Page 84 of Stuck with the Hero Next Door

“He doesn’t count. You’re dating,” Dot declared with authority. She’d clearly had this argument before.

Levi caught my eye and grinned. “She’s right.”

“Traitor,” I muttered, but I was smiling as I climbed down from the stepladder.

The next hour transformed the guest house into something between a Christmas wonderland and a friendly invasion. The ladies had clearly been planning this ambush for weeks, arriving with everything from homemade cookies to carefully selected ornaments that somehow perfectly complemented my existing decorations.

Janet took charge of the kitchen, brewing enough coffee to caffeinate a small army and arranging Dot’s baked goods on plates that multiplied every time I looked away. Kathy assumed command of what she called “ornament strategy,” examining each decoration with the kind of tactical precision usually reserved for military operations.

“These go on the upper branches,” she announced, holding up a set of delicate glass balls that caught the light beautifully. “And these,” she indicated a collection of more whimsical ornaments, “are for the middle section where children can see them properly.”

“We don’t have a tree yet,” I pointed out.

“Oh,” Janet said casually This was a minor detail she’d already handled, “Levi’s taking care of that.”

I turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “You are?”

“Apparently,” he said, but he was already reaching for his jacket. “Good thing I know where to find the best trees in town.”

“Where’s that?”

“My backyard. I’ve got a couple of pines that could use trimming anyway.”

After he left, the house filled with comfortable chaos. These women had known each other long enough to work together without discussion. Janet commandeered my slow cooker for something she called “Christmas punch,” but that smelled suspiciously of mulled wine. Kathy sorted ornaments with scientific accuracy. Dot disappeared into my kitchen and emerged with plates of cookies that seemed to multiply every time someone took one.

“So,” Janet said, settling beside me on the couch with a mug of something warm and spiced, “how are you feeling about your first real Everwood Christmas?”

“Overwhelmed,” I admitted, looking around at the organized chaos they’d created. “But ecstatic.”

“That’s the Christmas spirit,” Dot declared from where she was hanging garland with the precision of experience in holiday decorating assault teams.

The conversation was interrupted by a truck horn honking in the driveway, followed by Levi’s voice calling, “I’m going to need some help with this!”

We all migrated to the window to see him standing beside his truck, which now appeared to be carrying a tree that was significantly larger than the guest house’s ceiling height would accommodate.

“Did he cut down the entire forest?” Janet asked mildly.

“Just the good parts,” I said, though I was already grabbing my coat.

It took all four of us, plus two passing neighbors who got recruited into service, to wrestle the tree up the porch steps, through the door, and into my living room. By the time we had it standing in the corner, shedding pine needles and filling the room with the sharp, clean scent of a winter forest, I was convinced we’d accomplished something that defied both physics and common sense.

“It’s perfect,” I declared, even though it was clearly too tall, too wide, and probably violated several fire safety codes.

“It’s definitely something,” Levi agreed, brushing pine needles from his hair.

The decorating process that followed was less organized than what the ladies had accomplished with my general holiday décor, but infinitely more joyful. Someone turned on Christmas music—and we fell into an easy rhythm.

Ornaments emerged from boxes, bags, and what appeared to be Janet’s personal collection, accumulated over decades of Everwood Christmases. Each one came with a story. This glass angel belonged to someone’s grandmother, these wooden snowflakes were made by a long-ago craft circle, and this slightly lopsided star was created by someone’s grandchild with more enthusiasm than artistic skill.

“And these,” Kathy said, producing a box I didn’t recognize, “are from your students.”

Inside were two dozen handmade ornaments, each one clearly crafted with the kind of determined creativity only teenagers could possess. Paper frogs instead of snowflakes with too much glitter. Construction paper plants instead of trees in improbable colors. Salt dough creations that might have been DNA or abstract art, depending on your perspective.

Each one had a small tag with a student’s name and a message: “For Miss Grant’s First Everwood Christmas” or “Thank you for making Biology fun!” or, in Tyler’s case, “This is supposed to be a science book, but it looks like a pancake.”

My throat tightened as I hung each one on the tree, overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of five classes of teenagers who’d decided their teacher needed homemade Christmas ornaments.

“They love you,” Kathy said quietly, watching me position Tyler’s book-pancake in a place of honor.