Chapter Forty-Two #3
“And I love you.” When I said it, I wanted to say it a million more times but held back.
No need to rush when you have a lifetime.
“The point is,” I said quietly, “every version of my life that didn’t have you in it feels wrong now.
So, unless you’re opposed to the idea, I say we do this.
We get engaged. Get married. Do the whole happily ever after thing together.
Here. Boston. Wherever you want to be as long as we’re together. ”
Her fingers rose to my jaw, thumb brushing the stubble there. “Nate . . .”
“No more running, Jo.” I took a breath that felt like stepping off a cliff. “Marry me.”
The world narrowed.
The music blurred. The voices around us became a distant hum.
She stared at me, eyes wide. Then she laughed—a soft, disbelieving sound—and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. “Yes,” she said, so quickly it punched the air out of my lungs. “Of course I will. I made—” Her voice broke. She huffed a laugh. “I made Christmas wishes, remember?”
I slid the ring onto her finger. It rested there like it had been waiting.
“More than one,” I said. “I wished for all of this.”
“Smart. There was no posted quota.”
I kissed her.
The room disappeared for a second. It was just her mouth and her hands and the way she leaned into me.
When we broke apart, Bibi exclaimed, “Did we just miss the proposal? Nate ask her again.”
Jo handed the ring back to me as I dramatically bent to one knee and asked, “Jo, will you marry me?”
She accepted just as playfully, and I slid the ring back on her finger then stood and kissed her again.
Conversation crashed to a halt. The music kept playing cheerfully, oblivious.
Every head in the room turned toward us.
Jo’s cheeks went crimson. I didn’t let go of her hand.
Libby’s voice echoed across the silence. “Tanner, see how it’s done?”
Laughter spread.
Claire’s hand flew to her mouth. Tears spilled over at once, as if they’d been waiting. She crossed to us, making a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, kissing Jo’s cheek, then mine. “Look at you both.”
Ethan hung back a beat, then stepped forward, and congratulated us. “I’m proud of you,” he muttered into my shoulder. “Don’t screw it up.” Then he gave me one of the most awkwardly long hugs he ever had.
I choked on a laugh. “Working on it.”
He pulled back, flustered. Libby drifted closer to his side without seeming to notice she’d done it. Their shoulders brushed. He didn’t move away.
Roy rose slowly from his chair.
The room seemed to make way for him without anyone giving an order.
He stopped in front of us, eyes on our joined hands. On the ring. On Jo’s face.
“Are you happy?” he asked her.
She inhaled like he’d punched her. “Yes,” she said, voice thick. “Dad, I’m so happy.”
He nodded once, as if that was a piece of data he’d needed confirmed. Then he shifted his gaze to me. “She’s a feisty one. You think you can handle her?”
I smiled at Jo. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing my best to.”
Jo gave my chest a light smack.
Tanner said, “I just got goosebumps.”
Bibi patted his cheek. “Wait until you meet Karen,” she said.
Mr. Carlisle huffed. “Karen’s going to eat him alive.”
“Maybe he likes that,” Libby said.
Ethan choked on his cider. Libby thumped his back, laughing.
The room swung fully back into chaos—people talking, hugging, demanding to see the ring, Bibi insisting we needed photos “before anyone cries off their makeup.” Jo stayed anchored against my side, her fingers laced with mine like she wasn’t letting go even if the house caught fire.
There was nowhere else I wanted to be.
Someone knocked on the door.
A moment later, it flew open without waiting for an answer.
“Merry Christmas!” Martin’s voice boomed in, bringing a blast of cold air and the jingle of something that sounded suspiciously like sleigh bells. “Anyone up for a sleigh ride?”
Jo laughed, her head tipping back against my chest. “Ethan, why don’t you show Libby what you learned?”
Roy’s eyebrows climbed as he turned toward the door. “Is this real?”
Martin stomped snow off his boots on the mat, shaking the cold from his hat. “Sleigh’s hitched and ready.” He looked around at the crowded room. “The night will only get colder.”
Roy stared at him. Then at the window, where the faint outline of the team and sleigh was visible against the white field, steaming breaths rising like twin dragons.
He looked back at me, deadpan. “Does this happen a lot?” he asked.
“Surprisingly,” Jo said before I could answer, laughter still bubbling in her voice, “all the time. He asks and we go.”
Martin clapped his hands. “You heard the lady. Coats on. Meet me out front. Ethan, you’ve had one lesson. I’ll let you drive.”
“This can’t possibly be OSHA-compliant,” Tanner muttered.
“OSHA doesn’t come out this far,” Libby said cheerfully, shoving his coat at him. “You’ll be fine.”
The room dissolved into motion—people grabbing scarves and hats, Claire wrapping a blanket around Roy’s shoulders “whether you like it or not,” Ethan insisting he was fine without one and then accepting the extra scarf anyway, Bibi threatening to throw Tanner into a snowbank if he didn’t move faster.
Jo turned in my arms, looking up at me.
The lights from the tree reflected in her eyes. The ring glittered on her finger when she reached up to cup my jaw.
“You good?” she asked quietly, the noise around us blurring again.
I looked past her—at her father laughing with mine, at Claire shooing people toward the door, at Libby and Ethan accidentally ending up next to each other again, at Tanner being dragged along by Bibi and Mr. Carlisle like he’d been absorbed by the town’s gravity without consent.
At Silas’s photo above the mantel, watching it all.
Then I looked back at the woman in my arms.
My woman.
My home.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling her closer, letting my forehead rest against hers for one suspended second. “I’m better than good.”
She smiled, that soft, dangerous smile that made every risk feel worth it. “Merry Christmas, Nate.”
“Merry Christmas, Jo,” I said.
Grateful didn’t begin to cover it.
I laced our fingers together, feeling the cool weight of the ring against my palm, and led her toward the door—toward the sleigh, the cold, the horses, our ridiculous, beautiful future waiting outside.