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He hoisted her closer to him, the soft folds of her clothes trailing over his arm. ‘Now you’ve had the baby you’re as light as a feather again! And more beautiful than you ever were!’
She hid her face in his throat, her mouth pressing into him. ‘Flatterer!’
At the foot of the stairs, he said, ‘Now, close your eyes!’
‘Why?’
‘We’ve got a surprise for you!’
Laughing, she shut her eyes, and Ross walked through the door of the sitting room. Dylan inhaled a familiar scent of pine, reminding her of the forest around their home.
‘You can look now!’ he told her, and she opened her eyes, blinking in the dazzle of coloured lights on a very tall Christmas tree.
‘Oh! How lovely!’ Dylan gazed in delight at the fairy lights, winking on and off, red and blue and gold among the dark green branches.
A silver tinsel star was perched on top of the tree and there was a little pile of wrapped gifts underneath. The room was hung with glittering gold and red tinsel chains which reflected the dancing firelight in the hearth, in front of which stood Henry and Ruth, watching her, flushed and smiling.
‘Ross did it all himself,’ Ruth said. ‘He even found some holly, with a few berries on it!’
‘And some mistletoe,’ said Henry,. ‘A happy Christmas, Dylan.’ He held a bottle of champagne in one hand, a glass in the other. He poured a glass, bubbles winking at the brim, while Ross carefully put Dylan into a chair in front of the fire. Henry handed her the glass of champagne, saying, ‘Before we have lunch we thought we would drink to you two and your baby. You’ve made this the best Christmas either of us can remember—a Christmas we’ll never forget!’
‘We’re going to be married, Dylan,’ Ruth said huskily, very pink and shy, looking years younger.
‘Oh, how marvellous. I’m so glad!’ Dylan glowed with delight.
Ross looked stunned for a few seconds, then he recovered, smiling, and raised the glass of champagne Henry had just given him. ‘What great news. Congratulations, both of you. Henry, you’re a lucky man. You’ll be getting a wife nearly as wonderful as mine. I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
‘We will be,’ Henry firmly told him. ‘I should have got around to proposing to her long ago, but I was always so busy, and I’m a slow thinker. It wasn’
t until I saw her looking after Dylan and the baby that I realised just how I felt about her. She’s one in a million, and I’m grabbing her while I have the chance.’
Ruth laughed. ‘I’m grabbing you, too. At our age we can’t afford to waste any more time.’
‘We won’t. And stop talking as if we’re old; we’re not—we’ve got the best years of our lives ahead of us!’ he assured her. ‘We’ll have to sit down and plan our honeymoon tomorrow. We’ll go somewhere neither of us has ever been. When you’re starting life over again you should grab every new experience you can!’
She laughed, flushed and excited.
‘We owe both of you an enormous debt,’ Ross said, sitting down on the arm of Dylan’s chair. ‘We’re very grateful. We can never thank you enough for what you did for us.’
‘You’ve already repaid us,’ Henry said. ‘If Dylan hadn’t crashed her car out there we might have gone on for years without realising how much we needed each other. She changed our lives.’
Dylan and Ruth smiled silently at each other as their men talked, then Ruth gave an exclamation. ‘The roast potatoes! They’ll be burnt black if I don’t get them out soon! Excuse me, won’t you?’
She hurried out of the room. Henry said, ‘She’ll need some help—sorry. You two finish your champagne. We’ll give you a shout when lunch is ready.’
As he went out Ross looked down at Dylan, amusement in his eyes. ‘How about that bombshell, then? Who’d have expected that?’
‘Me,’ she said firmly. ‘It was as clear as day to me that Ruth loved him, and she’s such a darling. I was just afraid he would never get round to realising what a great wife she would be.’
‘Why do women always have to know everything?’ Ross asked drily, then glanced up at the ceiling. ‘See where I put your chair?’
Dylan threw a look upwards, saw the piece of mistletoe suspended over her head, and gave him a teasing look. ‘Opportunist!’
He leaned down to kiss her, one hand softly stroking her neck and the full curve of her breast ‘I love you, darling,’ he whispered against her yielding mouth.
The baby in her basket slept. In the kitchen and in the sitting room lovers kissed. Outside in a blue sky the sun shone over snowy fields and trees like crystal. Indoors, the Christmas tree lights gleamed, red flames blazed up the chimney; there was a nostalgic scent of oranges, nuts, pine and holly and the air was full of anticipation.
