Once the trees were paid for and loaded up, and they’d spent about an hour looking through the shops and sipping hot chocolate—which wasn’t nearly as good as Delaney’s—Reid opened the passenger side door for Melody, and she climbed into the cab of his truck, thankful for the running board.He closed the door and went around to make sure Michael was buckled in. While she hated using her credit card, she’d had no choice since she hadn’t planned on purchasing a tree that day, and she was thankful she’d slipped it into her back pocket, along with her ID before she left home, just in case of an emergency.Reid shut Michael’s door and checked the trees one more time before he slipped in beside her. The truck was already running, and she could feel some life coming back into her toes and fingers as he put on his seatbelt and asked if they were ready to go. Melody nodded and glanced over at

“Reid is so cute!” Sarah whispered, taking another step closer to Melody.Looking over her shoulder to make sure Michael wasn’t paying attention, Melody’s eyes became darts. “Mother! Shhh!” she insisted. “Michael can hear you, you know.”“Oh, he’s not listening. Besides, he’d probably just assume I was talking about him. And he is a cutie, too. But that’s not who I was talking about.” Her voice went up at the end, and Melody crossed her arms again to keep from shaking her.“Mom! We are just friends,” Melody reminded her, trying to keep her voice even.“We’ll see,” Sarah said, a little twinkle in her eye. “I’m going to go check on the cookies.”Melody shook her head, reminding herself she should have known better than to bring Reid home with her just yet, espec

Lunch was full of polite conversation. Mrs. Gregory asked if she had enjoyed her time at the Christmas tree farm, and Michael had told them all about the snowball fight, the caramel apples, and how Miss Melody had picked out a tiny tree for her big house, which kept everyone laughing, especially his friend, Hailey. Melody tried to focus on her lunch and stay attentive to what Michael was saying since he was the only reason she was still there. It was difficult to keep her mind from wandering. She should be sitting with her parents, not these people. Most of them were hardly even acquaintances, though she had known Mrs. Gregory her entire life.Sarah was sitting at a table on the other side of the room with some friends from her Bible study group. Melody knew most of the women’s names, but she didn’t know the two gentlemen, though she thought one of them was the husband of Sarah’s friend, Ann. The man sitting right next to her mother had

The inside of Reid's house was just as impressive as the outside, and Melody couldn’t help but be awestruck at the new cherry wood floor and the refinished fireplace. “This place looks amazing,” she said as Reid followed her inside and closed the door behind them.“Thanks,” he said. “We’ve finished most of the downstairs, but the upstairs has a long way to go.”“My friend Olivia lived here when we were in high school. Have you met her? She still lives in town.” He shook his head, and she continued. “Anyway, the house looked much different then. I don’t think her parents knew much about taking care of old houses.”“Well, whoever lived here before us didn’t do a whole lot of repairs,” Reid agreed. “But the bones were still good, so most of what I’ve done is cosmetic.”“New floors, new

Reid took Melody's coat off of the hook and held it open so she could slip inside. His fingertips lightly brushed her shoulders, and despite the fact that she was fairly certain he was upset about the conversation she’d had with Michael earlier, she still felt tingles at his touch. He pulled the front door open, and she went through, thankful it wasn’t as cold as it had been recently.“Thanks for everything you did for Michael today,” Reid said as he walked with her across the porch and into the yard. “It really meant a lot to him.”“Thanks for asking me to stay,” she said, pulling her keys out of her coat pocket. “It was a lot of fun.”“It really was,” he agreed. “I think I might be vacuuming up tinsel for the next three months.”Melody giggled. “I think I might be finding it in my hair for the next three months