“We’ll beat you next year,” Bridger said. His words made her heart ache. How could they ever recapture this magical season?
“Look at the time,” Luke said suddenly. “You guys need to get to bed or you-know-who won’t be able to come.”
Cassie rolled her eyes but played along for her brother’s sake.
“We need a story first,” Bridger said.
Luke glanced at Elizabeth. “How about we read down here tonight? Then you can say good-night to your mother and I’ll tuck you in.”
“Can we each pick a story tonight?”
“Of course,” he answered.
“Then you can each read us one,” Bridger said.
Cassie picked The Night Before Christmas and gave it to Elizabeth to read. Bridger insisted he wanted to hear the Christmas story from the Bible, so Luke read the familiar story about shepherds and mangers and angels saying fear not.
“Okay. That’s it. Now you really do need to get to bed,” Luke said.
“Can Finn sleep with me?” Bridger asked. “I don’t want him to scare away Santa if he’s down here.”
That was highly unlikely since Finn had probably never scared anything in his life but Luke agreed. “Tonight only,” he said.
To Elizabeth’s joy, both children gave her hugs, though Cassie’s was a little awkward. Then they finally climbed the stairs with one last “Merry Christmas” and she and Luke were alone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Luke didn’t want to be alone with his wife, not with this wild riot of emotions in his chest.
He couldn’t seem to control them. Every time he thought he had a handle on how he was feeling, another wave of sadness would crash over him.
She didn’t want to be with him. That was a tough pill to swallow, especially because these last few days had felt magical to him. He had loved spending time with her and could have sworn she felt the same. There were times he would look over at her and she would be watching him and the children with an expression of sheer joy on her face.
He wasn’t a guy who handled excess emotion well. He had learned early to hide what he was feeling so he didn’t give his father one more weapon against him.
Right now, that was proving more difficult than he’d ever expected.
“I need to give the kids an hour or so to fall asleep before I can bring out the presents and fill their stockings. You don’t have to stay up. You can go to bed, if you want.”
“Do you want me to go to bed?”
No. He wanted her to change her mind and decide she wanted to move back to Haven Point to give them a chance.
“Your decision,” he answered.
“I would...like to stay, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay. Can I get you anything? Eggnog? Something stronger?”
“I was thinking of...cocoa. Would you like some?”
“Sure,” he answered. As long as he could add a healthy shot of Baileys to it.
In the kitchen, she went to work making the hot cocoa the old-fashioned way, heating milk on the stove and adding sugar and cocoa. Soon the kitchen was filled with the delicious aroma. She ladled some into a Christmas mug, topped it with a dollop of whipped cream and slid it to him. After the first sip, Luke decided it was delicious enough he could forgo the Baileys for now.
As if by tacit agreement, they made their way back to the great room, to the fire in the hearth and the tall, gleaming Christmas tree he and the children had decorated.
She sat on the sofa where she had the perfect view of both, as well as the snow softly falling outside the window. He knew it probably wasn’t wise, but he wanted the same view, so he sat beside her on the sofa.
He almost reconsidered the Baileys when he felt the heat of her scrutiny on him, her gaze intense and her features unreadable. “I need to ask you something.”
He sipped at his cocoa, suddenly wary. “Go ahead.”
She glanced at the tree, then back at him. “You knew that was the Sparkses’ house tonight, didn’t you? We drove past it on purpose. It wasn’t on a main road. You wanted the kids to choose Billy’s house for their grand prize.”
Heat inched over his cheeks and he knew he couldn’t blame either the fire or the cocoa.
“Yeah. I knew,” he admitted. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt the kids to see that everything is not always black-and-white.”
“He has been such a...a jerk to you. And by the sound of it, his kids weren’t any better to Bridger and Cassie.”
He wouldn’t have used the word jerk. A few more colorful words came to mind, but yeah. Sparks had definitely made things tougher for him here in town, spreading rumors and keeping Elizabeth’s disappearance on everyone’s mind. And his kids had carried on doing the same thing to Cassie and Bridger.
“Billy and his kids didn’t deserve a box of fine chocolates, after the way they have treated you all,” she said vehemently. “They deserved a box of...of rotten eggs.”
Her passionate defense of their family made him smile, which quickly turned to an ache. Why wouldn’t she stay?
“I figured there has to be something good in that family. It’s tough to see on the outside but it must be there.”
“What makes you think that?”
“They went to all that trouble to decorate for Christmas. That has to mean something, right? When you decorate the inside of your house, that’s a personal thing for you and your family. When you climb to the top of a ramshackle barn and hang a star forty feet up in the air, that’s to bring a little light and joy and holiday spirit to others.”
“I...suppose that’s true.”
“I wanted to teach the kids to dig a little deeper. To find the good. If they can do that, they might be able to get along a little better at school with Rosie and Jedediah.”
She set down her cocoa mug on the coffee table and gazed at him, eyes shining. “You’re a wonderful man, Luke Hamilton.”
Oh, how he wanted to be the kind of man who could inspire that sort of admiration in a woman’s eyes. He had worked his entire adult life for it. Only now did he realize it had all been for this particular woman, Elizabeth Sinclair Hamilton, whether she had been here to see it or not.
As their gazes locked, he thought he saw something in her eyes beyond the admiration he knew he didn’t deserve. Something...raw and wild and unrestrained.
The emotions there left him breathless. Suddenly he could feel each beat of his heart, each pulse of blood.
The two of them were alone here in this warm, sweet-smelling room, and Luke didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“All right. I answered your question,” he said, his voice low. “Now I would like to ask you one in return. I want the truth, straight up. I think I deserve that. Don’t you?”
“I’ll...I’ll try,” she whispered, her features suddenly nervous.
“When I asked if you wanted to move back to Haven Point and try again, what’s the real reason you said no to me?”
She stared at him, eyes wide.
“You gave me all these excuses about your friends and your job and your life there. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I don’t buy any of it.”
She hitched in a little breath and swallowed hard. “You...don’t?”
“You might have all those things in Oregon. I hope so. But here in Haven Point, you have two children who want the chance to love you. Two children who need you in their life every single day, not only once or twice a year.”‘
“I love them. Please don’t doubt that.”
How could he? Everything she did seven years ago had been to protect them, whether or not she was ready to accept and understand that yet.
“You have our kids. You have friends here who want to help you.”
He paused, drawing in a deep breath before plowing forward. “And you also have a husband who loved yo
u once with all his heart and...who still does.”
At his words, she jerked involuntarily, almost spilling her cocoa.
The silence stretched out, uncomfortably long, before she finally spoke.
“How can you...love me after I left you?”
Her voice quavered but it wasn’t like her usual slow, measured speech. This sounded completely stunned.
Taking a chance, he reached out and gripped her hands. They were cool, slender, fragile. Trembling.
“You want to know how? I’ll tell you. I love you because you’re kind and compassionate. Because your courage has no limit. Because with you I can feel again, after seven long years in what felt like an endless emotional winter. I love you, Elizabeth. I never stopped loving you. I want to give us a chance again and I’d like to know why you don’t.”
Her eyes were huge in her face, the edge of the irises dark. Her fingers trembled against his.
“Tell me the truth,” he pressed. “I think you want to stay. So why are you insisting you have to go?”
* * *
His words seemed to reach right into her chest and yank out her heart.
She had to tell him. She couldn’t continue lying to Luke, pretending she didn’t love him.
She wanted the amazing gift he was offering. Oh, how she wanted it. With everything inside her, she ached to be here with him in this beautiful house he had built beside the lake. She wanted to plant a garden here in the spring, to nurture it over the summer, to spend every possible moment with the family she loved so dearly.
Tears began to burn behind her eyes and she could feel the heat of one breaking free to trickle down the face that was no longer her own.
“Look at me,” she said softly. “What kind of wife can I be to you now?”
He frowned. “A wonderful one, judging by the past few days.”
“I can’t drive anymore. I can’t...speak without these stupid pauses while I gather my thoughts. I can’t walk much...better. I have seizures. You haven’t really seen one but they’re...horrible. I have seizures and I have scars. I’m a...I’m a mess.”
With each word, his features seemed to tighten more, until he appeared carved out of granite. His hands were rigid around hers.
“Do you think I care about any of those things? Do you really believe I’m the kind of man who would love you less because you have scars, because you have physical limitations from an accident that wasn’t your fault? We took vows, Elizabeth. In sickness, in health. I meant every word of them.”
She slid her hands away. “All I have given you in this marriage is the sickness part! From the time I was...pregnant with Cassie, you have had to bear the burden of caring for me. This is the rest of my...my life. There is no cure for brain injury, Luke. This is...what you get.”
She had to make him understand. She had to help him see the road they would face would be entirely too difficult. She couldn’t ask him to travel it.
“Yes, you face physical challenges now,” he growled. “They’re hard and unfair and make my heart hurt for you. But do you know what I see when I look at you?”
She could imagine. He probably saw what she did when she looked in the mirror. She saw a stranger who had lost everything she loved because of one fateful night.
He took her hands again and she couldn’t pull them away. Not when his fingers were so very warm and when she seemed to draw strength from that contact of skin against skin.
“I see a loving mother who made a choice to protect her children seven years ago and who has paid a terrible price for that choice. I think you have more courage and strength than any woman I’ve ever known. I think you’re so full of love, you can’t hold it all in. You’re all I want. All I will ever want. It’s been that way since the day we met.”
Her face felt hot again and she realized more tears were trickling down. He reached a thumb out and brushed one away, and the sheer sweetness of the gesture made her weep more.
He framed her face with his hands, his thumb pressing against each tear. “You’re beautiful to me, no matter what you look like. I love you. I spent seven years afraid you were dead. The fact that you’re here right now with me is a straight-up miracle. And that’s coming from a man who had long since given up believing in them. I want you in my life, no matter what challenges you face. I need you in my life and so do our kids.”
She had to try one last time to convince him. Though it was the hardest thing she had done in a long time, she jerked away from him and with effort lifted her leg onto the coffee table, then pulled up her pajamas above her knee so he could see the network of scars there, the red, angry skin, the mangled tissue.
“Like...this?”
To her dismay, he reached a hand out and traced the scars, his features raw with emotion. She felt each stroke of his fingers straight through to her core.
“When you met me,” he said softly, “I was scarred on the inside. You knew that and you married me anyway. With that courageous heart of yours, you took on my damaged spirit, the boy inside me who was broken and bruised, and you healed me. I wish you could trust me now to do the same in return.”
She heard a small, soft sob and realized it was coming from her own tight throat.
How could she possibly withstand his words? How could any woman? How could she continue pushing him away when everything inside her cried out to embrace this chance he was offering her?
He called her courageous but she wasn’t. Far from it. Fear was consuming her like that blaze in the fireplace ate through logs. She had put him and her children through so much pain, she couldn’t bear it. She didn’t deserve another chance.
But she wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it.
She gazed at him there in the glow from the fire and the sparkling Christmas tree.
He was the miracle, this man who saw all her flaws and all her mistakes and all her challenges and somehow loved her anyway.
She let out another sob. Then, drawing every ounce of courage that had carried her through the past seven years, she reached out as he had done and framed his face in her hands.
He watched her intently, his eyes filled with emotion, and she tried to show him everything inside her heart. “I love you, Luke. I never stopped either. You and the children were...all that kept me going when life seemed so dark and lonely. I don’t...deserve you. I know that. But I want you. I want this. With all my heart, I want to stay if you...if that is still what you want.”
In answer, he turned his head slightly, just enough that he could press his mouth to one trembling hand and then the other before he slid his arms around her, pulled her close and kissed her with fierce, breathtaking tenderness.
A long time later, he lifted his head. They were stretched out on the sofa now and she was wrapped in his arms, exactly where she wanted to be.
“I have something for you,” he said.
“A gift? I can wait...until tomorrow.”
“I want to give you this now, before the kids wake up. While it’s just the two of us.”
She could imagine other things she would like him to give her while they were alone, things she had missed desperately for seven years, but she decided those things could wait. A little while, anyway. Maybe until after they filled the children’s stockings.
“All right.”
She sat up, readjusting her candy cane pajamas.
He knelt by the Christmas tree and sorted through the gifts there until he found one about the size of a coffee table book, wrapped in red paper with a silver bow.
“Here you go,” he said with an odd, intense look on his face.
Curious and a little apprehensive, she tore apart the wrapping slowly, not sure she really wanted to see what was inside.
It was papers, she realized. Legal documents.
“Our...divorce papers.”
“I’ve been trying to figur
e out the best time to give them to you. Earlier, I thought this was what you wanted. Now I’m giving them to you so you know that whatever you decide is completely your choice. You know how I feel. I want you back. And not in the little house on Riverbend Road either. I want you here, in our lives, in my arms.”
That was all she wanted, too. She looked down at the papers, knowing they represented the choice between giving in to her fear and finding the strength and courage to take this chance with him.
It wasn’t any choice. Not now. She rose, and with her gaze locked with the man she loved, she headed to the fire and threw them in, page after page.
When she was done and the divorce papers had all burned away to nothing, like the last of her fears, she returned to the man she loved and kissed him with all the love in her heart.
Epilogue
One year later
“Bridger. Turn off the video games. It’s time to set the table.”
“But I almost beat the monster on this level!”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Luke answered firmly. “Give the poor monster a break and go set the table. It’s your turn. You can always conquer him tomorrow, after we open presents. Or maybe you can talk Uncle Elliot into playing with you after dinner. He’s pretty good with weaponry, I understand.”
With a grumble and sigh, his son saved his progress and turned off the television and the gaming system and followed Luke back to the great room, where delicious smells emanated through the house.
In the kitchen, he could hear Elizabeth humming a Christmas carol as she worked, and the sound arrowed straight to his heart. After a year of having her back in their lives, every day still seemed like a priceless gift.
“Can we open a present tonight? My friend Ty says he gets to open one thing on Christmas Eve.”
“You’ll have to talk to your mom about that,” Luke started to say but was interrupted by the doorbell.
“Hey! Maybe that’s Aunt Megan and Uncle Elliot.” Before Luke could move, Bridger raced to the front door and pulled it open.
Coming Home for Christmas Page 26