The Douglas Fir (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Scott measured himself against the eight-foot tree that we’d just heaved out of its hole. His hair had grown in the time since he’d last been here, and now it had caught in the fir’s bristles. “Where’s Noah?” he asked as he tugged his curls free.

“L
ast-minute Christmas shopping. So,” I said, widening the hole with a shovel and roughening up the sides so the roots would take, “we really need to get our butts moving.”

Scott
shrugged, and it wasn’t the first time I’d wished Mr. Cole were here helping instead. Especially since I was transplanting without the pot today. But Mr. Cole had decided to play the romance card and surprise Lila in Australia, which left me with this eight-and-a-half-foot Douglas Fir, and a five-foot pain-in-the-arse. “Bring me those two sacks over there,” I said, pointing to them. One was full, the other empty.

With slow, lethargic steps, he moved the ten paces to where I’d stacked all the gear. With an exaggerated grunt, he dragged the sacks over. Tool stirred out of his slumber as one of the sacks slipped over his paws. He stretched and
scooted alongside Scott.

“Now, hold open the empty one.” He drew open the drawstring and held the burlap sack open. I shoveled some of the soil from the hole into it. “Now the compost.”

Scott yawned one of those horribly-bored yawns.

“Sometimes magic is just plain old hard work,” I said, and rested my shovel in the hole. Reaching over, I yanked open the compost
and poured some into the hole.

Tool came around to my side, and his wagging tail thumped against the back of my knee. “Yeah,
you
’re a good boy,” I said to him.

Scott
poked out his tongue and rolled his eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“There’s here and there’s
here
. Now, help me to gently unwrap the tarp around the new fir.”

At least he did that without complaining, and after I carefully set the root mass into the hole, he helped tell me when I had it straight. “Bit to the left. Right. No, that was too much. Left
 . . . left . . . ah, there. Just right. No, not
move
it right, it
is
right. Go left. Stop! There, perfect.”

After that, he packed the composted soil mixture around the root mass as per my instructions. “Nice and firm. That’s great
. And can you move a little faster?” My arms shook, holding up the large fir and keeping it exactly straight—

Scott
yelled, “Ah, mother of shite!”

What the
heck? Peering through the fir leaves, I caught sight of a large garden spider crawling out of the dirt hole. By the time I yelled to Scott that it was harmless, he was halfway across the yard, pressed against the wooden fence like he was trying to be sucked into it. Beside him, fir leaves from the old Douglas snatched at his hair.

“I did not sign
up for th-th-that,” he whimpered.

“Look,” I said, stuck where I was holding the new fir. This was the
second-to-last transplant. I’d gotten through a year of sneaking into Noah’s garden and replanting firs—I couldn’t mess it up now. And certainly not because of a harmless spider the size of a golf ball. “It’s all right. Besides, the spider’s halfway across the yard by now. Come back and put the rest of that soil in. Once that’s done, I can take over.”

But my brother just shook his head sharply. “It has
eight
legs. It’s just not natural.”

“Yes, but think about it from the spider’s point of view. It’s the one that should be scared. You’re a giant. One lift of your foot and you could stomp it.”

“But it’s so much faster. It’d just swing up my leg and start climbing.” He shuddered.

Trying to reason with him obviously wasn’t going to work, and time was ticking. It must have been over an hour since Noah had left to go shopping. What if he found everything he needed in one store and was done?

“I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

Scott
stirred, but didn’t leave the safety of the fence. Tool bounded over to him and sniffed him. It was enough to pry my brother off the fence. He bit his lip, looking from me to where the spider had been.

Jeez
, my arms were killing me now. Not so much from the weight, but the awkward position I was in to hold it in place. “Thirty, then,” I grunted.

My brother was nothing if not an opportunist. He sidled closer, still cautious, but tempted. “Fifty,” he said. “So I can buy a new cage for Dusky
when you
finally
get him for me.”

“
Fifty? Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Forty.”

“Fifty. Or magic won’t grow
on this tree, either.”

He drove a hard bargain, but he he
ld all the cards. “All right, gremlin—”

“Not a gremmy any more.”

I growled.

“All right,” he said, inching closer until he was at the compost soil. Using the shovel, he tossed more in, and then used his foot to compress it.

“Am I still straight?” I asked Scott as he took in the fir.

He laughed. “Were you ever?”

“I meant the tree.”

“Sure is erect.”

If I could have tossed something at him, I would have.

“Yeah, it’s straight,” he said.

I slowly released my hold on the tree. Yeah, it looked pretty good. Great, actually.

We filled the remaining space with more soil, saturated the area with water, and added
still more soil. “Now for the bark.”

Tool barked.

“Not that type of bark.”

Scott
gathered the bark we’d removed from around the old fir earlier. He scattered it around the base of the tree.

I was adding a few spades of fresh bark, when—

Woof! Rwoof! Woof!

Tool bumped against my leg
as he raced toward the house.
Woof!

In the distance, I heard the sound of a car door slamming shut. Then
, faintly, Noah’s voice calling for Tool.

And then a second voice. Dave’s.

Scott and I looked at each other. For a boy who’d claimed transplanting trees was boring, he sure looked alert and interested now.

“Shite,” I muttered, grabbing my tools and stuffing the smaller ones in the duffel. I needed a plan to get us, the fir, and the tools the
heck out of there. And right now.

Tool’s bark grew more distant, as if he were leading Noah away from the back of the yard. How did the dog know he needed to stall Noah for time? If this worked, if we managed to somehow disappear from the scene without getting caught, I’d buy him a juicy bone.

So how to get out . . . how to—

The fence.

It was high, and it backed onto the neighbor’s yard. This could go all kinds of wrong, but it was the only option I could think of other than burrowing our way out. And there was no time for that.

In true brother fashion, Scott took one look at me and read my mind. He grabbed my shovel, snuck up to the fence and dropped it over. It made a soft thudding sound as it landed. I hoisted up the duffel bag, and swung it over, wincing as I dropped it. The tools cl
anged as they hit the spade.

Woof! Rwoof!
Did Tool’s bark sound louder now? Was he warning us to hurry the heck up?

As quickly and carefully as I could, I laid the old fir tree down and mimed for Scott to grab the top end. On a silent
“three” we lifted it up. Soil spilled out of the pot and over my face as we lifted it higher. Pressing the pot against the fence, I rolled it over the top.

It hurt to let go, but it had to be done. It thudded to the ground
; the plastic of the pot sounded like it’d cracked, and there was a distinct snap.

Please only be a minor branch.

I locked my fingers together for a step, and Scott gracefully flung himself over the fence. He chuckled like he was having the time of his bloody life.

“Move the fir out the way,” I said. “I’m coming over.”

“Yeah,” Scott whispered, “you might want to do that quickly. One of the neighbors just opened the back door.”

Tool barked; he was even closer now. Perhaps around the side of the house. With a quick glance back, I made sure we’d left no evidence—

Shite. The burlap sacks.

Woof! Woof!

I dashed over to where they were hidden behind the fir and yanked them up. With no time left, I swung the sacks around twice and flung them high into an arch and over the fence.

“What’s all this ruckus?” Noah’s voice, and he had to be rounding to the back of the house now.

Dave doggy-talked, “What’re you on about, eh?”

I eyed the massive fence,
glanced toward their voices, took a running start and vaulted over.

Air whooshed out of my lungs as I hit the other side; half of me landing on the tip of the fir and half sprawled over a muddy patch of grass. The mud slurped as I unstuck myself.

Scott was silently laughing, his body shaking with the effort not to let it all out. “Just you wait until you grow up,” I murmured as I slung the strap of the duffel bag over my shoulders. “See what crazy shite you get up to.” I grabbed the heavy end of the fir.

Over the fence, Noah let out a sigh.

And then Dave spoke. It surprised me to hear the next words coming from him, and I gave myself over to the warm smile building up inside. “Is that right? Is that right? Well, I see nothing here but magic, boy.”

It was all worth it
.

Every drop of sweat and rain and adrenalin surges. This was what it was for.

I’d thought Noah would be the one to say it, but . . .

This was even better than I could have imagined. Noah saw it for the magic it seemed, but
Dave . . . he had seen how it was done. He’d known I came here every week, and never said anything to Noah. He’d seen the through the trick,
and he still called it magic.

Heat built up behind my eyes
, and my throat was so raw that not even swallowing helped. I was exhausted and tired, and I just wanted to shuffle back against the fence and sleep, comforted by those words.

Scott
took the light end of the fir and, ducking my face toward my chest, I steered us and the fir through the neighbor’s yard and back home.

Chapter
Fourteen

A gentle breeze pushed at my back as I hauled the final nine-foot fir down the side of his house. The dark night shed a spectrum of blues across the garden, save for the candle-yellow of the
back room, where he paced, one hand holding the phone to his ear.

Pausing
in the middle of the backyard, I searched for a place to put it. I settled on the spot where there was once discussion of a dog kennel, and then looked back at the house. At
Dave
.

He said something, and after a moment, the curves of his cheeks lifted as he laughed.

I wanted to be closer. To see that smile better.

I jogged up to the back door and knocked.

Dave’s steps creaked, and he barely had the door open when I squeezed in. He took me in with that calculating gaze of his, and then I really got to see that smile.

I didn’t study it long.

I pushed him back against the wall and kissed him.

His hair was still damp from a recent shower, and it tickled where it touched my forehead.

“Um,
Mum
, something’s come up,” he said into the phone and scowled at me. But when I made to give him his space, his free hand clutched the back of my head and kept me there. “Christmas. Yeah,”—he looked at me—“seems it came an hour early.”

He disconnected and dropped the landline phone. It clattered against the floor, possibly broke
n, but Dave didn’t give a damn.

He drew me flush against him and kissed me again. The kiss grew deeper, and deeper still, until we’d practically melted into each other, gently grinding as our tongues twisted.

With a groan, Dave pulled out of the kiss. “What?” he stammered, “I mean . . . and where’s your brother?”

I touched his bottom lip an
d traced it. “Scott’s with Noah. He’s convincing him of my plan to adopt Dusky on his behalf.”

“And?”

“When I left, he was coming around.”

“And
this
?” He motioned between us.

Instead of answering, I took his smooth hand and linked it with mine. Pulling him out into the garden, I stopped at the last fir.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed. Shaking his head, he tried to tug free of my grip. “I can’t help you transplant that.”

I kept our fingers locked together, and brought him closer to me. I squeezed his hand tightly. “I’m not going to. It’s done, Dave.
Noah loves his gift; he’s stringing up lights on it with Scott right now. But this last one . . . it’s not meant to be transplanted. It never was. It’s right were it needs to be. I told that to Noah too. ”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said softly, “all this time, I thought I was making the magic happen for someone else.” I stared at the very tip of the fir that, from here, seemed to touch the moon. “I told it truths.” I turned to him, taking in his uncertainty and hope as he heard me out. “That was the game, reverse Pinocchio: tell the fir a truth and it would grow.” I stepped closer to Dave so that I was looking directly at him. I squeezed his hand again. “Many truths I told before her this year, including some about wishing you weren’t head-over-heels for Noah, and maybe one wishing you’d just disappear.”

Dave tried in earnest to pull back then. But I slipped an arm around him and kissed him until I felt his body surrender, collapsing agains
t mine as if it belonged there.

“I’d take the last one back if I could.”

He raised an eyebrow.
Really?

I smiled. “
See, it wasn’t just me working magic; the tree had been working it on me too. Just like the Douglas Fir, something has been growing in me bit by bit every day, so gradually that I didn’t realize it was happening, until suddenly I’m standing before the last-and-final fir marveling about how much . . . how much . . .”

“It’d grown?”

I shook my head. “How much I wanted to see you again. About how
desperately
I wanted to see you again. And then I was admitting so much more. Like that I wanted to kiss you, and tell you just how
much
I wanted to kiss you and have you kiss me back—”

Dave’s hand let go of mine, and before I could wonder why, his arms were around my waist, pushing at the edge of my T-shirt. He dragged his fingers over my skin to my chest.

My gasp was soft, and he whispered against my ear, “Those are some beautiful truths. I prefer them to your earlier ones, anyway.”

He pulled off my shirt and his fingers danced over the fine chest hairs to my nipples. Blood rushed to my groin, and Dave kissed me again, bringing his hard length against mine. I could feel his urge to rub against me, but he held himself back. “Jase?”

God, hearing him say my name so softly, wantonly—I ran my fingers through his hair, pushing it back. “Yeah?”

“Is it too soon if
 . . . I mean, there are a few other truths I wouldn’t mind sharing with you.”

I nipped at his ear
, and he moaned. “Yes, I won’t lie, that’s one of them. Along with this.” He straightened, then after a glance at the fir, steadied his gaze on mine. “I’ve liked you for a while now. I’ve felt it since the moment I saw you that night against the house, holding the fir. And ever since then, I haven’t”—he swallowed—“I haven’t been able to stop it. Every time I saw you . . . Those swimming lessons were torture. I wanted so badly to touch you.”

Those presses against my shoulder suddenly took on a new weight
.

Dave
whispered, and those come-hither hazel eyes robbed me of breath. “Can I touch you now, Jase?”

I
spoke in his ear and he nodded.

With a
last farewell look to the fir, we moved inside—

Before I knew it, we were a
gainst his bedroom door, my shoes, socks and shirt already robbed from me. I rubbed against him as we kissed, and then slowly peeled away. I’d whispered to him in the yard that I wanted us to touch each other all over too; that I wanted it to be in the last few moments of the night, coming into Christmas day.

Dave’s lust-filled gaze ran down the length of me, and it took everything I had to resist slamming our bodies together and making love to him right there.

“You touch me like you do plants in the garden: firmly, with a confident hand.” He nipped my ear. “I like it.”

He tugged off his T-shirt and hooked his thumbs into his shorts; drawing them down, he revealed his hard, silky length that bobbed and beckoned for me to take it, kiss it deeply into me
.

He kicked his clothes across the hall and provocatively turned his back to me and slowly opened the
bedroom door.

The curve of his arse was smooth and seemed to
call me close. Closer. So close that I’d sink myself into him and make us one—

I dropped to my knees, grabbed his hips and hauled him back a step. A laugh lurched out of him as I kissed his arse. He smelled of soap and something almondy.

“We’ll never make it into Christmas if you keep that up.” There was a teasing lilt in his voice, but also something . . . challenging.

He always did
bring out the competitiveness in me. Well, this was one count I’d win.

I slid two thumbs down his crease, opening him slightly. With my lips, I ran down his smooth skin, stopping to French kiss him where he’d squirm. Take that, Mr. Perfect Nice Guy!

“Holy mother of Christmas!”

I laughed, and drawing on any will power
I had left, I pulled myself away from him and stood. “Just let me freshen up.”

Breathless, I slunk to the bathroom opposite and cleaned my mouth, because one thing was for sure, I planned on kissing him a heck of a lot more tonight.

The feeling of Dave’s lips, lightly brushing over the skin on my neck, made me dizzy. But it was his next words that made my stomach drop with that queasy love-sick feeling. “I can’t wait to make our own magic.”

I turned my head over my shoulder and kissed his lips.

Skating a hand down his arm, I tangled our fingers together and let him pull me into his bedroom. We stood with the tips of our big toes touching. Moonlight streamed through the partially opened windows, kissing Dave’s hair and one side of his face, and a light breeze washed over my skin. Goosebumps prickled down my arms and legs, and a surge of blood went right to my crotch as I beheld this gorgeous man naked before me.

Dave kissed me hard, thrusting his tongue with passion as he worked my buttons and yanked down my shorts.

Our naked bodies came together in a cool clash that quickly warmed. His hands roamed over my back, digging into my skin, calling me closer.

I nudged
him toward the large bed. He didn’t want to let me go, even for a moment, and we tumbled down with a hefty slamming of our bodies. Dave gasped at the cool blankets under his back, but stilled me with firm hands when I tried to roll us over. “No, I like your weight on me.”

A breeze caressed my skin, over my back, arse and thighs. It made the heat between us seem to sizzle. I found both his hands and pinned them down
, stapling his fingers to the bed with mine, and thrust. My cock glossed through sweat at the snug groove between his crotch and thigh. We both gasped and thrust again.

I liked this; if I could, I’d have done it until morning, but the heat and friction grew, and Dave’s grip tightened on my arse with each buck.

He grunted. “Please. Let me . . .?”

I kissed down over his stomach, pulling myself up until I was kneeling on the edge of the bed. The alarm clock at the side of his bed glowed satisfying numbers
.

Twenty minutes to midnight. I kissed him and let him slither out from under me to grab the necessary items from his side table. My gaze swept over every inch of him. “You’re beautiful,” I said as he dropped a condom and lube to the bedspread.

He yanked me closer, his legs coming around either side of mine, and tore open the condom packet. “I want you to fill me up, Jase,” he said as he slid the condom onto my throbbing cock. A dollop of lube came next and he lathered it over me. “And do you want to hear another truth for the evening?”

I peeled his hand off me and gently pushed him down, my fingers teasing at his nipples. “What’s that?” I asked.

He lifted his head, just enough to bite my bottom lip. “I want you to
fuck
me into Christmas.”

The next few moments were a blur
; I was blinded by the surging need to give him exactly what he wanted. There was the cold wetness of lube and fingers stretching Dave open, and then my cock was inching into him. His arse welcomed me with a tight grip and tugged at me to come all the way in.

I moaned and bent to kiss Dave deep. His hands pulled my hips until I sank fully into him. A small groan left him and he raised his hips, asking me to move.

I drew back and gently snapped forward. And then again, and again. Sensation guided me, and I fucked him deeper and deeper, and when he asked for it, faster too.

Dave grabbed himself, and I shifted positions, drawing his hand away. Taking his thick, hard length, I stroked. His gaze focused on mine, deep with lust, but the curve of his lips hinted at love.

Unable to hold back, I grunted Dave’s name as my orgasm reached a peak and I shot, surging forward with the force of it. Dave muttered something indecipherable that ended with a grunt. His cock pulsed in my hand and come spilled between us.

It was nothing less than magical. I sought Dave’s curled lips and planted the softest kiss on them. His eyes crinkled with a smile at the sides. “I’m going to want to do that oh-so-many more times.”

I laughed, and slowly moved off him, disposing of the condom in a wastebasket.

Dave wiped himself clean, then rolled onto his front and clutched the bedspread. I crawled over and straddled him, working at his knots until his breathing came steady and sleepy
.

I worked my way
down, massaging his body. When I finished at his feet, I looked over him and let out a soft laugh.

In the moonlight tunneling into the room, Dave’s arse
 . . . well, it glowed.

I shook my head, and kissed the golden curve. Then settled beside him and kissed his brow. “Merry Christmas, Dave.”

He hummed and opened his eyes. “To many more Christmases together, Jase.”

~
MERRY CHRISTMAS ~