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It took Caraa moment to realize the family room had gonequiet. She glanced up from the puzzle she’d been working on to see what had gotten everyone’s attention. And then her heart skipped a beat, and her chest squeezed tight.
Tall, dark, handsome, British.Here.Alec Sherbourne was here. In her childhood home, surrounded by her family and their noise and chaos.
She started to rise and then sat down awkwardly, heavily. “Alec?” she choked.
“Hello,” he said, and then maybe because she was about to burst into tears, he smiled at her. “Yes, Roberts, it is I.”
Cara’s eyes still burned but his words made her laugh, and she stood again, feeling raw and emotional. “What are you doing here?”
He crossed the family room, dodging people, stepping around a swing, strewn blocks, a basket of yarn. “I wanted to wish you a happy New Year.”
She felt her family’s attention, aware that every single one of them was watching, but she couldn’t focus on them, not when Alec’s dark blue gaze was holding hers, his expression making her breathless. “You could have called,” she said lowly. “If you were wanting to be efficient. You like efficiency.”
“I do. And if I were being truly efficient, a text would have been best.” He stopped at the card table, glanced down at the puzzle she’d been working on. It was a London scene, London in the snow, with the bright red double-decker bus the big pop of color. She hadn’t made a great deal of progress. “You’ve never been to London,” he said.
“It was a Christmas gift,” she said. “From Santa.”
“Father Christmas must think you should see London in the snow.”
“Father Christmas probably didn’t see my wish list,” she said tartly, and yet her heart was racing, and her thoughts were spinning, and she wasthrilledhe was here.
“What was on your wish list?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand.
She swallowed hard as his fingers curled around hers. She’d missed this, missed him, missed his touch. “Number one was a trip to a tropical island. No snow. And no grumpy English men.”
“I’m glad Father Christmas chose the puzzle. It would have been incredibly inconvenient to come all this way and discover you were in Hawaii. But I would have gone there next. And if you weren’t in Hawaii, then Bora Bora or wherever you’d run off to.”
“But here I am,” she said, rising. “And here you are.” He wrapped an arm around her, hugging her. She exhaled hard, and then whispered, “It’s good to see you.” But, even whispering, her voice trembled. Her legs were trembling, too.
“It’s good to see you,” he answered, easing away from her to look at the group behind him. “But would it be possible for us to go somewhere and talk, somewhere with a little more privacy?”
She turned to look at her parents, her brothers and their wives, the nieces and nephews, her sister. They were all staring, wide-eyed, but Ella… Ella was the worst. Ella was grinning, totally amused.
“Yes,” Cara said decisively. “Come with me.” Still holding hands, she led him from the room but once in the doorway, she turned and faced her family. “Oh, in case you didn’t know, this is Alec Sherbourne of Langley Park.”
“The man you want to marry,” her nephew shouted, Tom and Kristine’s oldest.
Cara flushed, shook her head. “I never said that.”
“But you said you love him,” her nephew added, before being loudly shushed by his mother.
Cara glanced up at Alec as they walked down the hallway. “Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be sorry, not if it’s true.”
She dragged him from the hallway into her father’s dark study and then threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. “I’ve missed you. That’s all I want to say right now. I really missed you and I’m so glad to see you, and oh, happy New Year!”
He kissed her then, and the kiss was filled with so much passion, and love and affection, that she knew, before he’d even said anything, that this was going to be the best New Year’s ever.
*
They spent almostan hour closeted away in her father’s study, only emerging when Cara’s mom knocked on the door and announced that dinner was ready.
Cara was pleased to see Alec handle her family so well. They were loud and lively and the nieces and nephews—especially Tom and Kristine’s twins—tended to shriek instead of using their inside voices.
Her mother had made one of her famous prime ribs, which to feed everyone, meant two prime ribs since her brothers could still eat a lot. There was no Yorkshire pudding, but Alec said it was some of the best beef he’d ever had, and Mrs. Roberts blushed.
Cara couldn’t remember the last time her mother blushed, but Cara understood. Alec was pretty dazzling, and when you first met him, he did have that whole Barbara Cartland hero mystique.
