Max allowed Sadie to pull him to the couch. “You know I’m putty in your hands,” he said with a smile, marveling at her and feeling damn lucky to be by her side. Not just on the stage now, but in life, too. It was sometimes hard to believe how much had changed for them in a year. Around this time a yearbefore it seemed that happiness of any sort was out of reach for Max and Sadie. But here they were.
“So, just tell me,” Sadie said when they were settled on the couch. “If it’s not waiting to hear from Allen, what’s got you so hot and bothered?” She lay a hand on Max’s cheek. He had a beard again—which, it turned out, Sadie quite liked.
“I just want everything to be perfect,” he replied. “For your mom, and my family. I really hope we can make this an annual tradition, you know?”
“Everythingisperfect,” Sadie said, smiling. Then she gestured around the room. “Look at this place! It’s a Christmas wonderland.”
“More like Christmas threw up in here.” Max laughed, noting how not a single surface of the cabin had escaped his decorating frenzy.
“It’sperfect,” Sadie reiterated, holding his gaze. They leaned toward one another, sharing a kiss, and then they broke apart suddenly, staring at each other with wide eyes.
Max grinned. “It’s on!” The radio—a twenty-four-hour Christmas music channel—was playing their newly released holiday song.
“Our first time hearing it together,” Sadie said.
“When the snow starts a-fallin’...”Max’s voice rang out from the radio speakers, and Sadie excitedly grabbed his hands.
“And you come a-callin’...”Sadie sang her line now, in time with the song, and she and Max continued singing to one another in the cabin, their voices as magical together as they ever had been.
Then the song finished, and the DJ said, “That was MaxBrody and Sadie Hunter’s latest Christmas song, ‘It’s Snowing in Nashville,’ and we have to say, this one is destined to be a classic. Those two just keep getting better, don’t you all agree?”
“I agree,” Max said gruffly. He held Sadie’s hands tightly, then cleared his throat—which was locking up on him all of a sudden.
“You okay?” Sadie asked, concerned. “You aren’t getting sick, are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “But I need to ask you something. And I wanted to do it before everyone got here. So we could, you know, be just the two of us.”
“Okay...” Sadie replied, looking confused.
Then Max suddenly let go of her hands, and in one swift motion dropped to one knee in front of Sadie.
“Is this really happening?” Sadie whispered.
“Sadie Hunter, damn, I didn’t see you comin’,” Max started, then cringed when he realized he had cursed. No matter. It was coming from the heart, and Max’s heart was bursting with so many things he wanted to say, he wasn’t sure he could get them out without fumbling.
“You have pushed me, challenged me, pissed me off on more than one occasion.” She laughed then, and so did Max. “But you also have made me a better man, a better person. Everything I am today, everything I have today, is because of you.”
Sadie had tears in her eyes now, and her heart beat furiously—she pressed a hand to her chest to try to calm it.
Max reached around to his back pocket and pulled out a ring—a large pear-shaped solitaire resting on a thin gold band. It glittered with the twinkle lights overhead, and Sadie thought it was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen.
“It’s a Canadian diamond,” Max said, grinning at her. “Conflict free, too.”
She nodded but couldn’t speak. Sadie could barely catch her breath.
He held out the ring, then took her hand in his free one. Sadie could feel the slight shake of his hand, and squeezed tightly to tell him she was feeling all the same things he was right then.
“Sadie Hunter, we make beautiful music together, but will you do me the honor—and damn, sweetheart, it would be the greatest honor—of becoming my partner in this crazy life of ours?”
“Yes,” Sadie breathed out, using every last bit of air she had to do so. Then she took a breath and said, “Yes, yes, yes!”
“So, it’s a yes?” Max asked, smiling at her, tears in his eyes.
She threw herself into him, the both of them tumbling to the soft rug. Sadie was on top of Max, and he let out a tiny groan when he hit the ground.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry!” Sadie said, pushing herself up on her hands to take her weight off Max.
“Are you kidding me?” Max replied, chuckling. “I have never—ever—been better, darlin’.”
