Mistletoe and Holly (5 page)

H
OLLY WAS IN
perpetual motion in the front seat of the station wagon, too excited to sit still. Leslie had the entire back seat to herself, sitting sideways with her legs stretched over the seat and leaning against the locked, rear passenger door. The used dogsled was stowed on its side in the back, surrounded by the blanket robes so it couldn’t slide all over.

“How much farther now, Daddy?” Holly wanted to know.

They were traveling down one of the many unpaved backroads that laced the rural countryside of Vermont. A brief snowfall the night before had coated mountain, tree, and valley with a pristine
whiteness. It was a scene of picture-postcard perfection.

“It’s the next farm just up the road,” Tagg replied patiently to her oft-repeated question. He partially turned his head in Leslie’s direction without taking his eyes off the road. “Abe Bellows gave us permission to take a tree from his woods.”

“I wasn’t going to accuse you of trespassing on someone else’s property,” she responded dryly.

“Come spring, he’s going to brush-hog most of it so he can use it as a pasture for his dairy cattle,” he informed her. “Most of the smaller trees will be cleared out of the valley area when that happens.”

Leslie made no reply. She understood the reason Tagg was telling her this. He wanted her to know the tree they’d be cutting down for Christmas would be one that would be bulldozed out when the land was cleared the following spring. There was a degree of consolation in that knowledge, yet it didn’t change the fact that she found this whole business of Christmas deplorably overdone.

Slowing the station wagon, he turned it into the farm lane already snow-packed from the comings and goings of other vehicles. There was a crunch of tires in the hard snow and the metallic rattle of chains with each rotation of the wheels.

A big collie came bounding out from a red barn
to announce their arrival and escorted them past the buildings to a far gate. It continued to bark when Tagg stopped the car, but its flag of a tail waved the air in a manner that seemed more friendly than threatening. The minute Tagg opened the driver’s door, the dog was pushing its cold nose inside to have its head scratched.

“Some watchdog,” Leslie laughed.

“He told everybody we were here, didn’t ya, fella.” Tagg rubbed its ears, then gently pushed it out of the way to step outside. “You might as well stay in the car until I get things unloaded.”

“I’ll help.” Holly shot out of her side, certain her father wasn’t talking to her.

Unless someone opened the rear door by her feet, Leslie had very little choice but to stay in the car. It wouldn’t do any good to open the door she was leaning against because she couldn’t possibly swing her left leg with its rigid cast around—and going out backward didn’t exactly appeal to her. There wasn’t any way she could reach the other door handle without a lot of wriggling and twisting. So she resigned herself to sit and wait until they had unloaded the things from the back.

Tagg lowered the tailgate of the station wagon and pulled the sled out. Holly was so busy playing with the brown and white collie that she forgot she
had volunteered to help. Righting the sled, Tagg set it on its runners and tossed the fur robes onto it. Only two items remained in the back, an axe with its blade encased in a leather pocket and a leather rifle case. When he started to remove both, Leslie frowned in confusion.

“Why are you taking the rifle?” she asked, then arched a dryly mocking eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re going to shoot the tree before you chop it down.”

“No,” he chuckled, his warm breath turning into a vaporous cloud when it came in contact with the cold air. “I thought we might see some mistletoe while we’re out.”

“And you’re going to shoot it?” That didn’t make any more sense than her first question.

“Yes.” His smile widened at the absolute confusion that took over her expression. “It’s a parasitic plant that you usually see growing in the tops of other trees. There’s only two ways to get it. You can either climb the tree or shoot the mistletoe out of it.”

“You’d have to be a pretty good shot,” Leslie declared.

“So I’ve heard,” he replied with a deepening smile.

It was a crazy combination of arrogance and modesty. She laughed softly, in spite of herself. Tagg shut up the rear of the wagon and pushed the
dogsled around the car to the fence gate. It was already standing open, so he took the sled on into the thickly wooded field.

Without the car’s heater running, Leslie was beginning to feel the nipping cold of the winter afternoon. She lowered her chin so the wool scarf around her neck would cover more of her face and partly warm the air she breathed. Tagg was doing something to the sled, but she couldn’t see too well since Holly and the frolicking dog had joined him. She glanced upward at the pearl gray sky overhead. It seemed to blend with the white snowscape that surrounded them.

When she heard footsteps approaching the station wagon, she pulled her gaze down. As Tagg walked back to the car, he pulled a ski cap out of his jacket pocket and covered his dark head with it. She reached down to pick up her crutches that were lying on the floor, then noticed Tagg was coming to the wrong side.

“Open the other door.” She motioned to the one closest to her feet, but he gave no sign that he heard her. Half-turning, she rolled down the car window to repeat it. He reached through the opening and pulled the door lock. “Not this door,” Leslie protested, but it was already swinging open behind her.

“You aren’t going to need those crutches,” Tagg
advised her and hooked an arm around the front of her waist.

“What are you doing?” She almost panicked when he began dragging her backward out of the car, but she had already guessed his intentions before he slipped a supporting arm under her legs. “You can’t carry me—not with this heavy cast.”

Instinctively she wrapped an arm around his neck to hold on and gripped at the ridge of his shoulder with her other hand, afraid he might suddenly drop her. When he had her free of both the car seat and the door, he straightened and threw her a little higher in his arms to get a firmer hold. Her heart seemed to catapault into her throat. He turned his face to her, his blue eyes lazy with amusement.

“I tell you what. If it looks like I’m going to drop you, I’ll make sure you land in a soft snowdrift. How’s that?” he mocked.

She was so close to him that she caught the lingering scent of the tangy aftershave lotion on his smoothly shaven jaw. The cold temperature had already begun to stiffen his mouth, limiting the movement of his lips as they formed the words. It was difficult to keep her gaze from straying to his mouth, only disturbing inches away from hers. Leslie tried to concentrate on what he said and stop this purely sexual attraction from holding sway with
her. But it wasn’t easy with the warmth of his breath trailing over her skin.

“You’d better make sure it’s a soft snowdrift. One broken leg is bad enough.” Her voice was husky with the inner disturbance of his nearness.

“I promise.” He started toward the sled, carrying her in his arms with her left leg sticking rigidly and awkwardly in the air.

Although Tagg carried her with seeming ease, Leslie noticed the muscles standing out in his neck, which proved it was requiring no little effort. When he reached the sled, he dropped down on one knee and carefully set her on the furry robe draped over the sled and its backrest. The second robe he took and covered her with it, tucking in the sides.

His breath was coming quicker after the exertion of carrying her, but Leslie didn’t think he was actually puffing. “Just think.” This time, she was the one who had a mocking gleam in her eye. “Now you get to pull me.”

“You aren’t exactly a lightweight, are you?” An eyebrow lifted in laughing, good humor.

“Can I ride in the sled, too, Daddy?” Holly requested eagerly.

He paused, resting an arm on his bent knee, looked at his daughter, and mildly shook his head in a gesture of defeat. “You can ride for a little while,” he agreed.

“Oh, goodie!” She clapped her hands together in excitement and jumped up and down. The dog began barking, certain this was some new game.

Tagg picked her up. “You have to be careful of Leslie’s leg,” he warned as he set her toward the front of the sled. “And you have to sit still. No bouncing around or you might overturn the sled. We didn’t ask Leslie to come with us just to get hurt. Agreed?”

“Yes, Daddy.” She sat primly still, mischief darting out of her blue eyes.

“If she gives you any trouble—” Tagg glanced at Leslie, “—just boot her into the snow.”

“I will.” Leslie snuggled deeper under the warm robe, burying her cold nose in the soft fur, and watched Tagg move to the front of the sled.

He’d rigged up some kind of a shoulder and chest harness to pull the sled. After he had shrugged into it, he adjusted the straps over the thickness of his wool coat. The collie sat forlornly beside the sled, whining at Holly and brushing at the snow with its tail.

“Can the dog ride in the sled, too, Daddy?” Holly couldn’t resist the appeal of the dog’s brown eyes.

“No. He’s got four legs. He can run beside it.” Tagg was definite in his refusal to haul another able-bodied passenger. As he leaned into the harness,
the sled’s runner glided cleanly through the few inches of new snow.

“Mush! Mush!” Holly ordered loudly and immediately began giggling. Leslie laughed, too, but she made sure hers was muffled by the robe.

“I’ll ‘mush’ you,” Tagg threatened, but there was a smile in his voice.

The ground fell away from the fence gate in a gentle, downward slope. It was relatively easy pulling the first forty yards until the land leveled out and became densely populated with trees. Then it became more of a trick maneuvering around them and finding a fairly straight path through them. The collie trotted alongside, sometimes dashing off to chase a squirrel or a rabbit, but always coming back.

The novelty of riding in the sled quickly wore off for Holly. The dog seemed to be having more fun than she was. “I wanta walk, Daddy. Stop the sled.”

He halted so she could climb off, his breath running out in large white puffs. “Watch her leg,” he warned Holly again, but she scrambled off the right side to avoid bumping Leslie’s cast. His gaze lingered on Leslie, buried under the robe until only her eyes and part of her nose were showing. “Are you warm?”

“Yes.” She nodded, in case he couldn’t hear her muffled answer.

The briskness of the cold air sharpened all her
senses while the rest of her managed to stay warm and cozy under the robes. When Tagg began trudging onward again, Leslie relaxed and enjoyed the relatively smooth ride.

A blue jay flitted from tree to tree, following them through the woods and calling raucously to warn the other creatures of the humans’ presence. There was hardly any breeze, but every now and then, its faint breath would blow at the clumps of snow on the skeletal branches of the maples and the birch and send crystalline flakes drifting downward.

Their trek was taking them down the length of a meandering and narrow valley, with mountains rising up on each side. There was a small stream running through, frozen over in places and running free in others. Sometimes they were close enough for Leslie to hear the musical tinkle of the water spilling over the rocks.

They were some distance from the fence gate when they finally reached an area where a stand of firs was growing at the base of the mountain. Tagg halted and shrugged out of the harness.

“We should be able to find a tree in that bunch,” he said to Holly and walked to the sled for his axe. As he bent down, he winked at Leslie. “Be sure to look the other way when I start chopping.”

She lowered the robe away from her mouth long
enough to say, “Are you afraid I’ll start shouting ‘Woodsman, spare that tree’?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Tagg tried to smile, but the cold had stiffened his mouth. His eyes crinkled up at the corners instead.

As Leslie watched him walk away to the stand of pines, she wondered how she could joke about something she believed in so strongly. Maybe it was just that Tagg Williams made it difficult to be angry, and stay angry.

“Let’s get this one, Daddy.” Holly picked out a tree that was at least ten feet tall.

“It’s too big. This one’s more your size.”

Their voices carried clearly across the snow. Leslie didn’t have to strain to hear them. She couldn’t see which tree Tagg had chosen, her view blocked by larger ones. It wasn’t long before she heard the biting thud of the axe blade into a tree trunk. She looked away, not really to avoid the scene that was transpiring, but to assess the area. With fewer trees, more grass would grow in the valley to provide the farmer with pastureland for his dairy herd.

There was the splintering crack of wood giving way. Leslie tried to make it an abstract sound, not wanting anything unpleasant to intrude on this outing. She was enjoying herself and she was determined to continue enjoying herself.

The dog started barking. When she looked around, she saw Tagg dragging a small tree through the snow with the dog running alongside. The leather case was covering the axe blade he carried by its wooden handle. Holly broke away and ran toward the sled.

“Do you see our tree, Leslie? It’s a pretty one, isn’t it?” she declared excitedly.

Fortunately for Leslie, Holly didn’t seem to expect a response, so she wasn’t forced into a position of pretending or offending. Tagg noticed her silence, however, as he approached the sled.

“I’m afraid the tree is going to have to ride with you. I hope you don’t mind too much,” he said.

“It’s all right.”

He tied it onto the front part of the sled with a couple lengths of twine. It was a small, well-shaped tree, about four feet tall. The resinous smell of its needles scented the air Leslie breathed, making it pungently clean.

“Hold on,” he advised her. “I’m going to turn the sled around.”

Picking up the front runners, he held them just inches off the ground and used Leslie’s weight at the back of the sled as an anchor point to make a slow pivot. With a few adjustments of the rear, he soon had the sled turned around and pointing in the direction they had come.