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Brigit hugged her with feeling. Deidre closed her eyes and inhaled the familiar scent of her mother’s perfume. She’d wondered and worried what the wise choice was in regard to her mother. Because of the feeling that swelled in her at that moment, Deidre knew without a doubt that forgiveness had been the supremely right thing.
When mother and daughter broke from their hug, Deidre kept her arm around Brigit’s waist and put the other around Nick. He leaned down and spoke into her ear, his deep, gruff voice causing a shiver of pleasure to go through her.
“You’re something else, do you know that?”
She looked up at him and met
his stare. “I was so glad to see you when I walked in,” she whispered. “You never did tell me how you ended up here tonight.”
Nick nodded in the direction of her mother and spoke very quietly. “Brigit and I ran into each other getting coffee at Celino’s this morning. When she heard you’d left town, I think she took pity on me. Maybe she thought we could suffer together instead of apart, knowing you’d likely be gone on Christmas Eve.”
Deidre took in his features, cherishing every one. Then she swept her gaze across her family.
She saw Liam nuzzle Natalie’s cheek until she turned to face him. “Merry Christmas, wife,” Deidre heard him murmur before he kissed Natalie.
Marc took the opportunity of the lull in the conversation to kiss Mari with feeling. At the same moment, Eric dipped his head down to his new fiancée’s upturned face.
“There’s mistletoe back there on the chandelier,” Brigit said confidentially to Deidre and Nick, nodding a few feet behind them. “It seems to have very good effect, even from a distance.” Brigit gave them a droll smile and left the room.
Deidre was left looking up at Nick.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered before she went up on her toes and touched her mouth to his, praying he understood the volumes of unspoken words that accompanied her kiss.
Epilogue
When they left that night, Nick convinced Deidre to leave her car at her mother’s since they’d return there the following morning for Christmas Day. The tension between them mounted as they drove through a picturesque Harbor Town. The little community might have been placed under a spell. It was silent and seemed to sparkle with Christmas magic.
Of course that special gleam that gilded the entire world might have been projected by Deidre herself, she felt so happy.
“Aren’t we going to Cedar Cottage?” Deidre asked when Nick turned onto Main Street instead of continuing on Travertine Drive.
“No. I thought we’d go to the hotel, if you don’t mind. There’s something there I need to get. The only problem is,” he said as he turned into the Starling Hotel parking lot, “you might have to join me in a little cloak-and-dagger routine to avoid the reporters that have been gathering here. They keep thinking I’ll spill the truth about the will if they pounce on me hard enough. We’ll take the stairs up to my suite.”
While they were hurrying down the hallway a minute later, Nick spied a reporter standing in the lobby in the distance, talking on his cell phone. He rapidly put his back to the wall and Deidre followed his example. She stifled some giggles as they cautiously made their way to the doorway leading to the back stairs.
“Shhh,” Nick hushed, but he was grinning, too.
They ducked into Nick’s suite on the fifth floor, both of them breathless with laughter and the exertion of climbing the stairs. Deidre gazed around the large, luxurious suite and found the bathroom door.
“I’m just going to pop in here and freshen up a little,” she said, laughter still lingering around her mouth.
When she came out a few minutes later, Nick was standing behind the granite wet bar.
“Champagne?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
“Yeah. I thought it was appropriate,” Nick told her, a small smile shaping his mouth. His longish bangs had fallen on his forehead as he uncorked the bottle. He really was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. How she could have ever considered him cold and heartless was beyond her.
She smiled as he came around the bar and handed her a flute of champagne.
“Did you mean champagne was appropriate because it’s Christmas Eve?” she asked.
He shook his head, holding her stare. He waved her over to a seating area where they both sat on a plush couch.
“What’s the appropriate occasion then?” Deidre asked.
Nick shrugged and her gaze dropped over his broad shoulders. He looked good enough to eat wearing a well-cut black suit, crisp white dress shirt and a silver-gray tie that almost matched the color of his eyes.
“For a couple of things, I guess.”
