Stand and Defend (Lakes Hockey Series Book 4)

Barrett was right. The Christmas idea was perfect. I’ve never seen her so excited. This morning, she woke up to find her name on a stocking, filled with her favorite candy. Chicken Salad got one full of treats. I ordered Christmas lights and a variety of ornaments so she could decorate the tree we’re on our way to chop down.

We pull up to the private property midmorning, the fresh snow is sparkling. There’s a construction crew on-site, so we park behind one of the trucks. Shit, I wasn’t prepared for anyone to be here. Jordan looks around.

“What are we doing?” she asks.

“Wait here a sec.”

I hop out of my truck and find the foreman. One awkward conversation, a few hundreds, and eight autographs later, I return to Jordan, who’s now standing outside of the truck, her eyebrows knitted together. She holds up her arms in a what-the-fuck gesture.

My hand feels around the truck bed until it lands on a handsaw. “You always wanted to cut down your own tree. So that’s what we’re doing.” I point the saw toward Sully’s future front yard, with those perfectly shaped trees he loves so much, and wave it around. “Any tree you want, Sunshine.”

“Do I even want to know whose house—oh God, please don’t tell me this is Sully’s new lake lot. We’re not stealing a tree, are we?”

I glance around the property and mutter under my breath, “Not the whole tree, just the part that sticks out of the ground⁠—”

“Cam! That’s his landscaping!”

“Jordan! That’s why it’s funny!” I say, imitating her.

She tries to keep a straight face but loses her battle with laughter.

I cup her rosy cheeks and kiss her. “You have your heists and I have mine.”

She stares at me for a few long seconds, but eventually, her mouth tips up and she shakes her head. I step away so she can survey the property. “Any tree?”

“Yup. Might I be so bold to recommend ones with curbside appeal?”

She purses her lips and tears her eyes away from me as she walks around, and I grin, pleased that she’s going along with my scheme. She circles the nice trees in front, carefully inspecting each one. Something catches her eye across the road, and she hurries across the dead-end street.

I follow her. “The good ones are that way, babe.” I point back to the yard.

“What do you think about this one?” she asks, dusting off snow from some of the pine branches.

“That’s the one you want?” It’s an ugly fucker. Real ugly. But if this is the tree that makes her happy . . . Damn, I paid off a bunch of dudes to say the tree from the front was already gone when they showed up. But this tree? We’d be doing him a favor by taking it down.

Her boots crunch in the snow as she walks around the hideous spruce. The “tree” looks more like an overgrown shrub with all the bare spots, it’s round where it should be triangle-shaped. I wonder if she’s secretly trying to interfere with my prank, but this is Jordan. She’d probably pick an ugly tree just so its feelings aren’t hurt. I love that she’s as compassionate as she is ruthless.

“Yup. This is the one,” she says, clapping her chopper mittens together. “What should we name it?” I was right, she’s already treating it like it’s a pet.

I raise an eyebrow. “It’s a tree, Jordan.”

“It’s gotta have a name.”

Grinning, I tilt my head to the side. “Chris Smith.”

She chuckles, and I drop down to my shoulder, shuffling under the lowest sappy-as-fuck branch with the handsaw, no doubt ruining my wool coat. “Next year, we’re going to buy a precut tree.”

“Never gonna happen,” she says with confidence.

Squinting, I saw away at the trunk, trying to keep from getting any falling pine needles in my eyes. Can’t believe this is the one we’re walking away with. It doesn’t take long before I slice through, the thing is barely three inches thick. I shove out from under it as the tree topples away from me. When I stand, she brushes off the needles and bits of bark from my coat.

“Thank you,” she says with a big smile.

“Whatever the queen wants, the queen gets.” I sigh.

I lift the trunk with one hand and drag the tree behind us back to the truck, a few workers stop hammering to look up at us, and laugh.

“How are we going to decorate it?”

“Everything’s at home already. Although, the branches might be too weak for some of them.”

“We can do the balls, those are light.”

“If you play your cards right, you might do more than the balls tonight.” I waggle my eyebrows, and she nudges me with her shoulder.

“You keep those puns up and I’ll roast your nuts over an open fire.”

“Oh!” I laugh, amused that she’s joining in. “That’ll put you on the naughty list.” We stop at the truck, I drop the tree, and pick her up. She wraps her legs around me. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m two seconds from fucking her in the snow, with my truck being the only thing blocking us from an audience.

“Is that a candy cane in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?” she whispers.

I grind into her. “Candy cane? More like the North Pole. You want to climb on Santa’s lap and tell him what you want?”

She laughs and kisses me. “Maybe later. Put me down.” I nip at her lower lip and let her slide down until her feet hit the ground. I wrap a mittened hand around her neck and bring her mouth to mine for a final kiss. If it weren’t for her cold nose reminding me to get her home, she’d still have her legs around me.

I toss her the keys and heave the tree into the truck bed. She races around to her side and starts the engine while I strap down the pine abomination. Once it’s finished, I wave to the guys before I climb in the driver’s side. She holds her hands out in front of the heater and looks behind us, checking the tree and smiling.

When we get back to the house, she holds the door open wide so I can haul it inside. I don’t mind the way it fills the space with the scent of evergreens. It actually smells a little like Christmas in here. It’s nice.

I turn on the fireplace. “Why don’t you go pour us a couple glasses of wine, and I’ll do this part.”

Surprisingly, I’m enjoying making it festive and cozy. It’s something I never bothered to do before, other than paying for a company to come out and string up some exterior lights so I didn’t look like the neighborhood Grinch.

“You’re going to put it up yourself?”

I jerk my head, feigning disgust. “No! I’m putting it in the living room, you sicko.”

She gawks and gives me a small shove. Hopefully, we can get this tree stuff over with so I can put something else in that open mouth. With her eyes shooting playful daggers at me, she trudges off to pour the wine, and I get the tree locked into the stand. However, I quickly learn the trunk needs to tilt to the left so the off-balanced limbs don’t cause it to tip over.

On her way back with the wine, she stops in her tracks. “Oh my God, Cam! It’s incredible!”

Incredibly hideous. I stand and admire my work. Reaching inside the tree, I grasp one of the weird, oversized limbs and rotate the tree a couple degrees—obviously joking, it’s not like this tree has a good side. I back up and she steps beside me, handing me a glass, and I hold it with the hand less covered in sap.

“Thank you.” We observe the disfigured conifer, and our heads lean to the side at the same time. From this angle, the trunk seems slightly straighter.

“Oh, Chris Smith Tree, Oh Chris Smith Tree, how homely are your branches . . .” I mumble.

She turns and clinks her glass to mine. “Cheers.”

“To our first Christmas . . . on Valentine’s Day.”

She takes a sip and smiles at me. “The first of many . . .”

“How come you wanted such an ugly tree? Don’t deny it, a tree this mangled is only chosen on purpose.”

A slow smile forms on her lips as she turns to marvel at the monstrosity like it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. “Since I’ve met you, you’ve encouraged me to question conformity and do what makes me happy. I’ve never had a tree that wasn’t professionally cut, trimmed, decorated, and themed to perfection. I wanted something with . . . character.”

She leans her head against my shoulder. It means so much to know that I’ve helped her get to this point. “Ready for lights?”

“Hell yeah,” she says, her smile growing.

I love this Jordan, she’s imperfectly perfect.

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By the end of the night, I’m fucking exhausted. We’ve crammed about three weeks of Christmas into one day. We did the whole tree thing, baked cookies while listening to holiday music, ice skated on the lake—after I shoveled the recent snowfall, the ice underneath was shit, so that didn’t last too long, and we opted for sledding instead.

We opened presents, well she opened presents, which consisted of more cliché Christmas gifts: an ugly sweater, socks, and the classic three-flavor tin of popcorn. All the candy canes are Sour Patch Kid flavored, because it’s her favorite.

For our big dinner, we had takeout—her request—and now we’re winding down, curled up watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation in what else but our coordinating Christmas PJs. I can’t stop stealing glances as she watches the movie. I could stare at this woman for days. She kicks her feet up and laughs, falling into me, and I wrap my arms around her tighter. My fingers slide through her hair like silk. I make a vow to give her this Christmas every year for the rest of our lives.