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“Leave them,” he said.
“But Tigger and Sam will eat it!” They had seen it before. The cat and dog worked in tandem, with the cat jumping up to places Sam couldn’t reach and knocking things down to the floor, where they could both enjoy them. Sam always looked guilty afterward, but Justin never blamed him for being opportunistic. It was in a wolf’s nature, after all.
“Let them have a treat.” He bent and scooped her off her feet, and she squealed as he ran up the stairs.
“Justin?” Carly said as he placed her gently in the center of their bed.
“Mmm?” He was occupied with yanking his shirt over his head.
“It was a wonderful idea. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me.” He unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down over his hips and then cursed a little as his feet got tangled and he had to hop around awkwardly to pull them off.
“Of course there is,” Carly said. “It was a lovely wedding.”
“You don’t regret not having a church and a white dress?”
Carly had always imagined she would wear her mother’s dress when she got married, and her dad would walk her down the aisle. Like many girls, she had daydreamed about things like cakes and flowers and bridesmaids, but she realized how unimportant those things were.
“My wedding was perfect,” she said, “because of the man I was marrying. That’s all that matters.”
She cupped his cheek in her palm and he turned his head to nuzzle a kiss into her open hand. From downstairs, they heard a crash in the kitchen and they both laughed as they tumbled back together into the bed.
For Christmas, Justin went out, chopped down a small pine tree, and brought it into the house. Carly decorated it with strings of only slightly scorched popcorn and put a star, cut from the bottom of a tin pie pan, at the top. Justin helped, cutting decorations out of colored paper they had found in the office and further adorning them by drawing little designs with colored pencils. He made one with a portrait of all three of their animals, which Carly vowed to keep and treasure forever. He was quite an artist, and the portraits were very good.
Carly had no presents for Justin, which bothered her. She made him a peach cobbler on Christmas Eve, just a bit scorched, as well, but she didn’t have anything to put under the tree for him. Justin, the sly dog, had held back some of the things he’d gotten during his last trip to town before the snow fell, and he had wrapped her gifts in white typing paper, decorated with whimsical designs.
Carly brooded on it for days. She considered laying herself naked under the tree, wearing nothing but a strategically placed red bow, but as much as he might enjoy that, it was a “present” he already had. In the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, inspiration struck, and Carly slid out of bed.
Justin woke. “Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom.” She was being honest about that part, at least. Pregnancy seemed to stimulate her bladder.
Afterward, Carly went into the office and sat down at the desk. There was a new notebook in a drawer. She took it out and began to write. She never did return to bed. When Justin shuffled out of their bedroom, he found her downstairs in the living room, by the tree. “Morning, honey.” He greeted her with a yawn. “I must not have heard you get up.”
Carly let that pass. “Merry Christmas, Justin.”
Justin kissed her. “Merry Christmas.”
She unwrapped her presents first, at Justin’s insistence. He seemed excited by it, as if giving presents was more fun for him than actually receiving them.
He’d gotten her a new board game; a trivia game because he knew how much she liked them, a bit of a sacrifice on his part since he always struggled with reading the questions when it was her turn. The next package contained more books, which was good because she was running low. He handed another package to her with the same tentative look he’d worn at the wagon after his first trip to town.
“The baby hasn’t been born yet, but this is our first Christmas with him or her, so I thought...” The look he gave her was a little sheepish.
“Justin, I think that’s very sweet of you.” Carly unwrapped it carefully so she could save the paper and found a selection of baby items, including more clothing, a baby sling, pacifiers, a rattle, and a wind-up butterfly mobile to hang above the crib.
Justin was building the baby’s crib himself, using tools he’d taken from the small museum in town and that book he’d found on old-fashioned furniture making that had step-by-step instructions. The process seemed to involve a lot of cursing and banging, and Justin had refused to let her see it in progress.
Carly wondered occasionally what the crib meant. He didn’t intend to transport the crib with them when they headed south, did he? Did he intend for them to stay there for a while after the baby was born? Carly was due in early May, the best she could figure, but the book said first pregnancies varied in due dates. When Justin first talked about their winter home, he’d made it seem as if they would move on in the late spring, once he was sure they wouldn’t be caught in a sudden blizzard.
The last item was a baby book, not intended for photographs, but to record memories of her pregnancy and the baby’s first life experiences. Carly’s voice was too choked with tears to thank him, so she gave him a hard hug instead, and Justin smiled, delighted she had loved his gifts.
Carly gave him the only present she had for him. He unwrapped it and found a notebook, with the words 101 Things I Love About You written on the cover, but she had crossed out the “101” and replaced it with “201,” but then she had scratched out the “201” leaving only “Things I Love About You.” He opened the book and found it filled with Carly’s large, loopy handwriting, all the way to the last page.
1) Your smile. When it’s wicked or sweet, teasing or happy. It makes my heart soar whenever I see it.
2) Your eyes. Dark and seductive, or warm and loving.
