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December 24
Christie’s entire body felt heavy with exhaustion, weariness filling her bones with lead. She turned her SUV out of the hospital parking lot and began the mercifully short drive home. The route between her little bungalow and the hospital normally took about ten minutes, but traffic was incredibly light, the streets practically deserted. It was 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and everyone had somewhere else to be. Well, everyone except her.
Big, fluffy snowflakes began to fall, drifting down in the still, silent night. She flicked on her wipers and turned onto her street, relieved to almost be home, where she could just crawl into bed after a big glass of wine and a couple of Tylenol. Christmas in the ER was always tough, and although her specialty was pediatrics, it was all hands on deck with so many others on vacation. There had been two attempted suicides rushed in, a slew of cooking related burns, more than one case of alcohol poisoning, and a teenage boy with one of the worst broken legs she’d seen in a while. He’d climbed up on his roof, trying to fix a burnt-out light display, and had slipped on a patch of ice. Poor kid. He’d probably need surgery, and he’d be in a cast until spring.
She’d spent any free seconds she’d had trying to think of what to say to Luke to fix what she’d broken between them, but she couldn’t seem to find the right words. Everything she came up with felt flat or hollow, and it needed to be right. Maybe after a hot shower and some sleep, her brain would feel clearer, and she’d figure out what to do.
As she drew closer to her house, her brow furrowed in worried confusion.
Oh, Jesus. Her house was on fire.
She blinked rapidly and shook her head, and the confusion cleared as she realized the warm glow coming from the roofline of her house wasn’t fire.
It was Christmas lights.
And then she saw it. Luke’s dark blue truck parked in her driveway. Her heart leapt into her throat and she urged her SUV a little faster down the street. She pulled in behind him, wondering if her shaking hands would be obvious to him, because she couldn’t seem to control the tremor spreading from her fingertips straight to her core.
“Hi, Christie!” Ethan waved, all bundled up in the cold. A ladder leaned against the side of the house. “Do you like your Christmas present?”
She looked up at the house, decorated so beautifully. Strings of warm, white lights lined the roof and twisted around the columns of the porch. A huge wreath hung from the front door, and more lights hung over the garage and lit the walkway from the driveway to the porch. The house glowed like a beacon against the velvet dark of the sky, and with the snow falling softly around her, it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. She had no words, but it didn’t matter, because she wouldn’t have been able to speak around the lump in her throat anyway.
“Okay, bud, we should be—” Luke came around from the side of the house, dusting snow off of his jeans. He stopped mid-step, mid-sentence when he saw her.
“Hi.” He smiled tentatively, his face searching hers.
“Hi.” She spoke the word so softly, she wasn’t sure if he heard it. It didn’t seem to matter, because he closed the distance between them, his boots crunching in the snow.
“Christie, I—”
She cut him off with a gentle kiss, and his lips softened into hers instantly. She wrapped her arms around him, and breaking the kiss, shook her head. “Luke, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I understand why you did it. You were trying to protect me, to protect Ethan from . . .” He glanced at his son. “Everything. But, Christie, you’ve got it backwards. I want to be the one protecting you, but I can only do that if you stop holding yourself hostage to past mistakes.” He kissed her again, and it was so full of hope, so full of promise that her heart filled near to bursting. Cupping her face, he pressed his forehead to hers. “There is nothing that could change how I feel about you. You are kind and smart and so damn beautiful, and I want you in my life.” He looked at Ethan again. “Our lives.”
Relief, warm like golden sunshine, washed over her, and she had no words for the gratitude that was threatening to overwhelm her. Despite everything—the existence of the pictures, the secret she’d kept from him, pushing him away—here he was, telling her he wanted a future with her. She bit her lip, looking up at him.
“I love you, Luke. It scares me, but I love you. And if you’ll have me, I want nothing more than to be with you.”
A wide grin spread across his face, and his arms tightened around her. “I love you, too. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed her again, and she leaned into him, seeking out his warmth, his touch. Him. Luke.
“Christie, you never said if you like your present!” Ethan stared at them, his eyes glittering.
“I love it. It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“You mean it?” Ethan’s little face lit up with happiness.
She nodded, the lump returning to her throat. “I mean it.”
Luke pressed a kiss to her temple. “You said you didn’t bother with decorations because you’d be spending Christmas alone. So, obviously, I had to fix that. Since you won’t be alone. You should spend Christmas with the people you love. With the people who love you.”
She tried to breathe, but couldn’t, because her heart was so full that it was taking up all of the available space in her chest. To have a chance at a fresh start with Luke, to spend Christmas with him and his son, was more than she’d dared hope for. Ethan ran forward through the snow and flung his arms around their legs, and together, the three of them looked up at the twinkling lights as fresh, pure, snowflakes fell around them.
Santa had come early this year. For all three of them.
Chapter 1
“Ilike big butts and I cannot lie!” Ellie Richards pursed her lips and bopped her head in time with the music, flicking the volume up until the smooth rhymes of Sir Mix-A-Lot filled the car’s cabin. She knew all the lyrics by heart and rapped along. She gripped the steering wheel of her small blue Toyota with one hand, pushing her glasses up her nose with the other. Alone in the car, she was free to be as dorky and silly as she wanted. And today, she felt especially dorky and silly, but in the best possible way.
