“Wow,” Gael whispered. “That’s where we are right now.”
Jenny smiled at the tiny octagonal stone barn in one of the globes. The miniature barn was even hung with pine boughs and Christmas lights, just like in real life.
“These are so cool,” Gael said, looking up at her with pleading eyes, but not quite daring to ask her to buy one.
“There’s a tradition some families have,” she said carefully. “They buy one new ornament for their Christmas tree each year, so they have a special memory of that Christmas. Do you think we should be that kind of family?”
Gael nodded enthusiastically.
“Well, then we have to choose really carefully,” she told him. “Do you want to choose for us this year?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Okay,” she told him. “I think this is the right place to get our ornament. You find the best one.”
His eyes lit up and he began scanning the tree, carefully considering it from each angle, leaning in to check out one or two more ornaments before darting off to examine the next one.
“That was a really nice idea,” Erik said to Jenny.
“I want as many memories with him as I can get,” she said, her eyes on Gael as he crouched to see the ornaments on the lowest branches of one of the trees. “He was already eight when I met him. I missed those early years. So now I want to appreciate every minute I have with him.”
Erik grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and she squeezed back, feeling a rush of gratitude that he reallyunderstood.
For a moment, Jenny didn’t feel like she was pretending anymore.
In that magical little bubble, she just felt like she was having a nice time with her family.
Is this what it would be like every day?
But she pushed those thoughts aside before they had time to do any real damage. She and Gael would be going home soon enough. Until then, she just had to keep herself from falling too hard for this wonderful man.
She had a feeling it might already be too late for that. But as long as he didn’t know that, everything would be fine.
9
JENNY
By the time they were back at the inn, Jenny was feeling a little sleepy but still very happy about the wonderful day they’d all had together.
Gael had spent the journey back from the farm gazing dreamily out the window, looking like he was ready for a nap, the ornament he’d chosen—a little snow globe with a tiny model of the inn inside it—cradled in his hands.
Jenny had also picked up another ornament, one to represent the time when Gael had first come to live with her. It was a Christmas ball painted with stacks of books. Gael laughed when he saw it and then hugged her.
Last Christmas, they had curled up with their books and comics and a massive tin of cookies fromJenny’s mom, getting to know each other quietly in the moments when Gael’s head would pop up and he would tell her about something that was happening in his comic.
It had been a sad and quiet time for both of them, with the loss of Gael’s grandmother still so fresh. But Jenny could look back on it now with fondness too, the melancholy mixing with the memory of getting to know her favorite person in the whole world. It was good that Gael seemed to feel the same.
“Here we are,” Erik said as he pulled down the long drive that would take them past the lake to the inn. “Who wants to sit in the library and plan out our backstory?”
“I want to read,” Gael said, surprising Jenny. “Can I go upstairs and read while you guys plan?”
Jenny frowned. Gael had been such a fan of this whole fake engagement, and normally he loved plotting and planning.
But when she glanced in the rearview mirror, he did look pretty sleepy.
“We don’t have to do it today,” she told him. “I’m sure we can get together with Erik another time.”
“No,” Gael said right away. “You two plan, and I’ll just chill out upstairs.”
