The Bachelor’s Christmas Bride

by Victoria Pade

  Because Dag had been so convincing, because his words had been so heartfelt, she didn’t doubt that he’d meant what he’d said, that he would give up his house, Northbridge, his plans for his future, for her.

  The way she knew her dad would have given up anything and everything for her mom…

  And after Wes had stood there only moments before, basically telling her that she was a dreamer to think she could ever find something like that, that she should just settle and accept what Wes believed most people had, Dag’s sacrifice stood out as even greater.

  But he hadn’t said it was any sacrifice at all. Dag had said only that he was willing to do whatever it took to be with her because she was what he wanted. Which was the way her parents had felt.

  And maybe it was time to stop ignoring her own feelings, she told herself. To stop locking them up and keeping them at bay, stop telling herself that everything that was going on with Dag was a lark, and take a look at what she actually did feel for him.

  Realizing she was still standing in the middle of the living room, Shannon went to sit down. She looked at the sofa, at the floor between the sofa and the fireplace. At the hearth. At the spots where she and Dag had ended up so many evenings since they’d met. Talking. Joking. Laughing. Kissing. Making love…

  Seeing it all in her mind somehow helped to set free her feelings for him. To experience them with a clear head rather than in the uncontrollable bursts that had come in the heat of the moment. Uncontrollable bursts that she’d followed by hiding those feelings from herself again as soon as she could get them back under control.

  And the power of those feelings was a little startling when they washed over her unrestricted, and undistracted.

  Yes, she’d been aware of the fact that every minute she hadn’t been with him she’d been thinking about him, watching the clock, counting the hours that would have to pass before she could see him again and wishing the time would go faster.

  Yes, she’d been aware of a sense of contentment, of completion, of safety and security whenever she’d been with him.

  Yes, she’d been aware that everything she’d done, everything she’d experienced, every food she’d eaten, every Christmas song she’d heard when she was with him had seemed to have a special, improved quality to it.

  Yes, she’d been aware that she’d just felt happier whenever she was with him. Happier than she ever remembered feeling before. That she’d even been able to deal better with the moments when grief had paid her a return visit, she’d been able to talk about her parents and her grandmother with Dag without feeling as devastated by the loss. She’d been able to visit her grandmother’s house and remember mainly good things.

  But for some reason she hadn’t associated any of that with having feelings for Dag.

  And now she knew that—of course—that was where it had all come from.

  Knowing that now, when she thought again about what he’d said on the way home, she suddenly couldn’t deny that she felt all the same things he’d said he felt. That nothing seemed more important than being with him. That anything and everything seemed more manageable if she had him by her side. That there wasn’t a single thing she could think of that she didn’t want to share with him.

  The way her parents had felt about each other…

  Her jaw actually dropped a little when that struck her.

  Was it possible that she actually had found with Dag what her parents had had?

  Maybe a small part of her had worried that what Wes had said tonight might be true—that she was searching for, holding out for, something unrealistic or idealized. Or at least, unattainable. But suddenly she knew that wasn’t true. Because what she felt for Dag was exactly what she’d seen in her parents’ feelings for each other. It did exist. And she was in the throes of it.

  She was in the throes of it so firmly, so deeply, so intensely that she understood Dag’s willingness to give up Northbridge, his house, his plans, to be with her.

  The problem was, she was too firmly, too deeply, too intensely in the throes of it to feel as if she could let him do that…

  But if she didn’t?

  If she said yes to Dag but didn’t let him give up everything for her, then she was saying yes to Northbridge, too. To living in her grandmother’s house. To a life that might have more open air than an apartment over a shoe repair shop, but that would be lived in a place that wasn’t even as big as Billings.

  She’d be saying yes to a life that was, in some ways, even smaller than the life she’d known before.

  And then what?

  Would she end up feeling the way Dag’s mother had? Isolated and unfulfilled and as if she was missing out?

  That gave her some pause.

  But then she began to think about Northbridge and what she’d discovered here. What she could have here over and above Dag.

  She’d come to the small town feeling sad and alone, feeling disconnected. But all of that had gone away, because while Northbridge might not be large, it still had so much to offer. Such warm and caring and kind and fun-loving people who had embraced her, who had made her feel a part of things as well as a stronger connection with her grandmother’s memory.

  And in Northbridge she had a brother, a sister-in-law, a nephew. She had the beginnings of a tenuous relationship with her other two brothers. The thought of staying to cultivate all of that actually felt better to her than any of the thoughts she’d had about Beverly Hills, about risking her friendship with Dani by becoming business partners.

  The plain truth, she finally realized, was exactly what Dag had said he felt about her. The most important thing to her was him. Being with him. But being with him in Northbridge had an appeal all its own and she knew deep down that she could be okay with that. With a lifetime of living here. If she always had Dag…

  Which was what she suddenly knew without a doubt that she wanted. What she had to have. Right now!

  But it hadn’t been early when she and Dag had left the church. Topping that off with Wes’s visit and then with all the thinking she’d just done since, and the evening was gone—it was very late and she knew that Dag couldn’t be alone anymore, that Logan, Meg and Tia had to have come home a while ago.

  She went to the window that looked onto the back of the main house. The room Dag was staying in faced the front, so she had no way of knowing if he was still awake or not, but in the rear of the house the only light on was in Meg and Logan’s bedroom upstairs. And that went out a few seconds later, warning her that it was likely that by now everyone was in bed.

  She hated that she’d left Dag the way she had, after the things he’d said to her, without anything but an apology for Wes’s unwelcome appearance. And she couldn’t imagine that Dag was thinking anything good or he would have been watching for Wes to leave and would have come to the apartment.

  She could try his cell phone but she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to see him. To see his face when she told him what she had to tell him. To have him wrap his arms around her and let her know he forgave her for running out on the most important thing he might ever have to say to her.

  The doors to Logan and Meg’s house all had keyless locks and she had the combination to the one on the back door—Meg had given it to her just in case she’d needed to get in at some point when they were gone. And even though Meg and Logan weren’t gone, Shannon decided that she definitely needed to get in.

  So without bothering with her coat, Shannon went out the apartment door, into the gently falling snow and across the yard.

  The combination to the lock was easy and she punched it in quickly, instantly gaining access to the dark, silent house and feeling like a cat burglar as she went through the kitchen to the staircase that took her up to the bedrooms.

  The bedrooms formed a semicircle around a large landing at the top of the stairs and Shannon forgot that there was a table just to the left of the steps. So when she turned in that direction she hit it, shoving it with a bang against the wooden
railing.

  She caught hold of it in a hurry to keep it from toppling over or making any more noise but apparently that had been noise enough, because just then from Tia’s room came the three-year-old’s voice.

  “Santa?” she exclaimed.

  In a panic, Shannon was about to dash back down the stairs to get out of sight when the door to the guest room opened. A surprised Dag registered that she was there, grabbed her wrist to pull her into his room, and—in his deep Santa voice—said, “Ho, ho, ho, little girls have to be asleep to get presents…”

  Then he softly closed the door again.

  He’d spun Shannon into the center of the bedroom and she watched him listen with his ear to the door for a moment to make sure his niece didn’t take it any further. She couldn’t help smiling at his quick thinking and impromptu acting. And at the sight of him shirtless, in a pair of sweatpants that dipped below his navel and made her shiver just a little with how sexy he looked.

  But she wasn’t sure if any of that was appropriate under the circumstances, so she forced a sober expression onto her face as Dag turned to her.

  And the questioning challenge in his raised eyebrows let her know there were, indeed, more solemn things to deal with.

  “I wondered if you were still here,” he said.

  “Where else would I be?”

  “On your way to Christmas with the Rumsons?”

  Shannon shook her head. “There was never a chance of that,” she assured.

  “There was if the guy had convinced you to marry him after all.”

  “There was never a chance of that, either. But at least I think Wes has accepted it now and he’ll finally make the announcement that we aren’t engaged.” She paused a moment and then said, “Are you and I?”

  That made Dag laugh involuntarily. And slightly forlornly. “Engaged? I don’t know. I did a lot of talking. All I got from you was an I’m sorry before you hopped out of my truck to run off with that other guy.”

  “I don’t remember any hopping or running,” she pointed out.

  “It must have just seemed like it to me.”

  “And you weren’t even watching to see if I went off with him?”

  “Couldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it if I had to see that.”

  “So you were just up here, going to bed?”

  “I was just up here pacing and wondering and worrying and hating the hell out of the fact that there was another guy….”

  “Maybe this time you should be glad there was,” she told him then. “I’ve been comparing the two of you since we met. Not on purpose, it just seemed to keep happening. And Wes Rumson came up short every single time.”

  “Even with all the money and power and a much bigger life to offer you?”

  “None of that matters. And neither do a lot of other things—like Beverly Hills…”

  She watched his expression turn curious. And maybe cautiously optimistic. But before he could say anything she told him what she’d been thinking about since Wes had left tonight, the realizations she’d had, the decisions and conclusions she’d come to.

  When she’d said her piece, she added, “So I don’t know if what you were saying on the way home tonight was a proposal—”

  “That’s where it was headed. Number four for you.”

  “Well, I think this is the one I can say yes to….”

  He frowned.

  Shannon hadn’t expected that and felt some uncertainty herself suddenly.

  Then Dag said, “I just want to be clear—you’re saying yes to me, but no to Beverly Hills with or without me?”

  “I told you when we talked about it that I had my doubts. I’ve told Dani that. I still had doubts about it, even thinking that you would come with me, that I wouldn’t be doing it alone. But Northbridge? It’s sort of grown on me, and I don’t have any doubts about living here, maybe teaching kindergarten here if I can….”

  “And you’re okay living in your grandmother’s house?”

  “We can make it our house, can’t we?”

  He finally smiled. “Yellow paint it is—warm and homey and sunny,” he said, repeating her words from when she’d visited the house and they’d talked about whether he should paint the outside of the place white or return it to its original yellow.

  And as if that settled everything, he pulled her into his arms then, kissing her the way she’d been craving to have him kiss her all day, all evening, certainly since finding him shirtless.

  But the kiss didn’t last long before he let go of her, yanked on a pullover hooded sweatshirt and then took her hand.

  “Let’s go where we don’t have to worry about waking anybody,” he suggested as he led her out of the guest room.

  They moved quietly through the dark house—with Dag making one quick stop to snatch a present from under the tree—before they retraced Shannon’s path to put them back at the apartment. There, Dag crossed his arms over his middle and instantly peeled off the sweatshirt.

  And once he had, he pulled her to him again, kissing her a second time as if he’d been too long away from her lips.

  Shannon had no resistance to him and let her hands do as they pleased, pressing to his naked chest, up and over his shoulders to his broad, hard back.

  Everything else fell away then, along with Shannon’s clothes and those sweatpants that Dag had on. Still kissing her, Dag picked her up and carried her to the bed where they made love with an urgency that said even mere hours of separation had been too much.

  An urgency to reclaim what they’d discovered the night before, to stake a new and permanent claim now, with hands that caressed and teased and delighted, with mouths that clung together or broke apart to do amazing things elsewhere, with every inch of their bodies coming together as seamlessly as if one was split apart from the other long ago and had finally been reunited with its mate.

  Together they reached an even more profound pinnacle that left Shannon drained and weak and limp in Dag’s powerful arms as he rolled them both to their sides, cradling her, brushing her hair away from her face so he could look down into her eyes.

  “I love you,” he said then, for the first time.

  “I love you, too,” Shannon could answer without the slightest hesitancy. “With all my heart and soul.”

  “I want you to know that I won’t let our life be small, even if we do live it here. I’ll make sure it’s a full one, and that you are always the biggest part of it for me—if that matters.”

  It mattered enough to bring moisture to her eyes that she had to blink back.

  “We can still go to Beverly Hills, visit your friend, see her school, you know,” he offered then, obviously again thinking of her, putting her ahead of himself.

  “I’d like that. I’d like for Dani to meet you. And you to meet Dani.”

  “And if you change your mind and want to stay—”

  “I won’t,” she said without the shadow of a doubt. “I really did fall in love with this place and the people here.”

  “Are you just using me to get your house back so you can move to Northbridge?” he joked.

  “Yep,” she answered glibly, tightening her muscles around him. “I’m just using you.”

  He slipped out of her then and left the bed long enough to retrieve the small package he’d taken from beneath Meg and Logan’s tree.

  Bringing it back, he kept hold of it until he was lying with Shannon beside him, in his arms again.

  Only then did he hand it to her.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “You want me to open it now?”

  “I do.”

  It wasn’t easy in that position, but Shannon managed, opening a box that contained a very delicate chain.

  “It’s for your grandmother’s ring,” Dag explained. “You said—”

  “That I would get a chain for it and wear it around my neck. And you remembered that?”

  “It was part of what I went into town for yesterday.”

 
; She really did love this man….

  “Thank you,” Shannon said.

  “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “For my Christmas gift.”

  “I haven’t given it to you yet,” she reminded, thinking of the cashmere sweater that was still under Meg and Logan’s tree since that was where gift-opening was slated to occur in the morning.

  “You gave me my gift,” Dag insisted, taking the box that held the necklace and setting it on the nightstand. “I told you it was you I wanted.”

  “Oh, that Christmas gift,” Shannon said. “I guess you’re welcome, then.”

  “You don’t ever have to give me anything else,” he whispered in a husky voice. “Well, except maybe a couple of kids?”

  “I can’t promise them for Christmas, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  He chuckled just a little, but Shannon saw his eyes drift closed as if they were too heavy to keep open, and she could feel him relaxing, falling asleep.

  “I know—you need a nap,” she said, guessing what he was about to tell her.

  “Somebody kept me up almost the whole night last night.”

  “And you didn’t get much sleep, either…”

  He laughed, but he really was fading, and Shannon opted for giving in to her own fatigue.

  She settled her head on his bare chest and closed her eyes, too, snuggling into Dag, knowing from the previous night that she would only nap for an hour or so before he would wake her with feathery kisses and everything would start again.

  And just the prospect of that made her smile against him and marvel at how very, very much she loved him.

  So much that she knew without question that living whatever kind of life, whatever size of life they ended up living, would be perfect as long as they were together.

  Because now that her feelings for him were unbound, they were boundless, and that was what really mattered—not the life she led or where she led it, but who she got to share it with.

  Just the way it had been for her parents.

  Just the way she’d always wanted for herself.

  And just what she’d found with Dag.