A Christmas for Arbor Day

By David Thurston

Save the trees, and don't fall in love!

 

Noelle Joy inherited the Balsam Valley Christmas Tree lot, while her old flame, developer Douglas Bradshaw, inherited the tree farm and plans to bulldoze. She has one week to remind him of the magic of the small town to change his mind. And heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Champagne Book Group
• Release date: Aug 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957228396

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A Christmas for Arbor Day

DAVID THURSTON

CHAMPAGNE BOOK GROUP

A Christmas for Arbor Day

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Published by Champagne Book Group

2373 NE Evergreen Avenue, Albany OR 97321 U.S.A.

~~~

First Edition 2022

eISBN: 978-1-957228-39-6

Copyright © 2022 David Thurston All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Erica Christensen

Ink Cover Designs

Champagne Book Group supports copyright which encourages creativity and diverse voices, creates a rich culture, and promotes free speech. Thank you by complying by not scanning, uploading, and distributing this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher. Your purchase of an authorized electronic edition supports the author’s rights and hard work and allows Champagne Book Group to continue to bring readers fiction at its finest.

www.champagnebooks.com

Version_1

For Melissa.

Chapter One

Eight Days before Arbor Day

Nick Holly was dead, to begin with.

Noelle Joy put away Nick’s copy of A Christmas Carol, one of his favorite books and her rare source of comfort since his passing. She stood from behind the desk in the cramped office of the tree lot and made her way to the front gate. She paused and traced over the letters of his name with her fingers as she closed up for the night. Flowers surrounded a wooden placard identifying the tree lot and farm stand. A makeshift memorial left by the residents of Nick’s town, Balsam Valley, Wisconsin. As the sun set, clouds of breath rose in the colder air of late April.

She’d run the stand for the past few years, transitioning through the seasons. Arbor Day, farm stand, pumpkin patch, Christmas tree lot and back again, the stand changed personalities. Nick had always been there, her boss and mentor through the years.

This was different. Each time the gate locked, a silent countdown ticked. What would happen to the lot without Nick? She went through the motions one day at a time. Those days became a week. Then two. She wasn’t sure how long until this would feel normal. Why should it ever?

Pocketing the keys, she turned, sensing without a look that Pete was there.

How you doing?

Better when people don’t ask me. She took a deep breath, dipped her head, then turned to face him.

He stood out for being more than one of the few black men in the overwhelmingly white Balsam Valley. If some men were mountains, he was one of the Ocooch—gentle, friendly, and rolling.

Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—

You did mean it like that. And that’s okay. It’s what I’m here for. Why don’t you get yourself some dinner and have a good night’s sleep? I can finish locking up. Tomorrow’s your day off, and you’ve more than earned it.

I was thinking I might still come in and—

Pete raised a finger to silence her.

From anyone else, she wouldn’t take it, but from him, she smiled. I was thinking tomorrow’s my day off. I’ve more than earned it. She dropped the keys into his gloved hands.

That’s what I thought. See you Saturday.

She clapped a hand onto his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Not if I see you first.

The late April cold held onto the town. Nights froze. Fresh snowfall covered berms packed from the winter’s storms. Clean powder clung to rooftops. Warmer, sunny days forced the snow from its perch. It sloughed off the eaves of the buildings along Main Street and collapsed with great crunching sighs into shattered heaps on the lawns of the town. The last ice floes on the river were a memory. The crocuses and daffodils popped their heads out from the snow in a promise that the world was warming, and summer would again come.

The town was decked out for Arbor Day in its typical echo of the Christmas festivities four months earlier. A silly tradition, but the town loved it dearly. Their fortunes were interwoven with the Christmas tree farm that surrounded Balsam Valley on three sides. Why not elevate a springtime celebration of trees to something bigger and bolder? Strings of lights provided the colors until nature was ready to take over. Cheerful strands outlined doors, circled bushes, and draped gaily from eaves to create an atmosphere far more festive than Noelle felt.

She trudged toward home. She owned a car, but her parents’ bed and breakfast was only a half mile away, and what was the point of driving on such a beautiful day? Oh sure, the wind chilled and whipped about as the sun sank below the tree line, but she’d bundled herself against the weather with her best gloves and the cashmere scarf Mom gave her for Christmas, which hugged her neck and shoulders. She clapped her hands together and rubbed her arms.

Truth was, she always preferred to be cold. It comforted her. Good thing for a Wisconsinite. She liked seeing her breath hang as a cloud in the air. The visible puff of air from her lungs was a reminder she was alive.

Balsam Valley was small enough that reminders of Nick were everywhere. She couldn’t get home without passing the two-story chalet-style house on James Avenue, painted light blue and offset by dark green eaves, had been Nick’s house. The seat at the end of the counter at the Balsam Diner, now draped with black crepe, had been his favorite seat. The forest surrounding the town had been his. The lot right on Main Street, where East First became West First, had been Nick Holly’s Tree Lot. Now, at least until Arbor Day, it was her lot. Then, who knew?

The scuttlebutt in the diner was all about the black-bordered envelopes inviting the town residents to the reading of Nick’s will. She’d given up on receiving hers. Probably for the best. Sure, she’d run the lot for the past two years off and on, but it had always been a fallback when other things didn’t work out.

There was the pet bakery, which fell apart when she learned about her dog allergy. There was the people bakery that fell apart when her supposed boyfriend and business partner ran off to Kenosha with their business plan and cake decorator.

She enjoyed her time at the lot, but she wasn’t interested in working for someone else. Not again. If she was going to continue to work there, it was going to be on her terms, her lot, her ideas.

She stopped walking and shaded her eyes as she gazed down the length of the road. Sunlight dappled through the pines west of town. The farm was the economic powerhouse of the town. The lot merely served it in its various guises for nine months a year, a dalliance, a loss leader. Thus, the question collectively whispered by the town folk was, who would get the farm?

There was Mac, who had taken over running it the same time Noelle had taken over the lot. However, it was a poorly kept secret that his husband was against him owning the place outright, and Nick wouldn’t have put Mac in that position.

When news of the envelopes first circulated, she’d briefly toyed with the notion that she might find herself bequeathed both the lot and the farm. Wouldn’t it make sense to treat the two as a unit? What good was the lot without trees, after all?

As the days passed and her invitation never came, she was disappointed this wouldn’t come to be. In her darker moments, the disappointment festered into anger.

Damn you, Nick. She wiped a tear from her eye.

She found her way into The Valley Diner as an automatic destination, not really meaning to be there.

Noelle!

Coming there was a mistake. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. She’d done little but be the town’s shoulder to cry on for two weeks running. Stiffening, she reached for her inner reserve of strength. Being the focal point for mourning in the town had become emotionally exhausting and robbed her of the private time she needed to grieve. She let everyone share their stories, absorbed them, and responded with the understand and acceptance they sought.

This storyteller was Brett, who worked behind the counter at The Diner. She listened to his story with polite nods and tried to ignore the seat next to her. Nick’s seat. The one now covered in black crepe paper. …and do you know what he said?

No. What did he say?

Brett lowered his voice and tried to give it Nick’s trademark bounce and wink. Brett my boy, my doctor says less cholesterol, so I’ll take an egg cream. Hold the yolk. He let loose a boisterous barrel laugh mixed with tears.

She smiled. That was Nick, all right. She’d run out of any other responses and slipped into her default phrase.

Then came the question she dreaded above all others. So, we’ll see you at the reading tomorrow?

Sounds like it’s going to be the social event of the season. I gotta get going or I’ll be late for dinner. Thanks for the chat and the soda.

She made her way back to the street. An April zephyr rattled the branches around her. She shoved her hands into her pockets and tried to enjoy the walk.

A figure paced the front yard of the bed and breakfast she called home. Mitch Daniels, the only clerk of the only lawyer in Balsam Valley. Once upon a time, when she was twenty-five, he was a fifteen-year-old brat working the lot for holiday cash. Now he was the twenty-five-year-old and left her wondering where that decade went.

He’d worn a path in the snow from striding back and forth, stopping only when she cleared her throat. From his pocket, he extracted an envelope, gripping it tightly in both hands until she approached and relieved him of the burden.

They’re reading Nick’s will tomorrow afternoon, Mitch said. You’ll, ah, you’ll want to be there. Sorry for the short notice—your invitation fell behind a desk. Thought I’d bring it myself.

Before she could say anything, Mitch doffed his hat and beat a hasty retreat to his car. She stood in the cold outside the bed and breakfast and stared at the letter. The loss of Nick washed over her afresh.

Chapter Two

Seven Days before Arbor Day

Douglas Bradshaw’s alarm clock buzzed him awake at five in the morning.

He slapped at it and pivoted to a seated position on the mattress’s edge. A quick run of hands through his hair, then he pushed himself out of bed and moved toward his treadmill, which was set before a giant window that took in a seventeenth story vista of Chicago, stretching from Millennium Park to Lake Michigan. He puffed through a two-mile run, the minimum he accepted from himself in the morning, and hit the shower. Cleaned, shaved, and dressed in a button-up shirt and khakis, he made his way toward a cup of coffee from the automatic pot on the counter and grabbed his phone. He sipped at the former and thumbed the latter to call his office.

Mecklin and Associates Real Estate. How may I direct your call?

Hey, Sandra, it’s me.

Douglas. Good morning. I figured you’d be on your way to the airport by now.

He picked up the black-bordered envelope. I was getting ready to leave. Were you able to run the numbers on the Langerhans estate?

He withdrew the card out and turned it over in his hands. The words hadn’t changed since the first time he’d read it, or the second, or the third.

Sandra’s voice sounded apologetic. I had a hard time running a good comp on the property. There was a similar parcel thirty miles away that sold a decade ago.

I need to know the value of the land, so I can do a quick turn if we can talk him into selling.

You wouldn’t sell it as a farm?

If Sandra had one fault, it was sentimentality. Douglas was paid good money to be a pragmatist. He considered it one of his core competencies. A farm is just land with crops on it. People are eating up small-town stuff, and the parcel is perfectly positioned for a condo development.

She slipped from a professional tone into an accusatory one. I don’t think condo development is exactly what people have in mind when they think small-town stuff.

She was one of only two people he allowed to talk back to him. Because she was usually right. The other was the person whose name was on the real estate firm logo and pay stubs. The only one who could make him a partner with a stroke of a pen. A few more sales, one big jackpot, and partnership was his.

Douglas had created a new niche a year earlier, and the firm had made serious bank on it. City living at suburban prices. A block of downtown Paulsboro, half a square mile at the edge of Franklin, bits of land here and there upgraded with a couple chain stores topped by a half-dozen floors of apartments.

He shook his head. We don’t need everyone to think that, only enough people to fill the units. Which you’ll agree has been working well. There’s enough rural America out there for the luddites and those who don’t care to be near any culture.

He didn’t like how long she was quiet.

My parents are some of those luddites.

He switched to damage control. It’s a fine choice for plenty of people, but for others it’s a pathway to madness. And those are our clients. Have you had a chance to take care of my travel? I’d like to review the comps on my flight. Could you forward those to me?

I’ve checked you in for your flight to Madison and forwarded you the boarding pass. I’ve confirmed your car reservation at the airport, midsized luxury as usual. I wasn’t able to find a hotel in Balsam Valley that accepts your rewards card, but I do have you booked for a night at the Joy Bed and Breakfast. Confirmation on your phone.

Joy, he thought. Could it be? Thanks, Sandra.

Anything else before you take off?

I don’t know. Is there?

June’s birthday next week.

He lowered the phone in frustration. He’d forgotten. Again. Yes, of course.

Her gift is ordered, and you have reservations at the nicest restaurant in town.

Thanks, Sandra. If he had a catch phrase, this was it.

What he would do without her, he didn’t care to consider. Except, he knew exactly what he’d do without her. Forget June’s birthday. Get dumped. Again. For the same reason he always got dumped: he was unable to turn off work mode. He’d rolled into Chicago fifteen years earlier, falling off the proverbial turnip truck, and had spent his time since then proving to everyone that he deserved to be there, building a life and career that showcased a well-crafted definition of success.

Sandra laughed. I swear, sometimes I’m not even sure which one of us is dating her. Have a safe flight.

He pocketed his phone and looked at the envelope again. Nick Holly was dead. How long since that name had crossed Douglas’s mind? Five years? Ten? It took Nick dying for Douglas to learn his old boss was still alive. Was there a word for that? Probably a German one.

He was going back to his old stomping grounds, over a decade after leaving it for good. All because an old man died and had listed Douglas in his will. What had Nick thought Douglas would want? Or need? Or should have? That curiosity was enough to get him up bright and early on a Friday morning to hit the commuter flight to Madison.

The Joy Bed and Breakfast, Sandra had said. Did Noelle still live there? Did he even care if she did? He slipped the envelope into the outer pocket of his wheeled carry-on, downed the last half mug of coffee, and patted his pockets. Phone. Keys. Wallet. He shouldered his laptop bag and rolled his carry-on down the hallway of the building.

He stopped outside apartment 1703. There on the door, hung the week before Thanksgiving, was an artificial wreath. A string of battery-powered LEDs flashed away, and a bright red bow wished one and all Merry Christmas. Seriously? Bad enough someone started decorating too early, but to leave this hanging there into late April?

Who in their right mind had decorations up so late?

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, remembering the answer was in the return address of the envelope in his suitcase. Good old Balsam Valley. The town loved its tree farm and Christmas. And what better way to show a love of both than to keep going? They dutifully hung decorations in November, had an aggressively festive holiday to-do in December, and did it all over again in April. Second verse, same as the first.

The town had a Christmas. For Arbor Day.

And he was heading right into the heart of it. Just when his reality settled from the madness of bright shiny merriment which invaded every corner of the world. Christmas was finally gone, for months and months on end. Why did anyone decide that this, of all times, was the right time to drag it out of the closet and do it again?

Only Balsam Gosh Darned Valley and apartment 1703. He left the building and hailed a cab for the airport. On the way he drafted a sternly worded email to the condo board about the appropriate time to take down decorations and its duty of policy enforcement related to such things.

Needing a voice of reason, he retrieved his phone from his pocket.

Hey, babe, came June’s sleepy voice.

Did I wake you?

I was up, but no coffee yet. You on the way to the airport?

Just got in the cab.

Have a safe flight. Bring me back something nice.

From Balsam Valley?

She laughed. Sure. Place like that have the best tchotchkes.

Tchotchkes? The cab merged into I-90 traffic. Douglas looked across the way to the standstill inbound traffic and shook his head.

Yeah, you know, knick-knacks, trinkets, gewgaws. Nothing big. But I do have a birthday coming up.

He smiled. Thanks, Sandra. Come on, you think I’d forget? For you, one tchotchke, especially chosen. Maybe two if I’m in a magnanimous mood.

Thanks. And try not to hate it too much.

The first signs for O’Hare went past the window, and he briefly considered telling the cab to turn around and take him home again. But somehow he felt he owed this to someone. Who? He wasn’t entirely sure. Nick at the very least. I’ll do what I can. You’re the best.

I am.

I don’t deserve you.

You’re a smart man.

Chapter Three

Noelle never needed an alarm clock. Not living at the Joy Bed and Breakfast. The aroma of cinnamon rolls, fresh orange juice, and fatty meats frying in a pan were her wakeup calls. Much better than being jolted awake by a jarring buzz.

Mom, every bit the innkeeper, emerged from the kitchen smiling and carrying a plate of crisp bacon. She placed it next to a fruit salad, a tray of French toast dusted with a fresh snowfall of powdered sugar, and a carafe of steaming coffee. And Dad, who looked every inch like a man who ate a breakfast of this caliber each and every morning of his adult life, fingered an empty plate, ready to avail himself of the offerings.

Mom spread her arms to encompass the meal before them. This isn’t going to get any hotter. Tuck in. Tuck in.

No need to ask twice. The elaborate morning meals were a privilege of being an innkeeper’s daughter. Bed and breakfasts were the offers in the inn’s name. It was good that the breakfasts left her full, as her bed had been too long empty. Noelle didn’t stack her plate as high as her dad but made sure to take a generous sample of the dishes.

What adventures do you have planned on your day off? he asked. We could always use a hand getting the last few decorations up.

The envelope. She’d forgotten the envelope. I was invited to the reading of Nick’s will. Apparently, I’m a beneficiary.

The room went silent. Mom drew out a