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It seems like Kash has infused a bit of himself everywhere I look, everywhere I go. He’s hidden a piece of his soul in every piece of Hidden Acres.

Missing Kash doesn’t make him arrive any sooner. I try to stay focused on what needs to be done so I can spend time with him once he gets back. Right now, that means creating casts of reindeer footprints with plaster of Paris.

Reindeer footprint casts are particularly popular at the gift shop. So popular, we built a special walking path for Dunder and Blixem for the sole purpose of impression casting. This past morning, while the ground was still damp from an overnight rainstorm, I led the ladies side by side through the mud.

I’ve already set forms around the imprints—old tuna cans with the bottoms cut off—so that we get a nice, round edge for the casts. We used to use a bucket to pour the plaster, but that got messy, since I was always spilling it everywhere. Now I use a houseplant watering can with a spout and an old shoehorn. I work my way down the path in a low crouch, holding the shoehorn over the impression to spread the plaster evenly over the hoofprints. I’ve just about finished when I hear someone come up behind me, their boots scattering rocks as they stride over.

“This that plaster stuff you were going on about?” Kash asks, grinning down at me with those impossibly kissable lips of his.

My heart skips a beat. He’s wearing his cowboy hat, the shaggy ends of his dark hair curling around his ears and the nape of his neck. The hat’s brim is tipped up so that it casts a faint shadow over his face.

“Welcome back.” I finish pouring the last impression and stand on unsteady legs. I’m not sure if they’re wobbly from all the squatting or because my knees always seem to get weak whenever Kash is around. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

Kash wanted us to text while he was gone, but I’m still not wild about carrying my phone around. To prove my point, I’d unearthed my phone to show Kash what my notifications looked like. Part of me thought maybe things would have died down enough since the last time I checked that it would seem overly dramatic to be afraid of my phone, but no. Seth released another video—Thanksgiving themed this time—and I’ll never in a million years be in the mood to read any of the comments or texts about how hilarious it is that my head’s been replaced with a pale and wobbly, featherless, trussed-up turkey carcass. I suppose I could just block everyone, but it seems so much easier to leave the phone hidden away in my Grinch sock.

After I handed him my phone, Kash powered it off almost immediately, his mouth curled into a snarl as he tossed it onto the couch. “I get it,” he said. “No texting. No social media. I’m cool with that.” And then he wrapped me in his arms and rested his chin on top of my head. “How ’bout we just catch up the old-fashioned way, over a cup of coffee when I get back?”

“Sounds good,” I said, snuggling into him. Letting the warmth of his embrace ease my tension, breathing in the subtle scent of his cedarwood-scented bodywash.

I blink away the memory. Now he’s back, standing before me with two cardboard coffee cups in his hands. “It was good,” he says. “How was yours?”

“Busy.” I motion for him to follow me to a spigot. “I have to rinse out the watering can so the leftover plaster doesn’t set,” I explain.

When I’m done, he hands me a cup.

“Thanks.” I take a sip and a warm, spicy, creamy taste fills my mouth. “You got me a chai latte?”

“I wasn’t sure what kind of coffee you drink,” he says with a shrug. “But you had one of those the other day.”

If it’s possible for a heart to melt when it’s forty-four degrees outside, then mine does. “It’s my favorite warm beverage, other than hot cocoa.”

I weave my fingers through his, and we wander into a grove of eastern white pines. I wasn’t sure how it would feel to see Kash again. If what happened before was random and unrepeatable after our time apart. But when Kash squeezes my hand and looks down at me with soulful, seductive eyes, all my worries float away and we pick up exactly where we left off.

“Here,” I say, handing Kash a pair of worn work gloves and a handsaw. “It’s time to deliver Mrs. Larson’s tree.”

I already have the perfect Norway spruce picked out for her. I tagged it “reserved” the morning after my conversation with her, and it’s here in all its six-foot glory when I lead Kash through the maze of other trees to find it.

“Have you ever cut down a Christmas tree before?” I ask.

“No.”

“Well,” I say. “Today’s the day. You’re about to become a lumberjack.”

He looks the part, with the collar of a black thermal shirt peeking out from the V of his heavy flannel shirt with a black-white-and-green plaid houndstooth pattern.

Kash eyes up the spruce with the same look of determination he gets when he’s about to tackle a tricky part of a song we’re working on. His forehead creases, his mouth presses tight, and the set of his jaw makes his chin more pronounced.

Hello, weak knees.

I blink as heat flows through me. “Mrs. Larson wants a four-foot tree, but we need to cut a foot-long handle—that’s the branch-free part of the trunk—which we can trim later, so we’re aiming to cut down five feet of spruce tree.”

“Uh, isn’t this tree too tall? It’s almost as tall as me.”

Kash has an inch or so on the terminal leader on the top whorl. He stands next to the spruce, the green in his shirt nearly the same deep pine color as the needles, and reaches out to gently flick the tip.

“Spruces are a great tree for stump culture. We can get another tree to grow from the stump after we cut this one down, if we do it right.”

I push down a few of the lower branches to locate the bare stem that’s been pre-trimmed for a handle and then help Kash position the blade where it should go. The first time he passes the saw blade over the bark, the teeth bounce over. It takes a few tries for him to figure out how much pressure he needs for the teeth to catch, but then he finds his groove.