Holiday for Two (a duet of Christmas novellas) (18 page)

“I fucked up,” he repeated firmly. “I really fucked up, and I know that. And I realized—”

“Because of
Deux ex Spider
?”

“No,” he said heavily, “Not because I Sparked a spider. And I should say something. I need to say a lot of things, but the biggest thing is this: I love you, Felicity. I always have. And the only one capable of destroying things is
me
. I . . . I hate risks, as you know, but
not
taking a risk on you would be the stupidest, dumbest, most ridiculous thing I ever did.”

Her heart pounded so loud in her ears that she couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. It was everything that she had wanted to hear, but . . . “How can I believe you? One minute you seem all gung-ho, then another you’re not.”

“Because we were hardly talking to each other for”—Harry didn’t even glance at his watch—“thirty-three and a half hours, and I hated every single second of it. It wasn’t like any of our normal fights. But this one . . . this one . . . those thirty plus hours were torture, Felicity. I could see my whole life without you in it, and I—I hated it.”

“So are you saying all this because it’s about you?”

“No,” he said, grabbing her hand, his fingers sliding over the pen she held. “It’s not about me. It’s not even about you. It’s about
us
. I want there to be an ‘us.’ And I know you just don’t worry so much about . . .”

“I worry. Of course I worry, but I choose to not obsess over it. You know how it was when I opened Fat Lady Sweets,” she reminded him.

He had the good grace to blush. “Of course. That wasn’t fair of me. It just feels like sometimes you’re a goddess while I’m a mere mortal.”

“Harry,” she breathed out, her stomach dropping out of her. “Do you really think that? I’m not a goddess. I’m flesh and bone. A mere mortal, too. Don’t put me on any pedestals, Harry. Don’t require me to live up to out of this world expectations. Don’t do that to me. I’m just me. I can’t be anyone but me.”

“I know that, and I can’t be anyone but me.” He dropped her hand and clenched his at his sides. “I’m just me. Awkward in every singular way. Shy. And it’s hard for me to open up . . . to really trust someone.”

“And you think it’s easy for me? I don’t share everything about me to strangers, or even to my parents or my younger sister. Or you, for that matter. But, still, I trust you more than anyone I know and will ever know. And as scary as that is to open myself up like that and risk—”

“You’re scared?” He blinked behind his glasses, almost as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “But . . . but . . . you never said.”

“We haven’t said a lot of things to each other, Harry. And we’re supposedly best friends.” She looked at him, seeing him in a whole new light. “Why is that? Shouldn’t we trust each other? We say we do, but our actions say otherwise.”

“I think it’s normal,” Harry said after a long moment. “I would bet there are long married couples who are still discovering truths about their spouses that they didn’t know about until this very moment. I think we all have our secrets, the things we consider insignificant, or perhaps, too significant that we just don’t speak of. Sometimes when you talk about a hidden dream, a secret need or want, or just a truth about yourself . . . it’s . . . odd to let that go to another person. To share that thing you kept to yourself for so long with another. Will that person hold it close, or will that person crush it to smithereens?”

She rolled the pen in between her hands. “You were the first person I told about Fat Lady Sweets, way before it even had a name. When the whole idea of owning a candy store was a kernel of a dream within me. Do you know how long I carried the hope of Fat Lady Sweets around?”

Harry shook his head no.

“Forever,” she said. “It felt like forever to me. Even when I was young and baking alongside one of my moms, something clicked in me. A sense of right. But it wasn’t until I first made candy where I thought,
Aha, so this is it! This is belonging. This is home.
But realizing that and going after it are . . . well, you know.”

“It’s scary.”

“But it was my dream. A dream that never seemed possible. How would I even do it? How could I? It wasn’t like I had grown up in a family of chefs or cooking types. I didn’t know the first thing about what I had to do . . . or if I could do it. If I could even take that risk. But I told you, remember?”

“I could never forget that night.” Him and her, at eighteen, side by side on top of his parents’ roof on a warm summer night right before college. They’d spotted a shooting star and both made a wish. And then she’d looked at him and told him, in a hushed voice, almost as if she’d been scared of his reaction, that she had this dream—a silly one, she had even said—but that she had to tell him. And she did, and it had made perfect sense to him, since Felicity was always creating some new candy.

“And do you remember what you said to me?”

“I told you it wasn’t a silly dream.”

“Not only that. Don’t you remember? I told you I was scared of the risk and that I would fail, and you said . . .”

“I said you wouldn’t know until you tried.” Harry smiled ruefully. “It’s always easier to say it, of course. I know that. And, yes, I haven’t taken many risks in my life. I haven’t really opened up as I would like to. That’s just who I am, but I want to try. I want to take this risk with you, whatever may come. But I want you—not because you make me happy, although that’s a super awesome bonus, and I hope that, at some point, I can make you happy as well—”

“You do make me happy.”

“But, Felicity, I want to be with you and see what happens in this life with you because whatever comes our way, I just . . . I think we can make it. I will fight every day so we can make it, because I don’t want to lose
us
. And I want to not call you just my best friend. I want to call you my girlfriend, my partner in crime, my heart, my lover, my
everything
.”

“We really don’t know everything about each other,” Felicity said. “Romantic relationships are different.”

“They are. I have my hang ups. You have yours. But I . . .” Harry strode to her, taking her face in his hands, his blue eyes serious and steady on hers. “I love you, Felicity Anne Evans. I always have. I always will.”

Her heart grew too huge for her chest. “Oh, Harry, I love you, too.”

“We’ll take it slow,” he said. “We’ll date. We’ll get to know each other on a more intimate level—open up to each other. I’m not quite ready to have sex just yet.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to be. I’m not ready to get married right away, or even have kids in the near future. We’ll just take it one day at a time.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “So let’s start with a kiss.”

EPILOGUE

Thirty-five years later

T
HE PHONE RINGING
late at night usually meant bad news, but Harry was prepared.

“We’ll be there,” he said, hanging up, and looked over toward his wife, already rolling out of bed. “Felicity, that was Ben.”

“I know,” Felicity said, hurriedly pulling on a pair of jeans. “What did he say? Is Nora doing okay?”

“Cursing up a storm,” he said. “Much like her mother did one mid-September night and then again two years later in early October, and a last time in late July.”

“That’s right. I gave birth three times, and what happened each of those three times? You felt
dizzy
.”

“I needed a moment,” Harry said, as they rushed downstairs to their car. “Births are not a pretty thing.”

“Poor Nora,” Felicity sighed. “She’s never been good with pain. Did we turn the stove off?”

“It never was on.”

“Lock all the doors?”

“Yup.”

“What about Captain?”

Captain was their twelve-year-old pit bull. “Captain is sound asleep.”

“Do you think she’s okay?” Felicity didn’t wait as she tugged out her cell. “I need to call Annie and Teddy.”

Harry knew better than to remind his wife that Annie was off learning under some chocolate chef in Paris to broaden Fat Lady Sweets even more, and Teddy was on the other side of the world in Australia doing God knows what a twenty-two-year-old did nowadays.

“Oh, poor Nora,” Felicity said, once more, after getting off the phone. “And poor Ben.”

“This is going to be our first, Felicity.”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t feel much like a grandma. Do you?”

“I don’t feel much like a grandma, either.”

“Ha, ha. Your humor continues to miss the mark.”

He pulled into the hospital parking lot and found a spot rather easily. Thank God. “You don’t think they’ll let us in the birthing room, will they?”

“I don’t think Nora would even want us in there if they did. Don’t worry,” she said, patting his arm. “You won’t get
dizzy
again.”

He opened his mouth to make a retort but was stopped as they entered the hospital and made their way upstairs to the appropriate floor. Ben’s parents were there and had green balloons.

“Harry, we need balloons, too! And a gigantic teddy bear!”

“We’ll get them . . . after the baby is born and we know if it’s a he or a she.”

“It’s definitely a she,” Felicity said confidently.

“I think it’s a he.”

Felicity looked at him. “Let’s take a bet. Five dollars?”

“Done.”

The wait seemed like forever. Harry paced the floor of the maternity ward. He made trips to the coffee machine. He did everything he could think of so that he wouldn’t worry so much about his first baby having a baby. Nora had been so tiny when she had been born, a red, scrunched up face with a mighty pair of lungs, and she had fit perfectly in the crook of his arms. She would fall asleep against his heartbeat, and she looked so much like Felicity but was her own person too.

So much had happened since that weekend at the cabin. Two years after that weekend they had married, and it was another two until they’d had Nora. And now Nora, at thirty, was having her own baby with her husband of a year.

Nora’s husband, Ben, came rushing into the waiting room. “It’s a girl,” he said.

Harry smiled, and Felicity leaned against him. “You owe me five dollars.”

“And,” Ben said, “there’s a boy, too. The girl was totally hiding him.”

“Twins?” Felicity said, her eyes round. “Can we visit?”

“In a minute,” Ben promised. “I just wanted to tell you, but now I . . . I need to kiss my wife.”

It took more than a minute, but soon Harry and Felicity were allowed into the hospital room where Nora, tired but beautiful, rested with her two babies in her arms while Ben sat nearby, a gaze of wonder in his dark eyes.

“They’re beautiful,” Felicity said. “Oh, Nora, they’re absolutely perfect. Annie and Teddy give their love, and I promised to send them pics. They’ll both be home for Christmas, thankfully.”

“They are beautiful,” Harry said, his voice feeling a little gruff. It felt like there was something in his eye, too. A few somethings.

“Mom,” Nora said, gesturing to the pink-blanketed baby, “meet Josephine, or Josie.”

“You named her after Grandma Jo?” Felicity’s eyes watered. “Grandma Jo would have loved that, and Grandma Bea, when she arrives, is going to cry herself silly.”

“And, Dad.” Nora smiled at the second baby, wrapped in blue. “This is our son, and he’s named after the greatest man I know. Meet Harry.”

Harry couldn’t help it. He cried.

And like he had many, many years ago, he leaned down and gently kissed both babies on their foreheads.

“Well, Felicity,” he said, gazing tenderly at his wife. “What a beginning. What a way to start. Let’s end it with a kiss, shall we?”

Felicity kissed him. “Oh, Harry, it’s just . . . who could have thought life would be like this?”

He didn’t have to answer, because none of his wildest dreams ever had ended like this. Life was so much better.

Thank You!

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Holiday for Two!
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Authors’ Note

We owe a huge thanks to Tamara Morgan who came up with an idea for a “snowbound” anthology. While the anthology didn’t fall into place, our novellas wouldn’t have happened without her first e-mail. Thanks, Tamara!

We would also like to highly recommend two novellas that are available for purchase:
In the Clear
by Tamara Morgan and
Snow-Kissed
by Laura Florand.

In the Clear
by Tamara Morgan is a fun, sexy read that features a delicious hero named Fletcher and Lexie, his friend who he’s loved from afar. Here is the blurb:

Fletcher Owens is full of secrets.

Few people know he spends his nights volunteering for a Search and Rescue team, saving lives while risking his own. Even fewer know he’s in love with his best friend’s sister. And since he’s not willing to give up their friendship for a chance at something more, that’s exactly how things will stay.

Lexie Sinclair has nothing to hide.

The zany daughter, the wacky sister, the quirky fundraiser for a children’s charity—Lexie couldn’t hide her true self even if she wanted to. So when her brother’s best friend is revealed to be a local hero, she’s determined to stand up and prove she’s ready to be more than just friends.

You can find more info about
In the Clear
, including buy links, on Tamara’s
website
.

Snow-Kissed
by Laura Florand is a heartbreaking romantic story that shows a deeply estranged married couple, Kai and Kurt, who have to face the past in order to have a chance at a future together. Here is the blurb:

In a snow-kissed Christmas cabin, a heart-wrenching tale of love, loss, forgiveness-and new hope.

After the utter destruction of her marriage and her happiness, Kai knew it was better to shut herself away from the world than to hurt and be hurt. Holed up in her mountain cabin, she plans to spend her Christmas alone. Until her not-quite-ex-husband shows up as the first flakes start to fall. Now should she send him back out into the cold? Or can she be brave enough to let this winter snow bind them back together?