by Simone Evans
“Shit!”
“Excuse me?” Franny snapped. “This might be your house now but show some respect.”
“Clara?” Grandma pulled from our hug and looked into my face.
“I think I made a very big mistake. A huge one. Eli knew, he accepted it, but I couldn’t. He was kneeling in the snow… only wearing jeans — he had to be freezing — he had a ring and everything.” My voice was a wail by the time I finished rambling.
“There’s only one thing you can do when you make a mistake, Clara.” Grandma wrapped her hands around my own and squeezed them.
“What’s that?”
“Fix it, you ninny!” Franny gasped in exasperation. “Idiot… just like her grandfather.”
Franny’s outburst had Grandma and I both laughing until tears stained our cheeks. I was beginning to realize that there were a lot of worse things I could be other than like my grandfather.
Chapter Nine
Nerves filled me as I clutched the wheel of my little car. I’d never driven on a road covered in ice and snow before and I was most likely being overly cautious as I followed the directions on my GPS.
Grandma and Franny had helped me unload my car and to find the things I needed for my apology. Now, I was finally heading to give that apology to the man who had offered me everything I could ever want. He’d offered me a forever gift — if I had accepted his proposal he would have been a precious gift I would be given every morning when we woke up together. Now, if he’d just offer the gift again — I knew to say yes this time.
Eli’s family’s house came into view and I saw the curtain in the huge bay window fall back into place as I carefully made the turn onto the snow-covered drive. My car’s back tires slid as they left the icy road and I clutched the wheel tighter as I pulled up beside Nikko Angelo’s vehicle.
Nerves filled me as I left my car running. The heat was blasting at the max and I let it seep into me as I closed my eyes and fought to push back the fear which had controlled me for so long. Ever since I was a little girl I had been taught that I could only depend on my mother but then my mother had died. It had left me feeling adrift and lost. My anchor line had been cut and I hadn’t known what to do.
Then my grandmother had offered a new line, a new anchor — the Wood Family Farm. I knew my grandmother wouldn’t live forever but she offered me everything she had and then gave me her love even before I had earned it.
Then, Eli Angelo had turned around and done the exact same thing — he had offered himself for as long as I would have him. However, even though I wanted to see where his gift would take me, I still didn’t understand it. We barely knew each other.
The door to the house opened and Eli stepped out onto the porch. His gaze was unreadable as he stood and looked at me.
“Well, it’s now or never,” I sighed as I reached to grab up my gift for him from the passenger seat.
“What you want, Clara?” Eli’s voice held no emotion but I saw him shift on his feet nervously.
“Eli, I…”
“What’s in your hands?” Curiosity sparked in his gaze and I smiled to myself.
“Well, you see, I was a bit limited, so I made you these.” I held out the bouquet of paper snowflakes.
Grandma had a whole room filled with craft supplies and we’d used cardstock paper to cut out snowflakes and then attached them to some pipe cleaners for stems. A healthy sprinkle of glitter and they looked pretty good if I said so myself. In the middle, we’d created a little heart-shaped paper box which held a message for Eli.
Remembering Grandma’s story about when grandpa proposed, I held them out and waited.
Eli looked at my offering and the corners of his mouth twitched as if he was fighting a smile.
“And, just what are these for?” Eli asked.
“Take them and look in my heart,” I responded.
Something passed over his gaze as he stepped down the steps to approach me. He looked closer at the bouquet and reached into the middle to carefully open the heart. Inside was a small piece of paper…
Love is new to me. I’m sorry. Will you give me a chance?
Eli looked at the paper and then at me. His fingers wrapped around the scrap of paper and he reached out with his opposite hand to cup my face. With his hand, he pulled me toward him as he stepped forward.
“No apologies,” he whispered against my lips. “I may have gotten a bit excited by the moment.”
Eli grinned and then pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. “I love you, Clara. I’ll wait as long as you need me to wait for you to figure things out for yourself.”
“Figure what out?”
“That you’re mine… and always have been.”
My instinct was to argue that no one owned me. I’d always had to be tough, to protect myself and my mother after she got sick. In the world I’d grown up, nothing was for free and everything had strings.
“Don’t you believe in love at first sight, Clara?” Eli broke me out of my thoughts.
“No,” I glared at him in frustration as my flight or fight reflex tried to take control.
“What about Christmas miracles?” Eli offered as he shoved the piece of paper in his pants pocket and placed both hands on either side of my face.
“No,” I chuckled as something cold hit my nose.
Glancing up into the sky I found snow falling gently from the heavens. It was so pure… just like the emotion shining in Eli’s eyes.
“Well, Christmas miracles… maybe,” I smirked as I changed my answer.
Eli pulled me into his body and crushed the paper snowflakes between us. “When you’re ready, I want to ask you a question,” He said softly right before he slipped his tongue into my mouth.
By the time we separated, I was panting and smiling. “What about now?”
Eli’s face shone with hope as he turned from me. He immediately turned back, “Wait here,” he rasped.
When he reached to open the door, his uncle Nikko was waiting in the entrance and handed him a familiar box. “Always believe and never give up,” Nikko said softly as he reached to shut the door on Eli.
Eli came back to me and I laughed as he once again went down on one knee.
“If you catch pneumonia, I’m not nursing you back to health,” I joked.
He smirked at me as if he knew something I didn’t.
“Clara Wood, you’ve enchanted me since the moment you walked into my life. You danced your way into my heart and spun yourself into my soul… will you be my wife?” I caught his references to when I walked into the restaurant that first night, dancing at my first ball, and then spinning in my first snowfall — those moments held a magic I’d never had before and I wanted to experience them along with many others with the man waiting on my response.
“Yes.” All I needed to accept the forever gift he offered was to accept it and I did with that simple three-letter word. “I love you, Eli, and hope one day I’ll deserve you.”
“I love you, too, Sunshine. And, I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you. You brighten my world just by being in it.”
Epilogue
Eli Angelo and I were married on New Year’s Day. A little over eight months later our son, Fredrick Tomo Angelo-Wood was born. We didn’t want to wait and luckily with Eli’s grandfather — the judge — we were able to get our marriage license expedited. My grandmother paid for us to fly to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I spent those five days getting to know all of the bathrooms on the islands. Freddy made himself known pretty quickly.
Now Freddy was a little over three months old and we were celebrating our first Christmas as a family. Grandma was putting the baby down for the night and Eli and I were getting the chance to play Santa for the first time. It wasn’t like our son was old enough to know but I wanted to have the full experience.
“What are you doing to the tree, Sunshine?” Eli chuckled as he came up behind me.
To this day, all he had to do was touch me and it sent shivers up an
d down my spine. It might explain the reason for my gift which I was caught hiding in the branches of the tree. Our son wasn’t even four months old… Sigh.
I chuckled at how quickly my life had changed. A week ago we had celebrated a year since our first date by going to this year’s Snow Ball. Grandma and Nikko finally went on the date to the Snow Ball she’d agreed to go on when she was seventeen. The two of them had been so cute and I had a feeling there would be more dates in the near future. Franny, who had become just as much a grandmother to me as my own, had taken little Freddy as her date and had spent the evening showing him off to everyone.
“I have something for the tree,” Eli whispered into my ear as he reached around me and hung something on a tree limb at eye level.
I gasped and a tear quickly slipped down my cheek. A beautiful white and glitter snowflake frame ornament held a picture of my mother and below it, in gold script, it said ‘Grandma.’
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“So you like it?” Eli asked nervously.
“Of course!” I spun in his arms and wrapped my own around his neck.
Going up on tiptoe I pressed a kiss to his lips. Electricity snapped between us the second our lips touched and Eli tugged me closer as he reached up and palmed the back of my head. Using his grip he tilted my head and deepened the kiss.
I loved my husband’s kisses. Eli always put everything he was into each one which probably explained why I had the gift I was going to give him. I grinned against Eli’s mouth and he pulled away and gave me a fierce look.
“Do you find my kissing prowess funny, Sunshine?”
“Not at all, hot stuff.” I squeezed his ass and then pushed him away as I turned back to the tree. There was no way I could wait until the morning to give him his gift — not after the one he’d just given me. “I got you a new ornament, too,” I said as I reached in and pulled out the rectangle frame ornament I’d purchased two days ago after my doctor’s appointment.
Handing it to him, I stayed silent and waited for him to react.
“Um… Sunshine, why are you giving me a pink frame with the ultrasound picture of Freddy?” His face filled with confusion. “I don’t remember this one.”
“What makes you say that?” My grin widened as I fought to hold back my excitement.
“He loo—”
“She,” I corrected.
“He looks li—”
“She looks,” I corrected again.
“She?” Eli looked perplexed as he moved his finger over the image. “Looks like she is carrying a wand.”
“Yeah, she’s pure magic,” I beamed as I placed my finger on the tiny, blobby head.
“This isn’t Freddy, is it?”
“No,” I replied my grin had my cheeks hurting as I turned to wrap my arms around Eli’s waist.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I’m sure daddy’s little girl will be spoiled rotten,” I giggled into his chest where I buried my face.
“Woo hoo!” Eli shouted as he lifted me up and swung me around the sitting room. “A girl!”
“Yes,” I laughed as he settled me down quickly and led me to the couch.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered as he rubbed my belly.
“She liked it, I'm sure,” I assured him with a chuckle.
“But how?” Eli stared at my stomach.
“Well, you see… when a daddy and a mommy love each other very much —”
“Sunshine,” Eli snapped then broke down in laughter.
“You know how we came home from the hospital and Grandma took Freddy out so I could get some sleep?” I stared at him knowingly.
“You didn’t get much sleep that afternoon—” A wicked smile crossed Eli’s face
“ — against doctor’s orders I might add—”
And then realization dawned on Eli’s face — “Oh!”
“I know we hadn’t discussed having another baby, hell, we didn’t even plan on having Freddy…” I wrung my hands as my voice faded. I was nervous that Eli would be upset about having two children so close together, especially when we hadn’t even gotten much time alone before Freddy arrived.
“Sunshine, all I ever wanted was to find you and have a family. I got my wish last Christmas and then some. Family is the forever gift and I wouldn’t want to live without it.”
“I love you, Eli,” I gushed as I lunged for him.
He pulled me into his arms and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I love you, too, Clara. Forever.”
~*~~**The End**~~*~
About the Author
Simone Evans began creating stories when she was a small child. Her love of books and writing has remained with her since those early days. However, it wasn't until recently her writing became a lot more grown-up. Simone believes in love at first sight, finding romance in the small things, and being open to explore new things.
**Note: Simone's female leads tend to be big beautiful women (BBW) and her stories also tend to fall within the "Forever Safe" sub-genre with their love at first sight, fated love themes. Please note there may be exceptions as she also believes in realistic themes along with the fantasy.
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Be sure to look for releases in the Money & Mountains Erotic Romance series
by Simone Evans and Claudia Stevens.
Stuck With You by Claudia Stevens
Bits, Bites, and Campfires by Simone Evans
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