Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
The car door slams and footsteps follow. I’m adjusting the trees when I yell out, “Have a look around and let me know when you find the tree you want.”
“Hi, Eve.”
His voice still gives me shivers, even though it should make me feel nothing but rage. I lean away from the tree I’m holding to find Zane standing there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He looks nothing like the Zane I fell in love with many moons ago.
Much to my chagrin, he looks better. Hotter. More handsome. He’s grown, physically matured, and filled out. Zane wears his dark hair short on the sides and a little longer on top. It’s not that much different from when we were together, but something I notice easily.
He’s paired his favorite cable-knit sweater with his jeans, and I’m glad that part of him hasn’t changed.
I open my mouth to say something, but words fail me. For years, I used to run through a monologue of things I would say to Zane if I ever saw him again. It would be nice if those words would come to me now, so I could say them.
Yet, there is nothing.
“It’s good to see you,” Zane says with a tilt of his head.
“What are you doing here?” My question is barely above a whisper.
By the look on his face, he understands the underlying message of my question. “Reindeer Ridge Farm is the best place to get a tree, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You know what I mean.”
Another door slams shut, pulling me from this stupor. I don’t bother to look at Zane. I can’t. Having him here now is doing a number on my nervous system. Not to mention my tongue feels thick. I have anger boiling in my blood. And my damn palms are sweaty like they did when I had a crush on him back when I was in middle.
I step around him and stop in my tracks when a woman comes near. She’s wearing high heels to buy a damn tree. Not only the shoes, but a damn pencil skirt.
Freaking city people.
“Welcome. Have a look around. Let me know if you find something you like.”
“Babe, did you find out?”
I turn slowly as she makes her way toward Zane. Only, he’s not watching her. He’s watching me. I shake my head and start to turn toward the shack, but not before I see her stumble and fall. His whatever she is, screeches as she hits the mud-covered ground.
SIX
ZANE
Yesterday, when my dad casually mentioned Evangeline, I knew I’d end up at Reindeer Ridge Farm. I hadn’t even set out to bring Caryn here. In fact, I planned to avoid this place at all costs. Yet, as I started driving and Caryn mentioned something about shopping, it was like my mind immediately turned my SUV in the direction of the Christmas tree farm nestled between two covered bridges.
I don’t know why I didn’t think about the consequences of seeing Evangeline again. Not only to her, and how I left things, but to me as well. Leaving her was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, and at night when I can’t sleep, I grapple with what I did to her.
And what I’d done to us.
I promised her I’d be home every Thursday and didn’t even make it the first week without breaking my promise. Same with the second and so on. After a month, she stopped taking my calls, packed my shit and took it back to my dad’s. And then she did the ultimate kiss off and changed her number. The day I called her expecting to get her voicemail, I got nothing. My calls failed and my text messages went from blue to green.
Not letting this deter me, I went to our apartment in Boston and waited outside for her to come home. Hours later, I finally knocked on the door, only to have a guy answer.
“No one by that name lives here,” he told me.
“How long have you lived here?”
“A couple of weeks.”
Evangeline had moved. She left the apartment we had fallen in love with because of my actions. There wasn’t anything I could do. I had no idea where she went, and I knew her parents weren’t going to tell me. I took my sorry ass back to New York City, asked Mr. Bamford if he had any pull to transfer my last class to Columbia—he did—and I buckled down, working my tail off to get a job offer from him.
The times I spoke to my dad it was clear he was angry at me for what I had done. I didn’t blame him. I deserved it. After a while, I would call once a month, then once every couple of months. He never asked about graduation and genuinely didn’t seem to care. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t true, that I wore rose-colored glasses because Mr. Bamford took me under his wing and showed a small-town kid exactly what the big city offered.