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Rumor was she'd moved to Denver, and I couldn't be more relieved. Mainly, because I knew what she did to Nick. I knew how she’d left him in the car to burn when the engine caught fire after she’d been the one to cause the wreck in the first place. I knew how she’d looked back at him slipping in and out of consciousness and chose to save herself rather than ever even trying to save them both. I also knew that after it was all said and done, and the man she claimed to love was home with her once again, she chose to leave him again, vulnerable and alone. And I knew that when he saw her, he was filled with anger, and hurt, and betrayal.
I also knew Nick didn't need that. He didn't need a woman who had abandoned him twice, both times harming him. One physically in a way that he could never recover from.
He didn't need that lording over him. He didn't need to bump into her at the supermarket, and he definitely didn't need her interrupting a dinner while he was out with his woman.
So, Patricia was gone from Cottonwood Hollow, and from his life.From our life.
Even though I had spoken with Katie over the two weeks prior to Last Christmas about my feelings for Nick, I don't think she expected me to uproot my life for him.
I don't think she expected, even when I told her that I was going to stay, that when I came back home to pack that I would leave again. She sat on my bed dumbfounded as I packed my clothes, and everything in my tiny trailer that I wanted to keep. The rest of it, I donated.
I had small trinkets from Mom and Dad that meant the world to me. Christmas decorations that saw my childhood Christmas trees, Mom’s beloved tea set, and a few of the crafts that were especially beautiful, created by her hand—Dad’s leatherbound journals of poetry. I brought those special things. I left the rest.
I didn't need everything to remind me of the life I had in the sun and the sand.
It had been a beautiful life. But I was never meant for it.
I was meant for snowy winters with raging blizzards and snowed-in days. I was meant for a town that started to sing carols for Christmas the day after Halloween. I was meant for Cottonwood Hollow.
I missed Katie dearly, but we spoke often and texted every day.
Besides, after Katie's first visit to Cottonwood Hollow and she met Will—just like I figured, she returned. And then she returned again, and again.
Will had also travelled to see her in the land of sun and sand. But like Nick, Will is a mountain man through and through. He's cool with a week in the sun. He can kick his feet up for a week in the sand, beer in hand, but he was built for this rugged, rough land. He was built for the cold winters and the warm summers, the grassy earth and Rocky Mountains.
He was built for Cottonwood Hollow, so Will and Katie had been seeing each other long distance for nearly a year. I’m just waiting to see who will crack and finally make the move to have them together forever the way I know they are also meant to be.
Will still flirts like a demon. I think now it's just a piss off Nick. Although Nick pretends it doesn't bother him, everyone knows it does. But Will isn't swayed, not in the least. I think it's amusing. So, I entertain it.
Nick knows I'm his.I know I'm his.
We were married last summer in a small, intimate ceremony. Katie walked me down the aisle, tears in both of our eyes, love filling our hearts near to bursting. After meeting Nick, Katie confessed she loved him for me. And knowing Mom and Dad, she confirmed they would have loved him for me too.
To Lucy’s delight, our ceremony and afterparty was thrown at her massive house in town. In her yard, she had a beautiful gazebo decorated in trailing vines and rich, full flowers where we spoke our vows and had our first official kiss as husband and wife.
I will admit it had taken some time to forgive Lucy for her scheming, but not much. It's hard to stay mad at someone who has manipulated you the way she manipulated me and Nick, when the outcome was so beautifully perfect.
Yes, what she did was wrong. So wrong. It was wrong in a crazy, insane, she-should-almost-be-committed kind of way, but behind her wrong, I could see the love. And although it was wrong, knowing that it came from a place of right made the bitter pill of her manipulation a bit easier to swallow. Still, a firm conversation of boundaries has most definitely come and passed. I’m good with Lucy. I love and adore Lucy as a mother-in-law.
There have even been moments where I’ve been with Lucy and she’s reminded me so much of Mom, that I can’t help but think she helped to guide me to Lucy from the very beginning, knowing I was always intended for Nick.
It’s funny this thing we call life. It’s so intensely painful and at the same time, it’s extraordinarily beautiful.
The last year of my life has been pure magic. The dust of that magic has yet to settle as I look out over the full house we have this Christmas. It’s nothing like we had last year, just Nick and me. This year, we are surrounded by family and laughter, making me feel rich beyond measure.
I’m smiling ear to ear as I pour gravy into the boat while Nick carves the citrus turkey. Lucy is standing in her husband’s arm as she talks to Katie who I’ve just overheard tell Lucy that she’s surprising Will with the news tonight. She’s moving to Cottonwood Hollow. With her lease up at the end of next month, she’ll be a permanent fixture in our sleepy little town soon, but as Will returns from the bathroom, Katie hushes the conversation just in time for Noelle to let out a little baby cry from her swing.
Lucy instantly morphs into grandma duty as she bends low to scoop my baby girl into her arms, patting her tiny red fleece covered bum as she coos, “Grandma’s here. Grandma’s got you.”
To our surprise, we became pregnant the very first time we had sex. We couldn't have been happier when we found out, and I couldn't have been happier to walk down the aisle, my belly swollen with my baby toward the man of my dreams. It's not ideal to walk down the aisle pregnant, but for me it was everything. I didn't mind a bit.
“I should feed her before we sit down,” I say, moving to Lucy and Noelle. With my baby girl in my arms, I take her to the couch in front of the Christmas tree beside the fire.
The snow swirling outside is a beautiful picture, the music in the background and the sounds of our family laughing as they wait while Noelle pulls milk from my breast is the most beautiful moment. This is my life now. A year ago, working in the diner alone, coming home to an empty house, I never would have imagined that this would be my life. That I would be a mother to a beautiful baby girl and a wife to an extraordinary man who now has a renewed love for Christmas.
I hadn't even had to ask him to cut down the Christmas tree this year. I still call him Grinch for memories sake.
I feel him behind me before I see him. He tips his head next to mine, his lips grazing my cheek before he moves to my neck, giving me a slow, warm kiss beneath my ear.
