by Holly Rayner
She got up from the table and ran to embrace him. “We’re really going back? I can’t believe it!”
He grinned. “I want James to see the place, don’t you? Hey, James, you want to go to the beach?”
“No!”
James—who was now fifteen months old—was in a no phase. But he was also banging his spoon excitedly against the tray of his high chair, so Gwen got the feeling he wasn’t actually opposed to Clay’s suggestion.
“What about the horses?” she asked. “What about the cows? Who’s going to take care of the ranch?”
“Melissa and Dave will keep things running,” Clay said.
Melissa and Dave had begun dating shortly after Dave’s community service punishment had been completed. Though he was still paying Clay back the money he had borrowed to pay the fine he’d been given, it was generally agreed by all concerned that Dave’s sentence had been reasonable and lenient.
Clay was watching Gwen with concern. “Do you like it?” he asked. “Are you happy?”
“I love it,” she assured him. “I can’t wait to see it again. I thought it would be years before I had the chance to go back.”
“Technically, it has been years,” Clay said with a grin.
“Very funny, handsome.” She laughed.
She spent the rest of the day packing. She carefully folded the dress she had worn the night she and Clay had had their first dinner out together at the Flying Fish and placed it at the bottom of her suitcase, where it wouldn’t wrinkle. She wondered if they would have the chance to eat there again. It didn’t seem like the kind of place you could take a toddler.
But who cared? This trip wouldn’t be like the last one—with surfing and parasailing and day drinking at Jahni’s tiki bar. But it would be wonderful in a whole new, completely thrilling way.
She would get to watch James take his first steps in the ocean.
She would get to show him how to play in the sand, how to dig a hole and build a wall around it, how to hunt for shells to bring home and keep in his room as a reminder of their trip.
She would take him out into the water and lift him over the waves, letting him experience the way the ocean moved.
And at night, she would share a hotel room with her family instead of coming back to a room that was only hers.
There would be no loneliness on this trip. There would be no long hours to fill. Every moment was sure to be exciting and worthwhile.
Suitcase packed, she went into the nursery and found Clay putting some of James’ things into a bag. She went to help him.
“This is such a nice surprise,” she said. “I didn’t get you anything nearly as good for Christmas.”
“You don’t need to get me anything,” he said, grinning. “You gave me James.”
Gwen hugged Clay tight and kissed him. He held her in his arms.
“Besides,” he said, “this trip is kind of a gift for both of us. I’m looking forward to it just as much as you are.”
She smiled. “I’m glad.”
“In fact,” he added, “I’m thinking we should make a tradition of it. Go somewhere warm every Christmas.”
“Really?”
“Do you like that idea?” he asked.
“I love it,” she said. “Can we afford to do that, though? Every year?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “The civil suit against the real estate company that tricked Dave into buying those properties may not have completely made up for all the money I lost, but it’s enough that we don’t have to worry about our finances. You’re never going to have to go back to work unless you want to. James will always have the best of everything. And yes, we can afford to take as many vacations as we want.”
It was James’ first time on a plane, and Gwen had been worried about how he might handle it, but he had a great time. The takeoff and the landing excited him, and in between he spent the time sleeping and watching cartoons on his tablet.
They stepped off the plane and into the warm tropical air, and Gwen immediately felt as if she had been transported back in time to two years ago. It was hard to reconcile the woman she had been then—overworked, emotionally exhausted, and facing a lonely Christmas—with the joy she felt in her life now.
They caught a cab to the resort. Gwen got butterflies in her stomach when she saw it again.
She reached out and took Clay’s hand. “I can’t believe we’re back here,” she murmured.
James pointed out the window with wide eyes.
Clay ruffled his son’s hair. “This is the place where Mom and I met,” he told him.
Gwen laughed. “He’s not ready for that talk, Clay.”
They checked in and were given their room keys. “How do you like that?” Clay said, showing Gwen the key envelope he’d been handed. “Room 108.”
“What about it?”
“It’s the same room I had last time,” Clay reminded her.
So it was. She remembered now—remembered how she had called this resort begging to know who had stayed in room 108 over Christmas, only to be denied. It seemed incredible that she could have forgotten that number. It had been so important to her for so long.
The suite was the same as Gwen remembered—spacious and beautiful. She put her suitcase in the bedroom. “We’ll have a crib sent in for James,” she said.
“I’ve already requested it,” Clay said. “Someone will be bringing it by. Do you two feel like going to the beach tonight?”
Gwen was surprised to find that she did. She had expected to feel exhausted after the day’s travel, but being here was invigorating.
“Let me just change,” she said. It was too late in the day for swimming, but she wanted to wear something more casual to the beach.
She put on a sundress, put a little sunscreen on James’ face just to be on the safe side, and met Clay in the living room. He was staring out the window at the water and looking wistful.
“Are you okay?” Gwen asked. “You look sad.”
“Not sad,” he assured her. “I’m just thinking about the last time we were here, and how alone I felt.”
Gwen wrapped an arm around his waist and leaned on his shoulder as he continued.
“I remember being in this room—this exact room—and thinking how sad it was that I couldn’t fill it up,” he said. “I’d booked a suite because that’s what my dad would have done, and without him, there was too much room and not enough of me.”
Gwen nodded. “I remember,” she said. It was that shared loneliness that had brought them together.
“And now,” he said, “I have you, and I have James…and my life is so full.”
She turned and stood on her toes to kiss him. “You’ll always have us,” she assured him. “Nothing will ever change that.”
The next week was nonstop adventure.
They spent their days on the beach, where James loved nothing more than to play where the waves met the shore, squealing happily as the tide carried the ocean water up to tickle his toes.
“We’re going to have to put him in toddler swim lessons when we get home,” Gwen said one afternoon.
It was Christmas Day, and resort employees were walking around the beach handing out free cocktails and treats. Gwen was holding an ice cream with butterscotch sauce, her feet in the water, as James splashed and played and Clay did his best to stop him from trying to eat sand.
“He might teach himself to swim,” Clay said, laughing. “After all, he was conceived on an island.”
“Help me finish this.” Gwen put the ice cream between them, and they took turns feeding each other bites of it with the single spoon.
“Swimming lessons aren’t the only thing I want to look into when we get back home,” Clay said.
“What else?” Gwen asked.
“I’ve been thinking about the future,” he said. “About the ranch.”
“What about it?”
“It still looks just like it did when Dad lived there,” Clay said. “For a long time, I di
dn’t want to change anything. But it’s your home now too. I want you to feel like you can make changes if you want to.”
“I don’t need to make any changes,” Gwen protested. “The ranch is beautiful.”
“So you like the moose wallpaper in the guest room?”
Gwen laughed. “Okay, fair enough. I could live without the moose wallpaper. And the carpets could stand to be replaced. They’re a little old.”
Clay nodded. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “And I’m thinking of tearing down the stable and building a new one, too. Something a little less—”
“Ramshackle?”
“Exactly.” He grinned. “Be thinking about it. The ranch is your home. I want it to look like your home.”
“It’s strange,” Gwen admitted. “I’ve never really had a home before. I mean, I had my apartment in New Orleans, of course, but even that always felt sort of temporary. I think it was something I got used to when I was a kid—the idea that no matter how comfortable I got, I shouldn’t expect anything to last.”
“I imagine that’s a pretty common thing for a kid raised in foster care to feel,” Clay said.
Gwen nodded. “I assume so.”
“But we aren’t temporary,” Clay said. “Our home, our life together—that’s forever.”
“Yes, it is,” Gwen agreed, smiling. “We have something pretty powerful holding us together.” She looked at James, who was currently dumping sand on his legs.
“We do,” Clay said. “But Gwen…I hope you know that James isn’t the only reason I’m with you. I would want you with me even if James had never come along at all.”
Gwen had been fairly sure of that, but it was nice to hear him say it nonetheless.
“I feel the same way,” she assured him.
“I hope that’s true,” Clay said.
“Why do you sound nervous?” She glanced at him. “Are you okay?”
He cleared his throat, then took her hand and raised her up to standing.
And then he sank to one knee before her.
Gwen gasped. “Clay—”
He was holding a ring box. She had no idea where it had come from. He must have been hiding it somewhere, waiting for the right moment.
For this moment.
He took her hand. “Gwen Carrington,” he said, “I’ve been dreaming about doing this since the day I met you. I never thought it would actually happen—I thought I was just indulging in an idle fantasy. But the more I got to know you, the more I knew that you were everything I didn’t know I had always wanted to find.”
“Oh, my God!” someone squealed, off in the distance. “That guy’s proposing!”
Gwen’s eyes filled with tears. She reached up to swipe them away quickly.
“Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Clay went on. Then he grinned. “And getting you pregnant was the best mistake I ever made.”
Gwen laughed through her tears.
At the sound of his mother’s laughter, James got up from the sand and flung his arms around his father, who was still down on one knee.
Clay laughed as he caught James, narrowly avoiding being knocked to the ground. “This isn’t as suave as I was hoping it would be.”
“It’s perfect,” Gwen assured him.
He opened the ring box to reveal a beautiful round-cut solitaire diamond. She didn’t know how he could have known that it was exactly the style of ring she would have chosen for herself, but she wasn’t surprised. Clay had always known her surprisingly well. Of course he would be able to predict what she would want.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Yes! Absolutely, yes,” she said, breathless with joy.
He pulled the ring from the box and slipped it onto her finger, then kissed her hand gently before returning it to her.
Gwen admired the ring, but only briefly. She dropped to her knees and embraced Clay, her lips meeting his in a kiss as a wave broke on the shore.
The tide was coming in. The water nipped at their toes.
James giggled in his father’s arms, and Clay got to his feet, pulling Gwen along with him.
“Come on,” he said. “We’d better enjoy this while we can.”
With James toddling between them, they ran along the water’s edge, and Gwen laughed with joy in her heart.
It was the most perfect Christmas she could have imagined.
The End
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