I put down my half-eaten biscuit—with its overabundance of blueberry jam that he so thoughtfully spread forme—and put a stop to that never-ending bouncing with my hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Warren’s face clears as he offers up a crooked smile and lifts my hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Just waiting for you to finish breakfast so I can go out to the barn.”
“Oh.” I blink away a dash of hurt at how casual his words are compared to his show of affection. He’s been disappearing to the barn lately, but he never seems to want me to go with him. It was inevitable, I suppose, but I wasn’t expecting him to tire of my company a week after our marriage was fully consummated. Still, I can’t assume that he’ll always want to spend every waking moment with me. “Oh,” I repeat, not liking the discomfort of this fragile emotion. “I was hoping we would play checkers afterwards?”
Or just snuggle on the sofa with Patches by my side and Emmaline on his chest once she wakes up from her nap. She’d grown cranky not long after she woke this morning, maybe due to her teething, so I’d fed her and rocked her back to sleep.
“Of course we can,” he says easily as if he hadn’t just unintentionally wrecked my world by wanting to get away from me. “And then maybe a hand or two of cards.” His eyebrows waggle naughtily.
I try to smile, but it doesn’t come as easily as before. Neither does my appetite. As silly as it seems, it feels like he’s pulling away from me while staying close enough that I don’t notice. “Of course.”
“I just, uh…” He rubs the back of his neck. “I need to get your present from the barn first.”
Surprise quickens my pulse, and I sit straighter. “Present? What for?”
“It’s Christmas.” Warren shrugs and gives a sheepish grin.
A present. The Overstreets were never ones to celebrate something so frivolous and pagan, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it were more because of their stinginess with money than sacrilege against Christ. It’s always been just another day to me. I was happy enough with the tree Warren cut down for me.
“But I told you I didn’t have anything to give you in return.” Any money used to buy it would have come from him to begin with, and I haven’t the faintest knowledge on how to darn socks or make a scarf. “I thought that meant you weren’t going to get me anything either.”
“Silly wife.” Warren taps my nose as he drags me onto his lap. “Don’t you remember I told you that you and Emmaline were more than enough? You were what was missing in this house, and now that I have you, I don’t need anything else. Now finish your biscuit.”
Having him hold me and mindlessly rub a thumb back and forth over my hip settles me. Enough so that I manage to eat enough of my food to make him happy before he gives me a quick kiss and tromps through the snow to the barn. I peek through the parlor curtain, mindlessly petting Patches’, well…patchy…head as he props his front paws on the cold window ledge to look with me. “What could he have gotten me and kept out there?” I ask my new furry friend as the heat of his panting fogs the window. It is a good hiding place, I admit, because I never would have gone inside on my own.
Warren emerges with something behind his back, and although he was hardly gone for more than a few minutes, his face is ruddy with the cold when he comes back inside to Patches’ welcoming bark. No matter that I encouraged himto wear a coat, but he didn’t because he’sa manandwill be right back in the wink of an eye.
“I wasn’t sure what to get you,” he says with less than his usual confidence, hand still behind him like a child hiding a misdeed. “You know I’d never let you go without anything you needed, so I tried to think of something special for you. Something that’d have meaning for just the two of us.”
“But you didn’t have to get me anything,” I tell him again with my heart in my throat and nerves dampening my palms. “I’m already happier than I ever dreamed I could be.” Still, I’m extremely curious as to what he thinks would be special to us both.
“I wanted to,” he answers huskily, staring down at me with love shining so deeply in his eyes that I can almost see his very soul. Ears turning red, he brings a burlap sack around and retrieves a small, rectangular something from it. “Here,” he says, extending it towards me. “Merry Christmas.”
“Why, it’s…” I trace the raised edges of all six spades spread over the wooden carving of a playing card. “The six of spades.”
“The card that started it all,” he says with a tender grin.
Indeed it did. The card that made us both win. This one’s about the same size but made with a wood so smooth that it almost feels polished. “You made this yourself?”
“Yep. It’s walnut. Same as I used for Emmaline’s cradle.”
My lips soften. “That makes it all the more special. I’ll treasure it always. Thank you, Warren.” And I love that no one but us will know the meaning the card holds.
“No thanks needed, wife.” He shifts on his feet before a bit of impishness peeks through his bashful smile. It’s amazing how the man who so thoroughly claimed my body can be so endearing. “Made you one more thing, too.” Hereaches into the bag again and brings out a wooden picture frame. “Don’t have anything to go in it yet, but I heard Hope’s Stand is getting a photographer soon. Figured I’d take you and Emmaline come spring so we can get a family portrait done.”
“Oh, Warren.” I throw my arms around him so tightly that the air is knocked from him, and even though the edge of the picture frame must be poking into his stomach as it is mine, he hugs me even tighter. “I would so very much love to have a photograph of our family. Thank you so much, and Merry Christmas, husband. You couldn’t have chosen any more perfectly thoughtful gifts for me than these.” He truly couldn’t have because these were crafted with his love.
Warren places both items on the sofa so he can hold me properly. “Merry Christmas, wife.” His heartbeat thumps in my ear, a steady comfort that only elevates my happiness as his fingers lock together at the small of my back. He feels so good and warm and strong. How on earth this man looked at me so ragged and dirty and with child and still wanted to marry me, I’ll never understand. Not even if he explains it to me one thousand times over.
How I love him. I press a kiss over his kind heart through his shirt, and his quick inhale sounds just like the times I’ve heard it from him in bed. When he was inside me, moving deep and making me his. I cut my eyes upward and find the same stirring of awareness in the dark gaze staring back at me. That look…it does something to me. Something that makes me want to be a wife to him. “Thank you,” I tell him again as I rub small circles with the flat of my hand to his chest. “You’re so very good to me.”
“Mara,” he says with a groan. “Don’t go thanking me for doing what any decent husband should do for his wife.”
My hand drops to the front of his trousers. “Hmm. Iwonder if you’ll thank me when I do what a wife should do for her husband.”
“God Almighty,” he growls, grabbing my wrist before I can squeeze his thickness. “I didn’t get them for you to make you feel like you had to thank me like this. There aren’t any strings attached to those presents, Mara, and there won’t be any in the future. I love you and wanted to see a smile on that pretty mouth of yours.”
Warren.
