Chapter Sixteen #2
“Do you want to come back to my place?” she asked, and immediately felt hot color rush into her cheeks. “I didn’t mean that to sound like I was propositioning you.”
“I didn’t interpret it as a proposition,” he said, then winked. “Unfortunately.”
“I only meant that I’m sure you want to see Cody,” she explained.
“I do,” he confirmed. “But I’ll come by in a couple hours, if that’s okay. I’ve got a few things I need to do first.”
“I’ll see you in a couple hours then.”
Beth had to buzz him into the building, so when the knock finally sounded on her door, she expected to find Wilder on the other side. Instead, she found Santa.
Though she couldn’t have imagined anything would make her smile today, she felt her lips curve as she stood back to allow him entry. “You’re a long way from the North Pole.”
Her visitor responded with a hearty: “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
She lifted a brow. “And isn’t Santa usually on holidays this time of year?”
“Usually,” he agreed. “But Cody was out of town on Christmas Eve, so I had to take all his presents back to the North Pole with me. And then yesterday, Tracker—the elf who keeps track of all the good little girls and boys—told me that I could find Cody here.”
“Tracker?” she echoed, amused by his elaborate narrative.
“Just go with it,” he urged in a stage whisper.
“Well, Tracker was right,” Beth confirmed. “Cody is here.”
She led “Santa” to the living room, where the baby was propped up by a pillow on the floor, gnawing on the paw of the teddy bear that was one of the gifts she’d given to him at the Ambling A.
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas in January,” Santa said.
Cody’s eyes grew wide and wary as he looked at the stranger in the red suit, then his lower lip began to quiver.
“I should have reminded you that he slept through his visit with Saint Nick when I took him to the mall,” Beth said. “So this is the first time he’s actually seen Santa.”
And if the terrified look in his eyes was any indication, Cody wasn’t too impressed.
Sensing that a meltdown was imminent, Santa immediately pulled off his wig and beard, revealing his true identity to the little boy. “Hey, buddy.”
Cody’s lip stopped quivering and he offered a tentative smile, showing off his two teeth.
Wilder dropped his bag of presents onto the floor and picked up the baby. “I can’t believe how much I missed this little guy,” he confided to Beth.
“He missed you, too.”
“How about you?” he asked. “Did you miss me?”
She was reluctant to answer the question. She didn’t want to admit how very much she’d missed him, how much her heart ached whenever she thought about him—which was pretty much constantly. “Maybe,” she said instead. “A little.”
“Just a little, huh?” He sounded disappointed. “I missed you a lot from the moment you were gone—and then a little bit more each day.”
She was surprised by his admission. “You did?”
He nodded. “As the youngest of six brothers raised by a single dad, I sometimes struggle to find the right words to express how I’m feeling,” he confided to her now. “At other times, I struggle to even acknowledge that I have feelings.
“But I can’t deny the way I feel about you any longer. I don’t want to deny my feelings. I want a life with you, Beth. I want you and me and Cody to be together. A family.”
It was what she wanted, too. More than anything. But she was afraid to trust that his feelings—and her own—were real. “We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks,” she reminded him. “And our whole relationship, if it could even be called a relationship, revolved around Cody.”
“Not our whole relationship,” he said pointedly.
She knew he was referring to New Year’s Eve—the night they’d enjoyed a very small and intimate celebration together—and she felt her cheeks flush with color.
But as fabulous as that night had been, and as much as she might want to repeat it—over and over again—he was the one who’d told her that he didn’t do relationships, that he wasn’t capable of falling in love.
So this apparent turnaround was a little too sudden and abrupt to be believable.
No matter how much she wanted to believe.
Which led her to another, more logical conclusion.
“I can appreciate that you’re probably reeling from the DNA results,” she said.
“And now you’re looking for someone to take care of your son, and I’m the obvious choice because—”
Wilder shook his head, cutting her off. “You have some serious insecurities, don’t you?” he asked, seeming sincerely baffled by her speculation.
She shrugged. “Leighton was the beautiful one, the fun one,” she said, though she doubted he needed the reminder. “I was always the other one.”
“Leighton was beautiful and fun, and we had some good times together,” he acknowledged. “But I was never in love with your sister.”
She blinked, not sure she understood what he was saying.
“You, Lisbeth, are just as beautiful and just as much fun. You are also warm and kind, generous and loving, and I am head over heels in love with you.”
For a long minute, she could only stare at him, stunned by his declaration. “You love me?”
“I love you, Lisbeth Ames,” he confirmed.
“I didn’t even think you liked me all that much.”
He smiled. “I had some reservations at first, as I know you did about me, too.”
She couldn’t deny that was true.
“But over the past couple of weeks, everything changed. You changed everything for me,” he told her. “And I can’t imagine my life without you and Cody in it. Because, as it turns out, I’ve fallen head over heels for the little guy, too.”
“I’m still waiting for you to confirm that you got the DNA results,” she told him.
“I got them. And when I finally had the envelope in hand, I knew that whatever was written on the page didn’t matter as much as what was in my heart.” He looked at the baby in his arms. “And in my heart, Cody was already mine. The lab report only confirmed it.”
She smiled then, her heart overflowing with happiness for her nephew and his daddy.
“You know, now would be a good time to tell me that you love me, too...if you do,” Wilder said.
She lifted her gaze to his, so he would see in her eyes the truth that filled her heart. “I do love you, Wilder Crawford.”
He kissed her then, long and slow and sweet.
And just when Beth had decided that she would be happy to go on kissing him forever, he eased his mouth from hers and said, “Now it’s time for Cody’s second first Christmas.”
“Second first Christmas?” she asked, amused.
“Well, I didn’t have any presents for him when you celebrated his first Christmas, so I brought these,” he said, dumping the contents of the bag onto the floor.
She looked at the assortment of presents—small ones and big ones, hard ones and squishy ones—then at the man in the Santa suit. “Did you buy out The Toy Box?” she asked, referring to the local specialty store.
He grinned. “Not entirely.”
“And you said I went overboard.”
He shrugged, unrepentant. “I think I’m entitled to go a little overboard for my son’s first Christmas.”
“I think so, too,” she agreed.
They both knelt on the floor to help Cody open his gifts. There were wooden puzzles and more books, a cuddly octopus learning toy, a ball that flashed colored lights, a miniature piano, a set of maracas, a drum, a xylophone and a tambourine.
“Are you trying to turn him into a one-baby band?” Beth teased.
“I read that there’s a strong correlation between music and brain development,” he explained.
“Was that in the book?” she asked, echoing the same question he’d once asked her.
“There isn’t one book that’s the authority on everything,” he said, echoing her response. “And every baby is different.”
“But most parents would probably agree that they’re more interested in boxes and bows than presents at this age,” she said, noting how intently Cody was focused on the shiny green bow in his hand.
“There’s one more,” Wilder said, setting the last small square box on the floor in front of her. “For you.”
“For me?” Her heart pounded inside her chest as she tore off the paper to reveal a velvet jeweler’s box. With unsteady hands, she opened the lid to reveal a dazzling diamond solitaire.
She lifted her stunned gaze from the ring to find Wilder watching her. His expression was intent, serious—and just a little bit uncertain.
He cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s too soon,” he allowed. “But—”
“No,” she quickly interjected, shaking her head.
“No?” he echoed.
His bleak tone and grim expression immediately alerted her to his misinterpretation of her response.
“No, it’s not too soon,” she hastened to clarify. “But you can’t just hand a woman a ring—you have to ask the question.”
“Oh.” He released an audible sigh of relief. “Okay, I can do that,” he said. “Beth Ames, will you—”
“Yes,” she said, interjecting again.
He chuckled softly and slid the ring on her finger. “A perfect fit—just like you and me and Cody.”