Chapter 25 Noelle
Noelle
“Noelle,” I hear him hum before the feeling of his lips landing on my shoulder makes my heart flutter.
“Noelle,” he hums again. I grunt in response which earns me a hearty chuckle. “Come on, sugar, it’s time to wake up. It’s Christmas.”
My eyes shoot open, having forgotten that today is the best day of the entire year. When I open them, I find his dark green eyes peering back at me, a soft smile on his face. It widens when he sees me take him in which only causes me to smile too.
“Merry Christmas, sugar,” he says, reaching a hand over and resting it on my cheek.
“Merry Christmas, Nick.” Reaching my own hand over, I poke one of his dimples.
He snatches my hand and pulls me into him, enveloping me in a hug that I’d be okay with lasting forever.
Last night ended with me going home with him and showing him exactly how happy I am that he’s staying in Evergreen for good.
“Do you think Santa came?” I ask, not kidding in the least. I don’t care how old I get or how teased I am, I believe that if you believe in Santa, he will believe in you and bring you some type of gift year after year.
“He definitely did for you. I didn’t need him to come for me this year. I already have everything I need right here,” he mumbles into my hair and pulls me tighter to him. I let out a happy hmph into his chest and pull away to look at him.
“Have I mentioned how happy I am that you’re staying?”
“Only at least a dozen times since getting home last night.”
“Well, I am. I’m still shocked you made such a big decision without talking to me but…” I pause and look at him deeply. “I’m really happy you’re staying.”
“Me too, sugar, me too.” He presses up onto his elbow and sits with his head resting in the palm of his hand. “You wanna go see what Santra brought you?”
My eyes go wide with excitement. “Yes.”
I nearly fly out of bed causing him to laugh loudly behind me. When I open the bedroom door and look out at the living room, there’s several neatly packed presents under the tree. Reaching the bottom of the tree, I tuck my hair behind my ear and grab the one with the biggest bow.
“Hold it,” he calls out from the doorway. My hands freeze on top of the box I’m about to tear open like a child would. “Those are to open with the family later at Holly House.”
“What?” I groan, my face falling in despair. I look at him then back at the presents under the tree. “You’re going to make me wait until later to open them?”
He comes to sit next to me after turning the fireplace on. He leans in and kisses the top of my head. “Yes, wife, I’m going to make you wait. Don’t worry, though, I have two presents I can give you right now. Ones I want to give you before we head to the inn for the day.”
“I guess that’s fine,” I mope, pushing my lips out like a duck. “All of your gifts are at my place anyway; we need to stop for them on the way to Holly House.”
“And for you to get a change of clothes. I don’t think Grams would like you showing up in my shirt,” he comments, pulling at the bottom of the T-shirt I’m wearing.
“Definitely not,” I reply. I wait a beat before starting again. “So you said something about presents I can open now?”
His head falls back as he laughs and the sound of it warms me to the bone.
“Are you always like this on Christmas Day?”
“Why, yes, yes, I am. And I think it’s important for you to know that I am not changing. If we’re going to stay married, it’s important you know this about me or else this isn’t going to work.”
He brings his hand to my cheek and looks at me. “I love everything about you, Noelle. Even this. Nothing is going to change that.”
I can’t stop myself from smiling like an idiot before leaning in and kissing him.
“Okay, present number one,” he says firmly.
Standing from the floor, he walks towards his sketch table and pulls an envelope out from under massive sheets of paper. He must have had it hiding there so I wouldn’t find it. Sitting back down on the floor, he hands it to me. I look at the plain white envelope and scrunch my face up at him.
“Well, open it up.”
Doing as he says, I slide my finger under the seal and pull out the papers inside.
As I carefully unfold them, the most beautiful sketch of a small cottage home starts to reveal itself.
I gasp as I take in all the fine details, windows, and landscape.
It’s the sweetest little home I’ve ever seen, like something out of a dream.
Flipping through the other pages, I’m suddenly lost in a sea of land surveys and construction schedules.
“Okay I love the first drawing but the rest of this has me confused,” I say honestly.
He moves closer and takes the papers from my hands, laying them out in front of us in a very specific order he’s decided on already.
“This is the land survey for Holly House. It shows that you have about two acres on the back end of the property that’s usable space.
There’s a ton of trees and overgrowth there right now, but it’s free to be cleared out.
This next piece of paper is the schedule to break ground this spring once it warms back up.
” He points to each piece of paper as he explains them to me.
“Break ground on what?” I ask, still confused.
“This,” he says confidently, pulling the drawing of the cottage into the middle of the papers, center stage. “Our house.”
I turn and look at him with my mouth hanging open. “Our what?”
“Our house, sugar. I’m building us a house.
Well, I’m going to hire people to do the work because I just do the designing part.
But this is where we’ll live once it’s all done.
I know how important Holly House is to you; it only made sense that we be as close as possible to it in your first year of owning it.
” His voice is steady and sure as he speaks.
The fact that he wants to build us a house is one thing but the fact that he’s gone through the work for us to be on the same property of my favorite place in the world is something else entirely.
“You’ve really thought about this,” I comment, taking his hand in mine. My eyes are threatening to spill over with tears, truly touched by his gift.
“I think about you every day, sugar. Whether you’re here or not, I’m thinking about you. And us. And the life I want to create with you. It all starts here, in our home.”
I don’t even know what to say so I simply press up on my knees and wrap my arms around his neck. He does the same, bringing his hands to my lower back and holding me in place.
“I can’t wait to start our lives together either, Nick. This is the most special gift anyone has ever given me. I don’t even care what the second present is because it can’t top this.”
“Mmm, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You might want to see the second gift I got for you first.” By the way the tone of his voice drops a few octaves, I know there’s a reason he didn’t want to bring this one to family Christmas.
“Give it to me and I’ll let you know if it’s better,” I say, sitting back on my knees.
“You have to go get it, it’s in the bedroom.”
I bite back a smirk and stand. Reaching for his hands, I pull him up to his feet.
Walking backwards, I guide us back towards the bedroom, smirking at him as he follows along with me.
When we reach the bedroom, he slams the door shut and we don’t come back out until we’re almost late for family Christmas.
I’m sitting on the couch in the library at Holly House with Grams sitting next to me while Nick is sitting in the armchair across from us.
His parents and Grandma Carol are also here as well as Belle and Eve.
They had spent time with their families this morning and promised to stop by for our annual Christmas exchange.
“Alright, alright, my turn,” Gram announces.
Everyone in the room looks towards her as she stands and shuffles towards the mantel.
It’s decorated with fresh garland from the Wyte’s Christmas tree farm and hand-stitched stockings.
Nutcrackers stand guard amongst the other decorations we put on the mantle year after year.
Having shrunk a few inches in her old age, she really has to stretch to reach the folded piece of paper sitting amongst the nutcrackers.
“This one is for my sweet Noelle. My pride and joy and the reason why Holly House will only continue to soar once I’m gone.” She beams at me as she comes back to take a seat next to me.
“Grams, don’t say things like that. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon, not if I have anything to say about it,” I fuss.
“Or me,” Ms. Carol barks out, lifting her glass of spiked eggnog in the air. “She and I made a pact a long time ago to go out together. If you go, I go.”
The room begins to laugh as Grams hands me the piece of paper. Unfolding it, I’m left sitting with my mouth hanging wide open for the second time today. My hand comes to cover it as I scan over the document she’s given me.
“Well, Noey, what is it?” Eve asks, leaning over the back of the couch to try and catch a peek.
“It’s the deed to Holly House. And it’s in my name,” I manage to eek out before getting choked up. It’s dated more than a week ago, meaning I’ve been the new owner of the inn all this time and had no idea.
“I always knew you could do it, sweetie. Your parents knew it too.” She pats me on the leg with a reassuring smile.
“Thank you, Grams. I promise, I won’t let you down. Nick is actually going to build us a house right here on the property so we can be as close as possible. I’ll have to show you the sketches later; they’re beautiful. The house is going to fit right in with the property.”
“I’m sure it will, sweetie. I’m so happy for the both of you.” She gives me another loving smile. Swallowing hard, I decide to tell her something I should have told her a long time ago.
“Grams, I’m really grateful you’ve left Holly House to me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but I have to be honest with you.” I glance to look up at Nick who’s now standing behind me with a hand on my shoulder. He gives me a nod to let me know he’s okay if I tell her what we did.
“Nick and I, when we got married, it wasn’t real.
Well, it was real but we weren’t getting married because we loved each other.
I mean, we did love one another, we just were scared of saying it.
” I take a quick breath and try to collect myself.
“Our marriage was fake, so I could inherit the inn. At least it started out that way but it’s real now, I promise.
I love him and he loves me and we’re staying married. ”
“Forever,” he adds on. I smile up at him when he does. Looking back at Grams, I expect her to get upset with me but she only smiles.
“Oh, sweetie,” she starts before taking my hands into hers. “I know.”
“You know?” I gawk. “You knew the whole time and you never said anything?”
“How could I when I was keeping a secret of my own?” she says, waving her hands out in front of her.
“What secret were you keeping?”
“You know the family will I told you about? The one that says that Holly House can only be passed down to a married couple?”
“Yeah?” I speak slowly, not feeling great about where this is going.
She smiles proudly and shrugs. “I made it up.”
“What?” I nearly shout. Nick laughs behind me and my friends’ faces are just as shocked as I feel.
She shrugs and looks towards Carol who has an equally shit-eating grin on her face. “Do you wanna tell them?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Carol says, setting her eggnog down on the side table.
“Mary and I were having breakfast together a few months ago, talking about how stupid we thought the two of you were acting, pretending not to be waiting around for the other one to finally come to their senses and rekindle what the two of you share. Nick had been gone for more than ten years and Noelle had been running herself into the ground running the inn. Neither of you were doing anything to get back together before one of us died so we made a plan. I would play the frail old lady to get Nick home and Mary would make up a story about how Noelle needed to be married in order to take over Holly House.”
We’re all sitting in a stunned silence listening to her recant how she and Grams duped every single one of us.
“We didn’t know you’d take it as far as actually getting married, that was just an added benefit,” Carol shrugs, taking another long pull of her eggnog.
“We’re glad the two of you are finally back together and for good,” Grams says. “You two were always meant to be together; I’ve always thought that.”
“I would be so mad at you right now if it all hadn’t worked out for the best.” I laugh, shaking my head at her.
I can’t believe she made it all up so Nick and I would get back together.
More than that, I can’t believe it worked.
I’ve always thought he and I were meant to be but I didn’t think it would take an elaborate plan made up between our grandmothers to bring us back together.
“Well, I, for one thing, am happy to have been trapped in an elaborate ruse,” Nick says, pulling me up from the couch and into an embrace. “Because it brought me back to Evergreen, gave me back the love of my life, and gifted me with the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I agree as I look at him. Glancing outside, I see that it’s started to snow once more.
I was wrong earlier this morning when I said that the house was the best gift I’ve ever gotten. Because looking at him now, noticing how he’s looking at me, I know that this, what we have, is the best gift I’ll ever get for the rest of my life.
And nothing has ever made me happier.