Page 73 of Postmarked December

Okay, he had her attention.

“He told me he’d been asking around to see if anyone knew someone who could write his story for him, but not just anyone. He didn’t trust someone he didn’t know. A mutual friend gave him my number, and he remembered me from college. I gave him a ride home from the library on campus once when his car wouldn’t start.”

Her hands trembled in her lap as she tried to discern whether Nick was being truthful. He was so convincing.

“He asked to meet me in a park in East Nashville—somewhere no one would notice us. We wore our gym clothes and took a walk together. He told me about his cancer and that he guessed he didn’t have long before he’d be very sick. He even predicted he’d be gone by Christmas.”

“He wasn’t too far off. It was January,” she said, blinking away tears.

Nick nodded, his own eyes becoming glassy. He cleared his throat. “Toby asked if I’d write his story. I told him that I wasn’t very practiced in biographies, but he had faith in me. We met secretly, when he still felt well, and then later, when he got really sick, I came to him while you were at work. While we met at your apartment, he felt comfortable enough to tell me how worried he was about you. He wanted to protect you in all this, and he knew he couldn’t keep from breaking your heart when he finally left us.”

She took her cloth napkin from her lap and dabbed her eyes, trying not to make a scene.

“Because we were working daily on his story, he trusted me. He started sorting things, bringing me documents for safekeeping. He asked if I’d handle the rest of the renovations and finishing up the cabin until you were ready.”

She’d had no idea Toby hadn’t finished the renovations.

“One day, he sat me down and said, ‘I can’t keep meeting. It takes too much out of me.’ I could see the fear in his eyes. That day, he asked me if I’d take care of you. He told me to keep an eye on you and, maybe one day, even introduce myself and make friends with you. He started telling me all these stories about you, and that was when he hatched the idea for this Christmas. By the time we’d begun to execute it, he was too sick to write the notes himself, so he asked me to do it. He said he promised you he’d come back to see you if he could, and this was his way of doing that.”

It was the last thing Nick said that told her he wasn’t lying.

“But why a biography? He didn’t want that out there.”

Nick placed the bag on the table and slid it toward her. “Open it.”

She pulled the tissue paper from the top and set it beside her. Then she reached in and pulled out a thin book. The title was Christmas With You.

“This biography is his love story—to you.”

She stared at him, tears filling her eyes.

“Toby got another of our friends to publish it. His name’s Ricky Edison. He owns a very small publishing company called Iron Pen Creative. That’s who I met with in Greenville. He lives there. During my conversations with Toby and Ricky, Toby talked about how he wanted to present the book to you. He decided that you’d need a year or so to get through the worst of your grief and by Christmas, you’d deserve a little magic. We’d send you the notes throughout the holiday, and he wanted you to get the biography right on New Year’s Eve, to start your next year with all his messages. So he came up with all this to show you just how much he loved you and to help you start to move forward.”

She wiped her tears and, with a shaky hand, took a sip of her water to steady herself.

Nick leaned in. “I tried to call you once and invite you to the music awards in May, thinking that if we planned the event together, we could get to know each other, and it wouldn’t be so weird sneaking around doing things for you. But you weren’t having it.”

She smiled through her tears. “Sorry.”

He chuckled thoughtfully. “When you started figuring things out, I had no idea what to do. Toby was adamant that I do this on New Year’s Eve. He’d worked so hard to plan it precisely. Could I have told you two days ago? Maybe. But I’d promised Toby I wouldn’t. I was terrified the whole time that I’d messed this up for him.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you,” she said, her words broken.

“You’re a tough cookie,” he said fondly. “Even Toby’s perfect plan hasn’t worked exactly as it should have. You outsmarted him.”

She broke into a smile at that.

Then she looked down at the book. The cover’s background was of rustic wood, with a picture of Toby’s guitar and one of his writing notebooks front and center, a few pieces of balled-up paper at the sides. The title on the wood-colored cover was in a handwritten, slightly rustic font: Christmas With You: A Real-Life Story of Love and Hope.

“I helped him write it, but it’s all from him. It’s about how much your quiet strength meant to him and how he’d planned for your happiness in life and in death.”

She sucked in a jagged breath. “So this is in stores?”

“No. Toby said he promised you that you’d get that choice. This is an advanced copy. Ricky’s willing to change anything you don’t love. You get the first look. And then, only if you want to publish it, we will. You have Toby’s blessing.”

She thought back to the day Toby’s first note had shown up. She’d considered what she wanted this Christmas at the start of her vacation. She’d told herself that day that she wanted a little of Toby to show up, but she also wanted to be happy. In true Toby form, he’d managed to give her both this Christmas. All the way from heaven.

Toby’s last message had said, “While you might think it’s the end, it’s just the beginning.” And he’d told Nick to take care of her. Toby wouldn’t have given that task to just anyone. Could he have been thinking of her future, knowing that maybe if she let herself, she could fall for someone like Nick?