* * *
Kyle aimed his snowball carefully, and it splatted on the house to the side of the women, who laughed. He stood ten feet away, tossing another snowball straight up and catching it as it fell, looking at Lexi in a calculated way.
She put her hands up as if to protect herself. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
Kyle tossed up the snowball again. Caught it. “Tell me why not.”
Looking indignant, she put her hands on her hips. “Because I won’t help you with your book if you do.”
If anyone else had suggested helping him, if she hadn’t been joking, he might have resented the offer. He grinned as he caught the snowball. “Like I need your help.”
She smiled sweetly. “You never know when you’ll need the help of a Dick and Jane expert.”
He stepped toward her and she took off running. She’d taken less than a dozen steps when he grabbed her and they fell, rolling and laughing, into the snow.
Steven and Trista appeared as if by magic and joined the dog pile. It seemed right that they be here.
Moments later, the four of them lay back in the snow, laughing hard and trying to catch their breath.
Kyle hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in years.
* * *
Lexi hadn’t laughed this hard in a long time. And her kids hadn’t, either. She sat up and brushed the snow from her coat.
Kyle looked at her for a long moment before he spoke. “Actually, I could use some help brainstorming part of my plot.”
Trista’s eyes grew wide. “Can I help, too?”
“Yeah, me, too.” Steven dropped into the snow beside Kyle. “I’m a good reader.”
Kyle ruffled Steven’s hair and Steven stared adoringly up at Kyle. And Lexi realized things were happening too fast. Things were already changing for her and the kids. The perfect world she’d created was turning topsy turvy and rolling in the snow.
The thought excited her.
The thought terrified her.
* * *
Later that afternoon, Lexi snuggled into the afghan Kyle had wrapped around her shoulders. The kids sat on either side of her on the couch. Kyle stood by the family room fireplace and looked nervous.
Kenneth plopped down in a chair next to the couch. Keefe and his family pulled the comfortable chairs closer, in a circle, as though circling the wagons to keep away danger.
Their father sat in the recliner, his feet up.
Kyle wasn’t used to hosting, but he wasn’t totally inept. “I would like to thank you all for coming to my home this year for the holidays. And I would like to start a new tradition. I would like us all to open one gift tonight, and this year I bought a special gift for each of you for that purpose. Justin and Jill have agreed to help me.”
Keefe’s children handed out the gifts.
Justin handed a brightly wrapped gift to Trista. “This one’s for you.”
“I have a gift? Really?”
Lexi smiled at the sweet, surprised look on her daughter’s face, and realized she wasn’t the only one feeling the magic of family. Emotion caught at her throat.
Justin nodded. “And so does Steven and your mom.”
“Wow,” Lexi said and blinked back tears that burned her eyes. “The disgusting little elves must have been busy this holiday.”
Kyle looked at her and smiled. “I want to thank you for all you’ve done the last few days. For the happiness you’ve brought to my family.”
“Here, here,” Kenneth raised his mug of hot cocoa, “I’ll drink to that.”
“You’ll drink to anything,” his father said in his pleasant Irish brogue. He raised his own mug to Lexi. “I thank you, as well. This has been a delightful celebration.”
“You’re welcome,” Lexi said as Jill placed a large red-and-white, candy-cane-striped package in her lap. “And thank you.”
Lexi glanced up, but she couldn’t read the look on his face. Kyle was studying her intently. A slow smile lit his features. “I wasn’t sure what blackmailers liked for Christmas, so I had to guess.”
Lexi laughed as his brothers looked at them curiously.
“You’re a blackmailer, too?” Kenneth raised an eyebrow. “You are multi talented, aren’t you?”
“Go ahead,” Kyle urged Lexi. “Open it.”
Trista had already opened hers and squealed with delight when she saw the beautiful collector’s doll.
Steven said, “Bad!” and then “Thanks, Kyle. How did you know I’ve been wanting a remote control race car?”
“I’ve got connections.”
Lexi unwrapped her gift slowly, savoring the feel, though temporary, of belonging to a family at holiday time. She lifted the box lid and looked puzzled. “Fudge?”
He smiled, and Trista giggled. Lexi looked from one to the other.
“I heard it’s the one thing you absolutely, positively can’t do, so I decided to lend you a hand.” He shrugged proudly. “I made it myself.”
Lexi laughed. “Sure, you did.”
When Kenneth touched her forearm lightly, his touch held none of the sizzle of his brother’s. “Actually, Kyle has always made superb fudge.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Even Alyssa nodded.
“Who knew?” Lexi laughed. “Thank you very much for the homemade fudge. Would anyone like a piece?”
“Oh, no, you don’t. There’s fudge for everyone else in the kitchen. This is yours.” Kyle pointed toward the box. “Look underneath the fudge.”
She raised the piece of cardboard holding the fudge. A beautiful gold chain nestled on the paper beneath with a little gold snowman charm. With a little gasp of surprise, of delight, Lexi looked up into Kyle’s eyes.
A satisfied smile rested on his face. “I was hoping you’d like it.”
“Like it?” she repeated. She loved it. But it was such an expensive gift, and she didn’t know if that meant only that he could afford expensive gifts...or if it meant much more. “But--“
”No buts,” Kyle’s father said. “Young lady, didn’t anyone ever tell you how to accept expensive gifts?”
She grinned. “I guess not.”
Kenneth rolled out of his chair and onto his knees beside her. “May I?” he asked as he delicately lifted the chain, and said, in a falsetto, “Oh, Kyle, this is absolutely be-OOO-tiful. I’d like more of these. Lots more, please.”
Everyone laughed.
With the chain again in her hands, Lexi mouthed ‘thank you’ to Kyle.
He mouthed ‘you’re welcome’ back.
And she thought her heart had never been so full.
Keefe’s wife opened her gift, and teased. “Thank you, Kyle. This is be-OOO-tiful, too.” Alyssa held up a rose-colored sweater with embroidered pastel flowers. “This color reminds me of Mama.”
And with that one mention of the woman Lexi would never meet, a heavy feeling settled over Kyle’s family.
And over the happiness in Lexi’s heart.
Chapter Eleven
Disappointed, Kyle realized the Christmas Eve curse was still here. He, his brothers, and his father all tried to pretend nothing had happened to ruin their holidays twenty-two years ago. And they always ended up ruining their current holidays.
Even Lexi’s presence couldn’t keep that particularly ugly holiday tradition at bay, the same one Alyssa had been fighting for years.
Sadness crept into his heart. He could tell his whole family was feeling it. He sat on the floor and leaned between the edges of Kenneth’s chair and Lexi’s couch.
Alyssa said, “I want to sing Mama’s favorite song.”
“Not yet.” His father’s voice cracked a little, and that brought the sadness even heavier into the room.
Kyle glanced up at Lexi and watched her look around at each of them. When he caught her eye, he attempted a smile, but was sure it didn’t work well. She leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes, and he couldn’t tell what she w
as thinking.
Alyssa persisted. “I think we’ve gone too long putting these things off. That’s part of the problem. We need to look at it. We need to feel it. And then we can remember Mama with happiness.”
His father shook his head.
After a brief hesitation, Alyssa bucked the tradition and started to sing. “Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.”
For long moments, Alyssa’s soprano voice carried the melody alone. Then Lexi joined in with a lovely alto harmony line, followed by her slightly out-of-key kids. Then Justin and Jill.
Keefe took his wife’s hand and choked out, “Silent night, holy night. Shepherds quake at the sight.”
Finally, even Kenneth joined in.
Tears ran down his father’s cheeks. And down Kyle’s own. And then, Kyle found himself singing the last few words. “Christ, the Savior is born.”
He hadn’t seen his father cry for years. But his father was crying now.
“Silent night, holy night, Son of God, Love’s pure light.”
Kyle wiped the tears from his own cheeks.
As the last strains of the song--Jesus, Lord at thy birth--faded, Kyle had a sudden desire to talk about Mama. A deep need. But he wasn’t sure how his father would take it. His big tough Irish father, who still missed his mother so much he never spoke of her.
His father stood. “I can’t do this. I’m going up to bed.”
Suddenly Lexi spoke, her voice quiet but piercing in its emotion. “Mr. Miller, this is perhaps not my place to say, but sometimes you need to go back to that painful place before you can go past the pain and find any joy.”
His father stared at her. “You are so young and so happy. What can you know of my pain at losing my wife?”
She smiled sadly. “I will share my own pain with you, if you will do me the honor of listening.”
His father looked at her for a long moment, finally nodded, and sank back into his chair. He did not recline this time. “All right. Yes, I will listen.”
She looked at Kyle as she took a deep, shuddering breath.
He reached over and took her hand in support of whatever she was going to share that raised such strong emotions in her, surprised at the strength of the protectiveness he felt toward her.
“When I was seventeen years old, my parents took a skiing trip. I stayed with my grandmother while they were gone. Driving back down the mountain afterward, they ran into a patch of black ice, and slid off the road. They were both killed. That was thirteen years ago.”
Her voice cracked and she paused, and Kyle wished he could take away her pain. She continued. “I married in an attempt to recreate a family around me, but he wasn’t family material.”
“He made some cute family members, though.” Kyle’s father smiled sadly as he pointed at Trista and Steven. “It seems you have spent your entire life creating family. In your work, you create family. You create family for our family, even.”
“I struggled with my pain for a long time. And I’ve struggled to support my family after my husband left. Ever since my parents died and especially after my grandmother died, I have wished with all my heart for a family. And I see your family and I think it’s wonderful. But, no offense intended, all of you except Alyssa are too afraid to move past the pain to the joy of family you once had. That you could still have.”
His father asked, in a small voice, “But how do we do that?”
A tear ran down Lexi’s cheek. “I don’t have all the answers. I would just like to share with you something about my parents and my loss.”
She squeezed Kyle’s hand. He squeezed back.
“I wish I could have my dad call me his little princess just one more time. And I’ll always regret that my mother wanted me to go with her to choose a new outfit for their trip, but I was too busy with my friends and so I put her off. And now I can never help her choose anything again.” She sighed, a wistful sound in the quiet room. “Sometimes I feel her here, with me, watching over me and the children, like a guardian angel. Everything I learned about celebrating for the holidays, I learned from watching my mother. I decorate for her.”
The room was quiet for a long time. Finally, Alyssa said, “I remember the wonderful meals Mama used to cook. I used to love when you guys would invite me over for dinner. And, oh, her singing. I got my love of opera from your Mama.”
Kyle would burst if he didn’t speak of Mama. His voice cracked. “I miss having her tuck me in. I realize that I’m too old to tuck in now--but I missed that for so many years, growing up. I miss having a mother to call when I have good news--or bad, either one.”
Sadness overwhelmed him, but this time he let it well up inside him instead of pushing it down. He was tired of fighting it.
Lexi squeezed his hand and he glanced up at her, grateful. Trista put her head on his shoulder. Steven took hold of his sleeve.
Kyle took another deep breath and decided to face the pain. To remember. To talk about her. Finally. “I remember going hunting with Grandpa the day before Christmas. When we got back, the ambulance was in the driveway, and they took her away.”
Tears slid down Kyle’s face, and he let them flow. He’d held them back for twenty-two years. Keefe was right. That was long enough to mourn. Too long. He spoke again. “And I remember Mama telling me that I needed to grow up just like Papa, because he was such a good man.”
His father put his hand up to his chin, trying to regain control over his emotions, and not succeeding.
Keefe said, quietly, “I regret that I didn’t put Mama’s angel on the tree when she asked. By the time I put it up, she wasn’t here to see it.” His voice choked up and he began to cry.
After a moment, through his tears, he watched the corners of Keefe’s mouth slowly curl up. “And I remember Mama’s Christmas Eve dinner, and I miss having her cook all that food for us. And I remember her singing, too. She had such a lovely voice.”
Alyssa took her husband’s hand and leaned her head against his shoulder.
Kenneth sighed and shifted in his seat. “I remember opening my gift from Mama, and how weird it was, with her already gone, but there I was, opening her present.”
The emotion in Kenneth’s voice and the memory tore at Kyle’s heart, and he said, “Me, too.”
“And I remember,” Kenneth continued in a shaky voice, “how she would always write a note and put it into my lunch box. Every day. Some silly thing that I would have died rather than let any of my friends see. I still have some of those notes.”
Kyle cried. So did Kenneth. And Keefe. They all had those notes of love from long ago.
Finally his father spoke, his voice halting and cracking. “She wanted us to go to church that Sunday before Christmas, but I said I wasn’t in the mood to go. And then the next week we were all in church for her funeral.” His voice broke. “And I remember how beautiful she was. My beautiful Gabriella. I miss her so much.”
Justin and Jill went and sat with their grandfather, and he wrapped his big arms around them.
This was the worst of times.
And, for the first time in twenty-two years, Kyle could feel that it could become the best of times. If they could just let go of the hurt and the regrets and remember the good.
Lexi had brought him that.
She’d brought healing into his heart and to his entire family.
This was a Christmas he’d always remember.
And Lexi was a woman he never wanted to forget.
* * *
A long time afterward, Kyle carried Steven, who’d fallen asleep, as he walked Lexi and Trista home. He was so quiet, she had no idea how he felt. She’d bared her soul tonight, and so had he. Their emotions were raw. They seemed to be moving toward something more, something involving a commitment, but this was no time for her to be making new commitments.
She’d made that mistake once before, marrying because she was hurting so much over losing her parents.
K
yle waited for her to unlock her door, then he stepped inside. “Which way to his bed?”
Trista said, “I’ll show you.”
Lexi watched as the two of them climbed the stairs, Trista with her hand on Kyle’s arm. This just felt so right. She wasn’t a young, lonely kid any more. She was a woman who’d been tested and tried and made it on her own. She had two children to protect. And she’d been ready to do that.
But she didn’t feel they needed protecting from Kyle. For the first time since her grandparents died, since Grandma had gone to join them, she felt complete. Safe. Like she was finally...home. She felt safe with him. And she felt as though her children were safe, too.
As she busied herself in her kitchen, mixing up three more cups of hot chocolate, she listened to Kyle’s and Trista’s low voices and laughter as they came back down the stairs. When he caught sight of Lexi, his face lit up in a smile.
He stepped up to her, wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and spoke in a low voice that made her shiver. “Thank you for tonight.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I mean what you did for my family. You and Alyssa together. My father is right. You create family wherever you are.” His voice was soft and gentle. He was a tender-hearted handsome warrior.
That’s just what the maiden in distress in her had always felt she needed. Now she wasn’t sure of anything any more. She teased with him, “You were definitely a huge challenge.”
Trista nudged Kyle’s arm. “Come on. Tell her what you saw.”
Kyle laughed. “I have it on good authority that the perfect Alexis Anderson is human, after all. You do realize blackmail goes both ways, don’t you?”
Puzzled, she looked back and forth between the two of them. “What did you see?”
Trista said, “I was telling him which bedroom was Steven’s, but he opened the wrong door and--“
”I saw your boxes,” he said gravely. “Your entire house looked fantastic within one day, but you have a bedroom with unpacked boxes. Do you know how pleased that makes me?”
She smiled. “Actually, I have two bedrooms full of boxes.”
“Even better. Now, how long does a man have to wait to get another piece of pie around here?”
Trista said, “You are such a pig.”
* * *
Back home, Kyle couldn’t sleep. He was emotionally drained from feeling his hurt and regrets, but he was also buzzing from time spent with Lexi.