by Nancy Fraser
Corrine’s mouth, although still pouting, lifted a bit at the corners. “You never used to be so bossy.”
Laughing, Sage bent and kissed her cheek. “Your grandson thinks I’m bossy, too, so you two agree on that.”
Keith’s gaze drifted across the bed to her and held for a few beats. “I have a question,” he said turning his attention back to his grandmother. “What did you mean when you said finally a few minutes ago? Sage kicked me out of the room before I could ask.”
Corrine’s gaze darted from her grandson, to Sage, then back to him again.
“I meant it was about time the two of you got back together. You’ve been apart for too many years.”
Keith glanced at Sage, who kept quiet.
“You’ve always belonged together,” Corrine continued. “That whole mess with the pregnancy and then the miscarriage when you were kids—”
“Wait. You knew about that?” Keith asked.
“Of course I did.”
“How? She was only three months along when we found out. A week later,” he flicked his gaze up to Sage and then back to his grandmother, “she miscarried.”
“Sage’s grandmother told me.”
“What?” The word exploded through Sage’s lips.
“Don’t be upset with her, dear. She loved you so much. When you went back to college,” she said to Keith, “and Sage left, I thought you’d both just had a fight and it would work itself out with time. When Christmas came and you didn’t mention Sage and she didn’t come home to Dickens, I called her grandmother. She told me everything.”
“Why didn’t you ever say something, Gran? It tore me apart not to confide in you and granddad.”
“When we found out we both assumed you hadn’t told us because you didn’t want us to be disappointed in you. Although, your grandfather thought it was more because you were embarrassed we’d know the two of you had sex.”
“Geez, Gran.” Keith cupped the back of his neck, the skin around his jaw reddening.
“And see?” She pointed the hand with the intravenous attached to it at him. “You’re almost forty and you’re blushing about something that happened when you were twenty.”
“Men don’t blush,” he mumbled.
“You think you’re the first couple of kids in love ever to have sex and get pregnant?” She waved her hand. “If you do a little math between the date of my wedding and your mother’s birthday, you’ll realize you weren’t.”
Sage bit down on her bottom lip to keep the laugh that threatened to bark free at the shock flying across his face.
“I didn’t agree with Sage’s grandmother you two needed to split up, but I figured if you were meant to be together, time would work it out.” The grin she tossed them was filled with joy. “And it looks like it has. It was worth this busted hip to see you two kissing in front of a Christmas tree again. It’s been too many years since I caught you doing just that.”
The yawn that shot from her in the next moment had Sage saying, “Okay, that’s enough for now. You’re still a fresh postop patient and you need rest to heal.” She ticked her head at Keith. “We’re gonna leave for a bit. I’m going to have the nurses get you out of bed in a little while and I’ll write an order for some pain meds if you need them. Okay?”
“You’re the doctor.”
Smiling, Sage bent and kissed her cheek again. “Don’t forget it. From now on what I say, goes.”
With her eyes drifting closed, Corrine murmured, “Bossy.”
“I’m not leaving,” Keith said when he followed her into the hallway. “I can sit here, quietly, and do work while she rests. But I’m not leaving.”
She grinned at him. “It was a long shot to think you would. But don’t hover, okay? She won’t appreciate it. And let the staff do their job without intimidating them.”
“I told you yesterday I don’t intimidate.”
“Yeah, you do and you know it.” She stretched up and kissed his cheek as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And, she realized, it was.
Keith circled her arm with a hand and held onto her. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”
“And a lot of time to do so. But for now, I’ve got patients who do get pissy when they have to wait for their doctor, so I’ll see you later.”
He nodded and let her go.
When she was halfway down the hallway, he called out, “Sage?”
She turned.
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a grin tugging at his mouth.
How did I survive all these years without seeing that face every day?
“What?”
His grin grew.
“Nothing. Just wanted to see you turn around and smile at me.”
Shaking her head, she tossed him her own cheek-wide smirk. “Happy now?”
“Getting there. See ya later.
Chapter 7
“NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING, but when you said dinner I thought you meant in a restaurant with plates and flatware, where I could sit near a fire.” Sage spooned in some of Amy Dorrit’s delicious clam chowder from her Styrofoam cup. “Not on a bench on a cold night two days before New Year’s Eve.”
“Humor me,” Keith said. “With Quinn at the house now on holiday break we won’t have too much alone time for a couple of weeks. I wanted an hour with you away from the hospital, patients, and everything else that seems to keep interrupting us.”
“We could have eaten at my house.”
“I asked you to dinner. It didn’t seem right to volunteer your house for my date.”
“I wouldn’t have minded and we wouldn’t need to be eating from disposable bowls.”
“Yeah, but this place has special meaning and I wanted the right spot so stop whining and eat your soup.”
When she smiled up at him the nerves invading his system quieted. He dragged in a breath.
“Why are you grinning at me like that?” he asked.
“Because as much as you’ve changed over the years into this successful, at times arrogant, and wickedly handsome man, you’re still that same, easily-annoyed and cute boy I fell in love with a lifetime ago.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not gonna debate the reasons I don’t think I’m arrogant, but that statement does bring me to the reason I asked you here tonight.”
During daylight hours the decorated gazebo was lovely, but at night, with the inky sky a backdrop for the twinkling lights and the fresh scent of holly swirling about them from the wreathes, the structure was the perfect setting for what he wanted to do. The town’s holiday tree was still lit and would remain so into the New Year, a reminder that life and light went hand in hand.
“What? So I can tell you you’re handsome? Or that you’re easily annoyed?”
“Sage?”
“Yes?”
“Let me talk for five minutes, okay?”
When she giggled he lost his train of thought. God, if he could make her laugh so freely, giggle like a teenager, and smile every day for the rest of his life, he’d be the happiest man on the planet.
She nodded. “Okay, I’ll be good and sit here and have my soup.”
He slid next to her on the bench, his gaze zeroing in on her eyes and holding them captive.
“It’s no secret I’ve changed since we were kids. You have, too. Neither one of us is exactly the person we were when our world turned upside down. But there are a few things about me that have remained constant for most of my life. One of them is how much I love my grandmother.”
Her expression warmed when she sighed. “You’re such a good grandson.” She slid the spoon into the cup and then reached out her hand to caress his cold cheek. “You’re both so lucky to have one another.”
He nodded and wanted to dissolve into her warmth. Instead, he cleared his throat and proceeded onward. “Another thing that hasn’t changed is how much I love this town. I moved away when I got married because Barbara didn’t want to live in such a—her words—
small, insular community. She couldn’t understand how much the townspeople looked after and cared about one another. Instead, she thought them nosy, interfering, and beneath her. She was so wrapped up in herself and her wants she never saw Dickens for the amazing and welcoming place it is.”
“I should give her name and number to Leland. They sound perfect for one another.”
“I’ll get it for you.” He shook his head as a laugh bubbled up. “But, seriously, I love this town and I’ve decided to do what I should have done after my divorce and move, permanently, back here. I’ll be closer to Corrine and won’t worry so much about her rambling about in that big house once she’s out of rehab.”
“What about Quinn? How’s he going to feel about being uprooted?”
“Since he’s away at prep school nine months a year, it won’t be that much of a change. When I told him about the plan last night, he was all for it. He loves Corrine and he’s mature enough to understand why I want to be close by, especially after the fall and broken hip incident.”
“She’s going to love having you both around. I know she will.”
He nodded. “There’s one more thing that hasn’t changed in all these years and it concerns you.”
Her eyes widened and he felt a slight tremble in the hand he’d tugged into his.
“I never stopped loving you, Sage. Even after you left and never looked back, I couldn’t stop or change the way I felt about you. I beat myself up for so many years because I didn’t go after you and convince you to stay with me; show you that we could have made it work somehow, despite what happened. I should have been more sensitive and understanding to what you were going through instead of being so focused on what I was feeling.”
“You were little more than a teenager, Keith. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
He shrugged then shifted closer on the bench until their knees knocked. “We deserved to be together. We still do. The fact that both our marriages dissolved proves we were with the wrong people. We both deserve a chance to be happy and I think we can be. Together.”
He dragged in a deep breath, then slid one knee down to the slatted wooden gazebo floor.
“Keith?”
“The last time I got down on one knee, right here, and asked you to marry me, you informed me you were leaving the next day and never coming back. You told me I was better off without you and to go lead my best life.”
She lowered her head and shook it.
“Well, my best life is right here, right now, with you, Sage. I know it is and I’m hoping you feel the same way. I love you. I’ve been walking around in an emotional fog for almost twenty years and until the day I saw you walking toward me in the hospital corridor, I didn’t know why. The moment I saw your face again, heard your voice, the fog...lifted. Cleared. You were back home, where you were supposed to be. And so was I. The next step was to get you back into my arms.”
When she shook her head again, one solitary tear escaped her overflowing eyes and slipped down her cheek. But the corners of her lips were lifted, giving him hope. He pushed on.
“I’ve been thinking that you kinda feel the same way about me, Sage. Well,” he shrugged, “I guess hoping is the better word.”
He waited a beat, hoping—wishing—she’d say the same words back to him.
“When I told you I put up Corrine’s tree in the hope the angels would work a little celestial magic on her, I was also hoping they’d work a little on me and get you to love me again.”
When a tiny smile started in one corner of her mouth then took its time growing to the other, his heart rate sped up like an express train.
“When I was twelve years old I loved you,” she said. “When I was fifteen and you admitted you loved me, I wanted the world to stop right then and there and just let us be, in love, forever. When I was eighteen and walked away from you, I loved you with all my breaking heart. There’s never been a day since the first time I saw you that I haven’t been in love with you, haven’t loved you with everything in me, Keith. I don’t think I can not love you. It’s simply impossible.”
Emotion choked him, had him clearing his throat and taking a moment before he could go on.
“So.” He swallowed. “This time you’re not leaving in the morning, I know that for a fact.” His own lips twitched upward, and the sheen in her eyes when she smiled at him, humbled him.
“You’re staying put, so I’m asking again. Marry me, Sage. Please. Be mine and I’ll be yours like we were always supposed to be. Like we were destined to be. I love everything about you and always have, from your incredible brain to the way you care about everyone around you. I simply love you for you.”
A small gasp blew from her.
“And I want to show you how much I do, every day for the rest of our lives. So, please say yes before my knee freezes to this cold wood.”
Tears cascaded down her cheeks when she laughed out loud and nodded.
When he pulled her into his arms and held on tight, he vowed never to let her go again.
The End
A Note From Peggy Jaeger
I AM AN EXTREMELY VERBOSE woman. In practice, not only do I talk a lot but, when I pen a new story, I tend to rack up the word count quickly and easily. So, it was a real challenge and a wonderful exercise in learning the art of brevity when I was asked to be part of the Christmas Comes to Dickens anthology.
Holiday stories are near and dear to my heart and this one, about a first, rekindled love, is special to me in so many ways. I hope you find Sage and Keith’s story enjoyable and heartwarming.
Happy Holidays, and Happy Reading. ~ Peggy
About Peggy Jaeger
PEGGY JAEGER WRITES contemporary romances and rom coms about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them.
Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal...or two...or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, Peggy brings all aspects of life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness, and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she has created the families she wanted as that lonely child.
As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her website where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go "What??!"
Web and Social Media Links
Website ~ Goodreads
Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Bookbub ~Instagram ~Pinterest ~ YouTube
Holly’s Wish
Kathleen Lawless
Top 100 Best Selling Author
Holly’s Wish
DO WISHES COME TRUE?
All her life, Holly has believed in the power of wishing. Except for the “big one”. The phone call that never came after a memorable encounter one Christmas Eve.
She can’t forget Nico and their synchronicity that night.
Dare she risk a second heartbreak when her latest wish brings Nico back into her life?
Dedication
HOLLY’S WISH is dedicated to my daughter, Reyna, for all her brainstorming help and feedback.
Chapter 1
FIVE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS...
Nicholas stared in dismay at the seven-foot-tall, fir Christmas tree in his sister’s living room. The twins were asleep upstairs, and Sherry planned to surprise them by having the tree completely decorated by the time they woke up.
“It’s easier without them helping,” Sherry said as she passed him a box of colored balls, each one wrapped in protective tissue. “You should hang these. They’re the ones you sent Mom every year.” She shot him a pointed look. “She treasured them because they came from you. You should have seen her face every Christmas morning when she unwrapped the latest one and hung it on the tree.”
Nicholas swallowed the taste of guilt. “I should have made more of an effort to get here to see her.”
“Yes, you should have,” Sherry said.
They continued their task in silence for a few minutes. How long had it been, Nic wondered, since he had last trimmed a tree? He looked over at Sherry and marveled at everything she did. A thriving practice in natural medicine, three-and-a-half-year-old twins, and her husband deployed on the other side of the world. Trying to come up with an excuse not to spend Christmas with her and the nephews he’d never met hadn’t been an option.
“I can’t believe you took the entire week off,” Sherry said. “Is that what happens once you make partner? Some poor office slave burns the candle at both ends so you look good in court?”
Nicholas grunted. He’d worked hard to make partner in just over five years, but he was beginning to realize he’d missed out on a lot.
Balanced on Sherry’s stepladder, he hung the final decoration but must have misjudged the branch, for the bright red ball hit the ground, bounced on the carpet, and rolled behind an easy chair. As Nic retrieved the ornament and started up the ladder, he saw what looked like a New York phone number written in black ink, faded over the years, on the underside of the bright red ball.
“Did our mother have a secret admirer?” he asked. “This one has a phone number written on it.”
Sherry took the ball from his hand and turned it over, frowning. “I never noticed that before. It’s one of the ones you sent her.” She handed it back. “Speaking of decorations, I hope you’re not planning to let that tradition die with Mom.”
“Of course not,” Nic said quickly. “But you have to wait for Christmas morning.” He’d seen a Christmas shop on Main Street on his way here. He’d head there tomorrow and pick up a decoration for Sherry. He might as well get a couple for the twins while he was at it. If he started them young, they’d have enough baubles to decorate their own trees one day.