Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“It’s not obvious to me,” he says, his eyes searching my face.
“Noah is my priority. I made a decision to put him first. But what about you? Are you a consummate bachelor, or what?”
He sighs heavily and rolls to his back, where he stares at the ceiling for several long beats of silence. “My siblings would tell you that I’m too closed off. That I haven’t had a serious relationship since Sara, because I don’t let people in.”
“Interesting.” Sara. I haven’t heard anything about her since I saw her at the tasting room Thursday night. I wonder what ever happened with that. Did he call her? Did she leave town again? “And what would you say?”
“I would say that you don’t grow up in a house like mine, seeing the way my parents loved each other, without being really damn picky about who you’re willing to share your life with.”
I study his profile, and something heavy presses on my chest. “You deserve to be picky.” Then, because I realize we’re talking about the possibility of him finding someone else, I jump to change the subject. “Thank you for what you did today—at the tree farm.” I sit up and lean back against the headboard. “You handled it perfectly.”
“It was nothing.”
It was everything. “Your family is pretty amazing.” I stretch my legs out and flex my feet. “I was always so jealous of that.”
Brayden rolls to face me. “Your mom’s great. And you have Ava and Colton.”
I huff out a breath. “Yeah, and Ava and I are great now, but she pretty much hated me the few years we lived together in high school, and Colton and I were never close.”
“Because he wanted you?”
I cringe at the reminder. Colton hasn’t felt that way about me in years, but his old crush combined with an instinctive protectiveness caused him a lot of trouble last summer. I shrug. “So he says, but I think he always liked the idea of me more than anything. I’m grateful for Ava and Colton, but if you walked into that stupid mansion when Nelson was alive, you would have understood why I envy your family.”
He sits up and cups my face in his big hand. “I don’t have to experience the chill of a house under Nelson’s rule to understand that. I know my family is special—have always known, even when I was a selfish teenager who wanted to escape their constant presence.”
“I’m grateful . . .” I swallow, measuring my words. “I’m grateful for your family. The way they include Noah. I want him to experience that. Even the fight with Lilly today—it’s like they’re cousins. My dad left when I was six, and every year after that until Mom married Nelson, I’d ask Santa for a family.” Brayden’s still watching me, so I drop my gaze to my lap and study my hands. “Maybe a ten-year-old is too big to believe in Santa Claus, but I did. I believed with the fierce passion of a child who needed to believe in magic to survive. Then Mom married Nelson, and I got a dad and stepbrother and stepsister in one fell swoop. I told everyone at school that Santa was real. They laughed at me, but I didn’t care. I knew.”
“But your new family wasn’t much of a gift at all,” he whispers.
I still can’t look at him. I pick at my nails. “The first time Nelson touched me, it was Christmas Eve. He told me I had to be quiet or Santa would hear and he’d take my presents away.”
The whole bed shifts as he tenses beside me. “That sonofabitch.”
“I knew then that there was no such thing as Santa or magic. Just adults who used the story to manipulate little kids. But I also knew that my mom was happy for the first time in years, and if I told her . . . if I admitted what happened, I’d be taking that from her.”
“Jesus,” he says, and anger comes off him in waves.
“That’s why I tell my son that Santa will come regardless of his behavior. Because Santa is love, and love is unconditional.” I shake my head. Almost without exception, I don’t talk about Nelson. I’m not sure what made me do it tonight. I could have explained this to Brayden without the details. And yet . . . “Maybe I shouldn’t have done the Santa thing with Noah, but we all need a little magic in our lives.”
“There’s nothing wrong with letting your child believe in magic. In something better for the hard days,” he says. His voice is so tight that I force myself to look at him and see his jaw is hard and those dark eyes are cold.
I don’t know what to make of his expression, but I’m already wishing I hadn’t shared so much, hadn’t let him see more of my broken self. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”