Chapter 29
At twenty-eight years old, Willa Rose still felt like a little girl when she opened her eyes on Christmas morning.
Excitement crackled in the early morning air.
The smell of cinnamon and bacon wafted through the house, and that meant Hank was making his special French toast for breakfast. She rolled over toward Tripp and laid her head on his chest.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered softly.
“Merry Christmas to you, darlin’. I love you.”
She was speechless, but finally said, “I love you too.”
“Santa must have heard me loud and clear, because I got what I asked for.”
“And that was?”
He kissed her on the forehead. “To wake up with you in my arms and to hear those words.”
“So did I.”
“Then we are a couple of lucky people, aren’t we?” Tripp buried his face in her hair.
“Double lucky, because Daddy is in our kitchen making his famous holiday breakfast for us, and Nicky slept through his two o’clock feeding. So, Merry Christmas to us as a couple.”
“I like those words, as a couple .”
The monitor screen showed Nicky fully awake and puckering up to cry, so they both hurried out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and headed down the hall just in time to see Hank coming out of the spare bedroom with the baby in his arms.
“I figured y’all could sleep a little longer if I gave him his bottle this morning,” he said. “But now that you are awake, breakfast is on the stove, and Merry Christmas.”
He said the words, and I said them, and life is going on like neither of us uttered them, Willa Rose thought. But there was a certain confidence and peace in her heart that had not been there in a very long time.
“Y’all go on and eat, and I will convince Nicky that what’s in his bottle is French toast, oven omelet, and biscuits and gravy.”
Willa Rose gave her father a sideways hug and then slipped her hand into Tripp’s. “This has always been one of my favorite things about Christmas. We always ate together and then had presents. Tell me about your holiday while we eat.”
“Mama made a big breakfast, not too much different than this one, and then we had presents. After that, us boys had time to play with our new toys, bikes, or whatever we got when we were young. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, we had the huge Christmas dinner. The next day was always kind of sad for me because the excitement was over,” he answered as he got two plates down from the cabinet.
“But thinking ahead for today, I’m not sure what’s going to happen at the Paradise. ”
“I’m sure it will be loud and crazy with lots of laughter and torn paper to clean up after we all open presents, but I can’t begin to imagine so much chaos with a family this huge,” Willa Rose answered.
“And Tripp, I felt the same way the day after. Let’s start a new tradition and do something special tomorrow so we don’t have to deal with that letdown. ”
“I’d like that very much.” He stopped and gave her a long kiss. “Have I told you today that I love you?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, looked up into his eyes and said, “Yes, but I can hear it however many times you want to say it.”
***
Willa Rose sat right next to Tripp with a mountain of destroyed Christmas paper surrounding the two of them.
She smiled and he read her mind. Did this happen to everyone who fell in love or was it a special thing between them—or did it have something to do with the dried-up mistletoe now in the shoebox of keepsakes on his closet shelf?
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You were right. Lots of noise and ripped-up paper.”
Hank rocked Nicky with several presents scattered around his feet that Heather and Daisy had helped the baby open.
Tears welled up behind Tripp’s eyes when he realized that his mother would have been so excited to be in Hank’s place and rock Nicky.
In that very moment, Tripp knew exactly what he wanted to do the next day.
All it would take was a phone call and a little preparation if Willa Rose was willing.
She nudged him on the shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”
“Tomorrow. I would like to take you to Bandera to see my parents, and I’d like to go to Poetry and visit your mother,” he answered.
“Tripp, you are talking about a day’s drive there and another one back,” she frowned. “We couldn’t possibly do that with a three-week-old baby.”
“Who said anything about driving?”
“Have you got a jet hiding in the back room of the leather shop?” she asked.
He slipped an arm around her and gave her a sideways hug. “No, but I have a little six-seater airplane in Bandera.”
“You fly?” she gasped.
“Yes, ma’am. Pretty often as CEO of the oil company.
I almost always had to be in two places at once, so I got my pilot’s license.
I’ve meant to put the plane on the market, but I’m thinking now that I might want to keep it.
Lester, the guy that owns the private airport, is a good friend who will probably be glad to get the plane out of one of his hangars.
If he’s not busy, he can bring it up to Bowie and fly us back down to Bandera.
Then I’ll fly us home and make arrangements to house it in Bowie,” he told her.
“How many more surprises do you have up your sleeve?” she asked.
“You’ve got a lifetime to figure them all out. Are you in or out?”
“I’m in,” Willa Rose answered. “I’d like to tell Mama all about Nicky. I know that seems silly but…”
Tripp gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “It’s not even a little bit silly. Nicky is my mother’s first grandchild, and she would have been so happy to see him. We could make this our special day-after-Christmas tradition.”
She scooted over even closer to him. “I would love that.”