The Noel Letters (The Noel Collection #4) - Richard Paul Evans Page 0,39

Dylan rang the doorbell a few minutes before eleven thirty. I grabbed my purse and opened the door. Dylan was standing there with his daughter, Alexis, holding her hand. It was the first time I’d seen her.

Alexis looked small for a seven-year-old. She was bundled up in a pink parka with a pink scarf and baby-blue knit mittens with a matching stocking cap, her blond hair peeking out like weeds growing from beneath a porch deck. She was a pretty little girl, which wasn’t surprising, considering her parents’ genes.

“I’m Alexis,” she said to me. “But my dad calls me Alex. Unless he’s mad at me.”

“May I call you Alex too?”

She nodded. “We’re going to get a Christmas tree.”

“That sounds fun. Is it okay if I come with you?”

“My dad says it’s okay.”

“Then it must be okay.” I looked up at Dylan.

“You heard it,” he said.

We walked out to Dylan’s truck. He opened the passenger side door, lifted Alexis into the back, then helped me in. He then went around to the driver’s side and climbed in. “Who’s ready to buy a Christmas tree?” he asked.

Alexis screamed, “Me!”

“Me too,” I said.

“All right, let the Christmas tree expedition begin.”

We drove to a tree lot situated in the parking lot of a nearby Walmart. The lot wasn’t busy, and we walked up and down the rows of trees alone.

“Is there a particular kind of tree you’re looking for?” I asked.

“The Fraser fir is a classic. As is the Douglas fir. They both hold their needles well, but the Fraser smells more like Christmas.”

“I didn’t know you were a Christmas tree connoisseur. What does Christmas smell like?”

“Magic.”

I grinned. “What does magic smell like?”

“Childhood.”

I stopped at a tree that looked perfectly shaped. “What kind of tree is this?”

“I have no idea. I actually just read up on trees this morning to impress you.”

“Look, Dad. It’s the right shape,” Alexis said. “It’s a cone.”

Dylan said, “I taught Alex that there’s a geometric formula for selecting the right tree. When she was four, I taught her to look for an isosceles triangle. A year later she graduated to the concept of a cone. The ideal tree is one where the apex is perpendicular to the base. Or, in layman’s terms, a cone whose altitude intersects the plane of the circle at the circle’s center.”

“I think you just took all the fun out of Christmas,” I said.

“Math, especially geometry, is all about fun.”

“You are a geek,” I said. “But fun.”

“It’s a package deal.”

We selected a near-geometrically perfect Fraser fir, and the guy at the lot trimmed the bottom and put it in the back of Dylan’s truck. Then we drove to his house to decorate it.

Dylan’s home was only about four miles southeast from mine in the Millcreek area of Salt Lake in the foothills of the mountains, which is why he had so much more snow than I did; his roof was capped with at least two feet. It was a beautiful home with a river rock façade and a creek bed, currently frozen, cutting through the front yard.

“What a beautiful home,” I said.

“Thanks. Susan found it. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, but I was doing remodeling work at the time, so it worked out perfectly.”

Dylan backed his truck into the driveway, which looked like it had been carved out of a thick sheet of snow, the banks on each side more than three feet high. He took the keys from the truck and handed them to me. “If you take Alex and open the front door, I’ll get the tree.”

I took Alexis’s hand, and we walked up the shoveled walk to the front porch. I unlocked and opened the door, then waited as Dylan lifted the tree out of the truck’s bed. I held the door for him as he carried it in, then shut it after him.

The home was warm and welcoming, decorated with sleek modern decor. Looking around the room, I realized that I really didn’t know the adult Dylan. He was wild and unkempt as a boy, and I never suspected he would grow to be so organized and, frankly, clean. Cleaner than me.

He had already brought up boxes of decorations and strands of lights, which were laid out along one side of the room. He dropped the tree into a stand in one of the corners of the front room.

“You’ve got a system here,” I said.

“That’s the way we roll around here. It’s all about systems. Especially when you’re a