Once Upon a Christmas Eve (20 page)

“I'd like a chance to start over with you, Tommi. I know I'm coming at you out of the blue on this, but I think we have something worth working on. And you have a baby that could use a dad. Maybe you'll let me help.”

It had never taken him so long to get to a point. But now that he had, he'd jumped right over so much of what else she needed to know. He needed her to know she'd become essential to him somehow, necessary in ways he hadn't realized existed. He needed to tell her he was new at all this and that he'd already gotten ahead of himself.

Mostly, he needed to know what she was about to say as she looked up at him as if she didn't trust what she was hearing.

Tommi's heart bumped her breastbone. From the moment he had stunned her with the gift that had been huge as much for its significance as its size, he'd left her trying to grasp everything from the fact that he wasn't moving away to how profoundly his past still affected him. And all that was before he'd asked for another chance with her.

“You want to help with the baby?”

Taking the papers from her other hand, he set them on the bar behind her. “Yeah. I do,” he murmured, his glance caressing her face as he traced the line of her jaw with his knuckles. “I want a lot of things. But I don't want to rush you. Right now, I just want to know if I have that chance.”

He needed her. He wanted to give her time to need him, too. Drawn by that implausible realization, the hope she hadn't wanted to feel pushed hard. “That might depend on what else you want.”

She'd turned slightly into his touch. He was more relieved by that unconscious acceptance of him than he'd have thought possible. Yet, he could almost feel her self-protectiveness, too. Until last week, that defense hadn't been there. Not with him. “Are you negotiating?” he asked, hating what he caused her to feel. “Or just curious.”

“Both,” she quietly admitted.

He'd already leapt ahead on his wish list. Figuring she had to have at least some idea of where he was headed, he decided to start with the smaller things and work his way back up.

“I want different memories of Christmas than what I have.” He already had a few new ones, thanks to her. He gathered a few more as he breathed in the scent of vanilla mingling with herbal shampoo and absorbed the soft feel of her skin beneath his fingers.

“And I want to take care of you. And be there for you.”

His voice dropped, turned a little husky. “I want the family I didn't think I needed until I met you. And I want you to not worry about your baby not having a father. If it would make things easier to get married before the baby is born, it can have my name. If you need more time, I'll adopt
later. Like I said, I don't want to rush you into anything. If that's not what you want, then we'll just work together on whatever parts you do.

“I'm no prince, Tommi. I have no practice at any of this. Not with the words. Not with any of it. I don't know if it'll even make sense, but there's a hole inside me without you.” Feeling totally exposed, he eased his hand away. “So I hope I wasn't just imagining that you cared about me, too.”

The sides of his heavy jacket lay open wide over his charcoal pullover. Lifting her hand to his broad chest, Tommi rested her palm over the strong beat of his heart. Her own beat so hard she could barely breathe.

“You didn't imagine it, Max. I fell in love with you,” she said, the simple truth breaking free. “And what you said about the hole makes perfect sense.”

She knew that empty space. But hers filled to overflowing as something like reprieve shifted in the carved lines of his face in the seconds before he tugged her to her feet. He smelled of cold, rain and wonderfully warm male as he pulled her arms inside his jacket.

The tension that always lurked beneath his easy smiles seemed to seep right out of him. Intimately familiar with his own calming effect on her, it touched her deeply to know that what she'd found in his touch, he'd found in hers, too.

“You know something,” he said, looking oddly humbled. “I have a really limited frame of reference for what love is supposed to be. But if part of it is needing all the things I want with you, then I love you, too.”

She tipped her head, her sunshine smile in her eyes. “I'm good with that. And it won't be just you taking care of me. We'll take care of each other. Okay?”

“Deal,” he murmured, and covered her smile with his.

Slipping her arms around his neck, Tommi kissed him
back, her knees going weak at the possession, tenderness and promise in his embrace. He loved her. He wanted to marry her. He wanted her child.

Overwhelmed by the gifts he was giving her, she was fully prepared to let him continue kissing her breathless when he lifted his dark head.

“You said you were working on something down here. How long before you're finished?”

“I can finish tomorrow,” she insisted, only to remember that half the day was already accounted for.

“What?” he asked, at the pinch of her eyebrows.

Aligned the length of his long, hard body, she tipped her head.

“You said you wanted some different memories of Christmas,” she reminded him. “I have to go to Mom's for dinner tomorrow. How do you feel about being thrown into the deep end of the pool?”

“What time would we have to be there?”

“Not until two.”

He lifted his hand, glanced over her shoulder at his watch. Something devilish glinted in his eyes as he lowered his head once more “That gives us about nineteen hours,” he murmured, and pulled her right back to where she'd wanted to be pretty much since the moment they'd met.

She had been raised to never believe in the fairy tale. And he'd claimed to be no prince. Yet, what she'd discovered was that rescues went both ways, and that there was something pretty special about being loved by the knight in shining armor she got for Christmas.

B
obbie's wedding was exactly as she wanted it—unconventional and disorganized as it undoubtedly appeared to some of those present. Where most of the Fairchild women's tastes were infinitely more sophisticated and traditional, Tommi's oft-bohemian little sister's were decidedly…not.

There had been no formal procession, no organ music, no aisle to traverse. It was just the bride, looking enchanting in a long, flowing slip of palest pink gossamer with streaming ribbons at her bare shoulders, the man she loved, his children and Tommi standing in front of the minister. Gathered around them were those Bobbie cared about most: her and Gabe's families, two golden retrievers and a few close friends.

The fact that she was being married in front of a twenty-foot silver-and-white Christmas tree in the center of a soaring ballroom was incidental.

The room had been decorated for Uncle Harry's annual
holiday party tomorrow night. Since there hadn't been enough room at their mother's to comfortably hold the two dozen guests—especially with Gabe's children, the Hunt brothers' preschoolers and toddlers and two rambunctious dogs needing room to roam—Bobbie had taken their Uncle Harry up on his offer to hold the ceremony at his huge, sprawling house on the lake.

That had been before Tommi had discovered Harry's attempts to take her and Bobbie's futures into his own hands. After their mother's talk with him, though, he had phoned them each personally to insist that he'd had only their best interests at heart. He'd also asked Bobbie to keep her wedding at his home. He wanted to talk to Cornelia, but she wasn't taking his calls.

It seemed their mother still wasn't speaking to him. As far as Tommi knew, she hadn't even made eye contact with the six-foot-six-inch-tall, distinguished-looking gentleman in the black horn-rimmed glasses standing with his sons and their wives and the other guests gathered around the tree.

Having been long acquainted with J. T. Hunt and his brother Gray, Max stood to one side with them. As her sister and Gabe exchanged their vows, Tommi could practically feel Max's eyes on the back of the emerald green empire dress skimming her expanding belly.

Max had met Bobbie and Gabe's family yesterday at Christmas dinner, along with Georgie, Frankie and their mom.

Her mother, gracious as always, had immediately welcomed him as her new business partner. So had her sisters. Though he'd only touched her to help her with her coat and her chair, it hadn't been long before her mom had started watching them more closely—and giving her looks that
said she'd noticed how he couldn't seem to keep his eyes off her.

Tommi had figured that was because she'd kept watching him herself. Since Christmas dinner at the Fairchild home was his first adult experience with a true family holiday gathering, she'd wanted to know what he thought of it. Mostly, she'd wanted to know if he felt the simple joy she did sharing something with him that he hadn't celebrated in a very long time.

She'd loved the easy way he'd smiled at her, and how his interest in her sisters and their guests had drawn them in. She'd especially loved how intrigued he'd been by the children who'd added a whole new dimension to the otherwise adult affair with their excitement as they'd opened packages by the tree, their constant questions and their youthful energy.

That energy now had Gabe's young son fidgeting with his tie even as the minister said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Beside her, Tommi overheard Gabe softly whisper “I love you” to her sister an instant before applause erupted.

As full as her own heart felt, still wrestling with hormones that bounced all over the place, that private declaration had her throat going tight. She wasn't totally sure what all else they'd said to each other as they'd spoken her vows. Her focus had been on not letting herself cry, and on the man whose eyes she now sought.

While everyone else moved forward to congratulate the new Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Gannon, Max headed toward her.

Tall, broad-shouldered, big, he looked impossibly handsome to her in his collarless black shirt and tailored black suit. Holding her knot of surprisingly traditional red roses, thinking how easily he fit here among her family,
she saw his silver blue eyes smile as his glance drifted over her face.

“They're opening the bar, if you want something,” she said, feeling as if he'd touched her, wishing he would.

“What I want isn't at the bar. Let's stay here for minute.” As if he'd read her mind, he slipped his fingers somewhat protectively—or maybe it was possessively—through hers and tugged her away from the sudden din of conversation and no-longer-curtailed children. “I have something for you.”

With the bride and groom now working their way toward the beautifully set tables by the windows overlooking the lake, everyone else following, he led her around the massive tree to block them from view.

“You were still busy with the snowflakes when I came back to pick you up,” he told her, reaching into his slacks' pocket. She'd put the last details on the multitiered cake while he'd gone home to shower and change clothes. “So I didn't have a chance to give you this.”

He opened a small blue box. She barely caught a glimpse of something dark and glittery inside before he took it out. With a snap, the box closed and he dropped it back into his pocket.

“Whenever you feel ready to make it official, we can pick out your engagement ring together.” He picked up her left hand and slipped an exquisite marquise sapphire onto her third finger. The diamonds and platinum surrounding it winked in the lights from the tree as he lifted her knuckles to his lips. “This is just a belated Christmas gift.”

He brought her hand to his chest, held it to his heart. Blinking at the beautiful ring, her own heart squeezed. He'd already given her so much.

“When did you get this?”

“On my way back to your place this afternoon. I'd seen
it in a hotel window in New York, so I called the hotel yesterday morning while you were still asleep. The jeweler overnighted it. I had it sent to Margie's house so she could sign for it.”

Yesterday had been Christmas. Half the world had been closed. Yet, just like that, he'd gotten what he wanted. From the other side of the country. For her.

With her heart smiling, she looped her arms around his neck.

“I love it, Max. I love you,” she stressed. “But I already got my Christmas present. He showed up on my doorstep Christmas Eve.

“As for making it official,” she said, nodding her head to the people she'd just noticed out of the corner of her eye, “I think you just did.”

He'd slipped his arms around her, the feel of them as wonderfully familiar as the delicious darkening in his eyes just before they narrowed.

Still holding her close, he lifted his head.

Not everyone was occupied with celebratory champagne and pre-dinner hors d'oeuvres.

Frankie and Georgie had apparently been headed to the elevator to see the latest additions to Harry's art collection in the gallery above. Her mother and Harry, ten feet of tension separating them, had frozen in their tracks right behind them.

All were staring.

Tommi could pretty much imagine what was going through her sisters' minds at what they'd just witnessed. Her mom's thoughts were equally apparent as, her disquiet momentarily forgotten, she pressed her hand below her throat. Harry simply looked rather satisfied with what his interfering help had initiated between Tommi and the partner of the man he'd tried to set her up with.

Clearly calculating, Harry had just eyed an unsuspecting Frankie when Tommi felt Max's arms slip from around her.

With her family approaching, he took her right hand in his and leaned to whisper, “So we're official, then?”

There was no doubt in her mind what she wanted. “Absolutely.”

“Good.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “And by the way,” he murmured, his lips warm against her ear, “thanks for the best Christmas I've ever had.”

She would have thanked him back for the very same thing. She just didn't get the chance before her mom and older sisters converged to check out the beautiful ring he'd given her—and to welcome him into the family he'd once thought he'd never have.