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“It’s the boots, right?” Considering, she looked down at them. “Hope talked me into them.”
“I love Hope,” he said as she pulled open the door of the closet, checked herself out in the full-length mirror on the back. “I’ve never seen you wear anything like that.”
“It’s Christmas Eve. I’m not working.”
“You’re working for me.”
She laughed, sent him a sparkling look. “Your reaction is noted and appreciated. I rarely get a chance to wear heels. Hope’s helping me fill in the wide, wide gaps in my shoe wardrobe. We’d better get going. Since you’re here you can help me haul down the presents so I don’t have to keep going up and down the steps in these boots.”
“Sure, but I still need that minute.”
“Oh, right, sorry. I thought it was about the thing, and we dealt with the thing.”
“Not the whole thing.” He took a brightly wrapped box out of his coat pocket. “We have this tradition in my family about getting one present on Christmas Eve.”
“I remember.”
“So, here’s yours.”
“Is this a I-better-make-up-with-her-or-she-won’t-sleep-with-me-next-week present?”
“No, I saved that one for tomorrow.”
She laughed again, made him grin with the quick, cheerful peal of it. “Can’t wait to see that one.”
She took the box, shook. Got nothing. “You padded it.”
“You’re a shaker. Everybody knows.”
“I like to guess first, it adds to the suspense. Could be earrings,” she speculated. “As you were so appalled by my earring drawer, let me say, if so, trust me, you can never have too many.” She ripped away, tossing the ribbon and paper on her dresser.
She opened the box, pulled off the cotton batting he’d used to pad it. And saw two keys.
“For the building across the street,” he told her. “Both sides.”
She lifted her gaze to his face, said nothing.
“I looked over your business plan after you sent it to Mom. That, and your menu, the rest. It’s solid. It’s good. You’re good.”
He let out a breath when she sat on the bench again, just stared at the keys in the box.
“Full disclosure. Ryder gave you the thumbs-up from the jump. The Little Red Machine. You know he calls you that sometimes.”
She nodded, didn’t speak.
“Beckett came down on your side after he’d gone through the buildings again. Part of that, if you ask me, is because now he wants to design it, wants his hands in it. But the other part is because he believes in you. And Mom? You’re planning to do exactly what she wants in that space, more than she thought she could get. She doesn’t have any doubts.
“As for me—”
“If you’d said no, it would be no.”
His brows drew together, his hands dug into his pockets. “Wait a minute. Wait. We don’t work that way.”
“Owen.” Head down, she turned the keys over and over in the box. “They listen to you. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it or seem like it to you all the time. But on something like this? On business? They know you’re the go-to, and they respect that. The same as you all respect Beckett on design, and Ryder on the builds, on the hiring and firing of crew. You have no idea how much I’ve admired and envied your family over the years.”
He couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“You didn’t say no.”
“It wasn’t a matter of not believing in you, Avery, not ever. You were right that I should’ve asked to see your projections and plans. But I wasn’t thinking of you that way. I wasn’t looking at you that way. I’m not used to thinking and looking at you, at this, at us, the way I am now. And we haven’t really started.”
Still staring down at the keys, she said nothing.
“You work so hard.”
“I need to.” She pressed her lips tight together for a moment. “I’m not going to talk about that, the whole psyche thing, the issue thing, not now. Okay?”
“Okay. Oh, man.” When she lifted her eyes to his, they were brimming—gorgeous, heartbreaking, shimmering blue. “Do you have to?”
“I’m not going to cry. Goddamn it, I’m not going to ruin my makeup. I spent forever on my stupid makeup.”
“You look great.” He sat on the bench beside her. “You look amazing.”
“I’m not going to cry. I just need a minute to pull it back.” But she lost the battle on one single tear, then swiped it quickly away. “I didn’t know how much I wanted this, not until I opened that box. Maybe I didn’t let myself know, so I wouldn’t be crushed if you said no.”
Still battling tears, she took another slow breath. “I’d rather be pessimistic than disappointed, so I didn’t tell anybody how much I wanted this, not even Clare. Not even my dad. I told myself it was just business, just a proposal. But it’s a lot more to me. I can’t explain it to you right now. I can’t screw up my makeup, and I’m going to be really happy in a minute anyway.”
He took her hand, considered ways to flip the tears toward that happy. “What are you naming it?”
“MacT’s Restaurant and Tap Room.”
“I like it.”
“Me, too.”
“And what does the famous MacTavish Gut Feeling say about it?”
“That I’m going to rock it. Oh God, it’s going to be great. Oh God!” Laughing now, she threw her arms around him, then leaped up to bounce in those skinny, sexy boots. “Just you wait. I have to stop in downstairs, get a bottle of champagne. Two bottles.” She leaped into his arms when he rose. “Thank you.”
“It’s business.”
“Thanks are still appropriate.”
“You’re right.”
“And this is personal.” She pressed her lips to his, slid her fingers into his hair, swayed against him. “Thank you, so much.”
“You’re not going to thank my brothers like that, right?”
“Not exactly like that.” She laughed, hugged him again. “Neither of them was my first boyfriend.”
She broke away, grabbed for her overnight bag. “We’re going to be late now. You hate being late.”
“Tonight’s the exception.”
“Make another? Don’t get that look on your face when we go over into the wrapping area to get the presents. I know it’s disorganized and messy.”
“I’ll have no look.”
He took the overnight bag while she swung on a coat, a scarf, pulled on gloves. And he manfully restrained his expression when she led him into the room full of presents, bags, wrapping, tangled ribbon.
“All this?”
“Some’s for tonight, some’s for Dad’s, some for your mother’s. I like Christmas.”
“It shows.” He handed her back the overnight as it would be the lightest and easiest to carry. “Go ahead, get your champagne, I’ll start loading this.”
“Thanks.”
At least she’d stacked gifts into open cardboard boxes, he thought as he hefted the first of several. And because she’d left the room he let his eyes roll toward the ceiling.
“I heard that look!” she called out, and her laughter echoed back as she hurried down the stairwell.
* * *
FROM THE TIME she’d walked into Clare’s with presents for the kids, the dogs, her friends—with bottles of champagne and one of the trays of lasagna she’d made during her mad—until the time when she crawled into her childhood bed, Avery found Christmas Eve absolutely perfect.
Since Clare had come back to Boonsboro, a young widow with two little boys and a baby growing inside her, Avery had spent a few hours of the night before Christmas with Clare and her children.
But this year, the house brimmed full with Montgomerys.
This year she’d watched little Murphy climb up Beckett’s leg, nimble as a monkey, while Beckett continued to talk football with Clare’s father.
And Owen patiently helping Harry build some complex battleship out of what looked like half a million
Legos. Ryder challenging Liam to a PlayStation tournament while Dumbass and the two puppies milled around, wrestled, and surreptitiously begged for food.
She’d enjoyed listening to Justine and Clare’s mother talk about wedding plans. And she caught the twinkle in her father’s eyes when he looked at Justine—how had she ever missed it? Everything in her warmed at his big belly laugh when Murphy deserted Beckett to climb up the tree trunk of Willy B’s leg.
There was magic yet in the world, she’d thought, because she’d seen it in three young boys.
Still more magic, she decided now as she lay in bed watching the sun slowly tint the sky outside her window, when Owen had walked her out to her car. When he’d kissed her in the frosty air with the shimmer of lights, the smell of pine lingering.
A wonderful night. She closed her eyes to hold it to her one more moment. And a wonderful day ahead.
She slipped out of bed—quiet, quiet—pulled on thick socks, clipped her hair back. In the low light she pulled the bag out of her overnight before creeping out of the room.
She tiptoed down—right on the fourth step since it creaked in the middle—and into the living room with its big, sagging sofa, its big, brightly decorated tree, and its little brick fireplace with two stockings hung.
Hers bulged.
“How does he do that?” she muttered.
The stocking had been empty the night before. They’d gone up to bed at the same time, and she’d read for an hour to decompress from the evening.
She’d heard him snoring in the next room.
He managed it every year. No matter when she went to bed or how early she rose. He’d fill that stocking as he had every year of her life.
