughts of Mom back down. This wasn’t the time. 

Allie stepped into the lights and joined in with Roy in perfect harmony. The children’s choir came in during the chorus. Seventy small faces were tilted toward the crowd with their red scarves bright against the dark night. Behind them, a giant evergreen tree waited with forty feet of unlit branches wrapped with enough white lights to be visible from space. Or at least from the rooftop bar where two executives were probably deciding whether this moment justified next year’s budget.

It did. I could feel it in the crowd. Shoulders dropped to bring phones higher. People stopped talking. Even the Black Ridge rep near the barricade had one hand pressed to her chest, which meant the event had officially crossed from brand awareness into a mild spiritual experience.

The tree lit on the final chorus. Gold and white light burst through the branches. The whole street seemed to inhale. Snow fell on cue, soft and false and seemingly perfect. Cold sparks fired behind the band. The choir came in behind Roy, their voices rising under his final chorus, as he tipped his face toward the tree like this had been his idea all along. 

The crowd roared, the sponsor rep cried, and the mayor waved as if he had personally invented joy.

I stood just offstage, watching thousands of people believe in a moment I started planning a month and a half ago and rebuilt less than ten minutes earlier.

I would never admit it, but this was the best part of my job. The moment when the seam between fake and real had disappeared and the entire crowd collectively bought into a fantasy that had a generator behind it. 

Near the barricade, a little girl sat on her father’s shoulders with both mittened hands lifted toward the snow. Her hat had slipped over one eyebrow and she laughed every time the flakes landed on her gloves.

My throat tightened. My mother used to say kids didn’t know what Christmas cost. She usually said it with her hands chapped raw and a storage tub labeled ORNAMENT HOOKS tucked under one arm. 

My mother never sounded bitter. Not when she started losing weight. Not when the pain in her side made her stop and brace one hand against the counter before insisting she was fine. She kept saying she would make a doctor’s appointment after Christmas, when the crowds were gone and the farm could spare her.

But by the time Christmas at a Christmas tree farm was over, the cancer had already spread.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket, but I ignored it. Roy was holding the final note and the first rule of event production was that nothing was over until the crowd was moving safely toward the exits, the talent had been returned to their handlers, and nobody used the words small electrical fire on channel two.

The note ended and the crowd erupted.

Roy pressed one hand to his chest as he took his bow beside Sloane. Then he looked toward offstage before he pointed at me.

No. Absolutely not.

“Poppy Garland,” he said into the microphone, warm, theatrical, and just petty enough that I knew exactly what he was doing. “Y’all give her some love. She saved Christmas tonight.”

Twelve thousand heads turned.

I shook my head once, hard.

Roy smiled wider and started walking toward me.

Talia appeared at my elbow and gave me a small shove. “Go before he starts improvising.”

Needing somewhere for my nervous energy to go, I lifted one hand in a gesture I hoped appeared as gracious but dismissive and not please let a sinkhole open beneath me.

Roy grabbed my hand and pulled me to center stage. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. He smelled like stage makeup and expensive cologne. He leaned down and kissed my cheek.

The crowd cheered again but I stiffened. I knew who that kiss was for. His ex-wife had a front-row seat along with Brent and his stupid hat.

I smiled because I was on camera and because murder was bad for sponsor retention.

Roy murmured near my ear, “I owe you.”

“I will cash in on that,” I said through my forced smile.

He laughed like I had said something charming instead of something ominous. When I was no longer needed, I lifted my hand toward the audience before I took a bow and hurried off stage. I didn’t stop until I was safely down the stairs and headed toward the speaker tower, trying to make my half walk, half run appear as natural as possible. 

My phone buzzed again.

Needing a distraction, I pulled it out.

Dad.

Well, that wasn’t the kind of distraction I’d been hoping for.

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