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It wasn’t all spanking and begging and attempted bondage with shoelaces. They talked, too.
Sometimes, they argued.
Sometimes, she sat up in the bed and gesticulated as she made point after point—all of them good ones, because he was frustratingly stuck in thinking certain things she thought were ridiculous.
But by the end of the day, they were planning out how they were going to make two appearances, one at each of their family’s Christmas Eve dinners and how the day of Yule itself was going to work out perfectly because his family did a big meal at lunchtime and her mother wouldn’t want her over there until evening for dinner.
The next day, they went out and bought ornaments for his tree.
Only a fourth of them were snowmen, which really showed great restraint on her part, she thought.
And the next day, they didn’t argue at all. The next day, they spent it in his bed, in his perfect farmhouse, and she lay tucked into his strong arms, stretched out against his huge, strong body, and they made plans together.
They wanted her moved into the farmhouse before the baby was born. They would spend the first three years—while she was breastfeeding—with her cutting back hours at work and him concentrating on his business. Then she’d start working on her private practice, and he’d take a step back and hire someone to come in and run things for him so he could spend more time at home.
“What if we want another baby, though?” she murmured. “I don’t have tons of time left, really. It gets harder to conceive as you get into your late thirties.”
“If so, we’ll make a new plan,” he said. “We’ll make it work.”
She looked up at him, in his bed, and she believed him in a way she’d never quite believed a man. Gunnar was the kind of man who did that, made new plans, made things happen.
“You know,” she said, “I think we will.”
“Of course we will,” he said.
SHE MET HISfamily on Christmas Eve.
“We met on one of those apps and it didn’t work out,” he said. “But now she’s pregnant, so we’re giving it a go.”
If people had questions about that premise, no one asked them.
His nephew Tyr was very excited about the baby. “That’s going to be my cousin,” he informed her. “Did you know that? When your uncle has a baby, it’s your cousin.”
“I did know that,” she said to him, grinning. “But you’re very smart to know it, I have to say.”
“It’ll be my only cousin,” he said. “How many cousins do you have?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever counted.”
“Is it a lot?”
“Maybe five,” she said, thinking about it.
“Thatisa lot,” said Tyr. “It’s good, you know, a cousin? Because I used to have a brother, but…” He hunched up his shoulders, lower lip trembling.
“I heard about your brother,” she said in a soft voice.
“I don’t know why I told you,” said Tyr in a whisper. “I don’t actually like to talk about it.”
“It can be good to talk about it,” she said.
“It’s just weird this year,” said Tyr. “Because usually my brother would be here, and so would my mom. You should have a bunch of kids, so I have a lot of cousins and more people come to Yule.”
She laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Tyr nodded sagely. “Thanks,” he said, very seriously. “I appreciate that.”
Itwasgood, the baby, she thought. Good for Gunnar’s family. Healing. Because there had been so many rifts for them, so much loss, so much change. This was hope for them, and she liked it.
