Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Christmas Eve
ENZO
“Enzo, I think we need a bigger tree next year.”
Winter’s on her knees, trying in vain to fit the rest of the gifts underneath the already-full Christmas tree. As she turns toward me, she gestures at the mountainous stack of boxes still sitting off to the side and says, “I can’t fit everything underneath it. Is it too late to get a second tree?”
“Well. Maybe,” I hedge. “It is Christmas Eve and all. We’re kind of running short on time.” I walk over to the tree and kneel beside her. “What’s wrong with just leaving the presents off to the side?”
“I guess that would be okay.” She takes a brightly-wrapped box and tucks it between two other ones, then turns back to me. “But I don’t know how we ended up with so many presents.”
“We have a lot of people to buy for. Your aunt. My mom. Alec. Ronan. Gage. Knox.”
“And Lark.” Winter smiles. “After everything she and Knox have been through, they definitely deserve a nice Christmas.”
“Very true.” I kiss her cheek. “Plus, didn’t you buy something for Max? And Sage?”
“And Will,” she adds. “Since he’s taken on so much more at the store, I wanted to get him something nice to show our appreciation.”
“Plus—” I raise my eyebrows at her, smirking. “There seem to be an awful lot of presents with my name on them. Which you didn’t have to do.”
“Enzo!” Winter looks at me, aghast. “It’s our first Christmas together. Did you really think I’d only give you one present, like you said?”
“Well.” She has a point.
“And,” she presses on, “I seem to see a lot of tags with my name on them. It looks like I’m not the only one who went a little crazy shopping.”
“Fine.” I pull her into my arms and kiss her until she’s flushed and gasping. “I went a little overboard. But I like giving you things.”
“And I like giving you things, too.” Winter grins at me. “I think it’s okay. We’re allowed to spoil each other. Especially on our first Christmas.”
“That’s true.” And I’m really excited to see her reaction to all the gifts I bought—the special edition hardcovers by her favorite author, new hiking gear, a framed photo of us from Thanksgiving to add to the mantle, and a new reading chair I’ve had hidden in the basement for the last two weeks.
But the most important gift isn’t for tomorrow. It’s for tonight.
Standing up, I reach my hand out to Winter. “Can you take a break from gift arranging? Go for a little walk with me?”
“A walk?” Her brows pull into a puzzled V. “It’s dark out. And snowing. I thought you wanted to sit by the fireplace and watch Christmas movies tonight?”
“I do. Just a little later.”
Winter gives me an assessing look, her eyes narrowing like she’s trying to read my expression for some kind of clue. But she takes my hand and says with a smile, “Okay. It is really pretty out. And we can warm up with hot chocolate when we come in.” She pauses. “Or sex. That would work, too.”
As I pull her to her feet, I kiss her again. “I really like that idea.”
“We should have Christmas Eve sex,” she says thoughtfully. “Like a tradition.”
“You mean like Halloween sex? And Thanksgiving sex?”
Her eyes sparkle, the lights of the tree reflecting in them. “Yup.”
“I love it.” And as we get bundled up in layers of clothing, I keep adding to our growing list of new traditions. “New Year’s Eve sex. Valentine’s Day?—”
“Of course,” Winter adds with emphasis. “That’s a no-brainer. But then there’s Groundhog’s Day, and Saint Patrick’s Day…”
We’re still going as we head outside, coming up with obscure celebrations like Donut Day and National No Pants Day.
“That’s not a real thing,” Winter insists, laughing.
“It is.” I take her mittened hand in mine. “An Army buddy of mine, Matt; he loves pranking people. And he discovered No Pants Day was a thing. So he hid everyone’s pants and we had to search for ages to find all of them.”
“He sounds interesting. When do I get to meet him?”
“He works for Blade and Arrow out in San Antonio. So hopefully we can make it out there soon and you can meet all the guys there.”
We walk outside into an expanse of white. The ground is covered with a fresh layer of snow, and large, fluffy snowflakes drift lazily downward. The sky is clear, with a swathe of stars shining brightly overhead. It’s even quieter than usual; that muffled stillness that seems to only come when it’s snowing at night.
Silvery clouds come in puffs as we talk, and Winter’s cheeks pink up as the cold air hits us. I gather her close to me, tucking her into my side, and she snuggles against me with a happy little sigh.
“This is really nice, Enzo.” She smiles up at me, so pretty and sweet my heart aches with it. “I’m glad we came out here.”
“Me too.” I press a quick kiss to the top of her head. “But I actually have somewhere I want to bring you. Just back through the trees.”
She casts me another appraising look. “What do you have planned, Enzo?”
I smile at her, though my stomach is getting jittery. “It’s a surprise.”
“Okay…”
When we get to the edge of the woods, Winter gasps. “Enzo! This is?—”
There’s a path heading into the woods, cleared and shoveled and lined on both sides by strings of white lights. In the dark, with all the snow, it looks just as sparkly and magical as I’d hoped it would.
“It’s part of the surprise,” I tell her. Hugging her to me, I add, “We have to take a little walk to get to the rest of it.”
“Oh, Enzo. It’s so pretty.” Her head is on a swivel, gazing up at the trees, then at the lights, and back to me. “It’s like something out of a movie.”
“Or one of your books.”
Winter beams at me. “It’s better than any of my books, because this is real.”
Oh . My heart.
As we walk into the woods, she bubbles over with talk about Christmas and when Aunt Linette and my mom will get here and whether we bought enough eggnog for our evening gift exchange with all of our friends. And then she talks about how excited she is to pick up our new kitten next week, once it’s finally old enough to be away from its mother.
“I was thinking Stella would be cute,” she says thoughtfully. “Or maybe Luna? Something inspired by the night sky?”
“We can name her anything you want, hun.”
Now my heart is beating double time, and despite the cold, I’m hot all over.
“Well, I guess we don’t have to decide until we bring her home. And then, in a couple of months, once she’s settled in, we can go back to the shelter and pick out a puppy.”
A kitten and a puppy. Real couple-y things. Or as Finn said when we chatted the other day, “First you get pets, next thing you know, you’re having kids.”
I think I’d be okay with that.
“How much further?” Winter asks. “Not that I mind walking. I’m just?—”
She stops. Her mouth drops open.
Still holding her hand, I lead her closer to the gazebo. “This is the next part of the surprise.”
The gazebo. Just as I planned.
I finished it with Knox last month, before the snow really started to stick. Then it was a matter of keeping Winter out of this part of the woods until the perfect time to reveal it.
It’s all decorated with white lights on the edges of the roof and all the posts and railings. A thin sheet of plexiglass protects the furniture inside—a cozy loveseat with two small tables on either side and a gas fire pit I snuck out to light just before I went to get Winter. Thick blankets are draped over the back of the couch, and on one of the tables, there’s a thermos of hot chocolate ready and waiting.
It looks pretty nice, if I say so myself. But the important thing is what Winter thinks of it.
“Enzo.” Her eyes are wide with surprise. “When you said a surprise, I thought… I don’t know. Maybe a pond for ice skating? Or just a bench somewhere? But this…”
“Do you like it?” Should I have cleared off the pond on the other side of the property?
“I love it.” She tugs me inside, then looks around again, taking everything in. “With the fire… it’s actually pretty warm in here. It’s perfect. We can sit out here and watch the snow, and when it’s nicer, we can do s’mores. Or just watch the stars… It’s amazing, Enzo. I love it.”
I guide her over to the couch and pull her down beside me, then tuck one of the blankets over our legs. Winter sighs happily as she leans into my side. “This is so perfect. I can’t tell you… this is such a wonderful surprise.”
“I’m so glad.” My throat gets thick. “But… that’s not all.”
“What else?” Her brows arch up. “Isn’t this enough? I mean… you built a gazebo , Enzo. That’s a pretty big surprise.”
My pulse thunders so loudly, it’s a miracle Winter can’t hear it.
“The gazebo is just… part of the presentation. Because I wanted this to be perfect.”
“Wanted what to be perfect?” As she looks at me, hope lights in her eyes.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the little box I’ve had for months. “I wanted this to be perfect.”
And then I open the box, revealing all my hopes and dreams in facets of diamond. Dropping to my knee, I take Winter’s hand. “I wanted this moment to be perfect. Because you deserve everything, Winter. And I want you to have a proposal you’ll remember forever.”
She bites her lip. Her voice trembles. “A proposal?”
“If you’ll have me.” I stop. “I’m doing this out of order. What I mean to say is; I love you. I love you with all my heart. Every day with you is the happiest day of my life. I don’t know what I did to get this lucky, to find the one person in the entire universe that fits me. But I know I don’t ever want to let you go.”
“Enzo…”
“I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to ask. But I thought I should wait. Give you some time. So I thought… I hope it’s not too soon. But God, Winter. I love you so much. I’ll do anything to make you happy. Anything to protect you. I will devote my life to you, if you’ll let me.”
A sheen of tears turns her eyes to a glistening emerald. “Enzo. I’ve been hoping you would ask. It’s not too soon.”
“It’s not?”
“Absolutely not. I love you. Actually, that’s not a big enough word for how I feel about you. It’s like… all the stars in the universe. We can only see a tiny fraction of them. But they’re all there. That’s how I feel about you. Saying I love you is just the stars we can see. But in my heart, it’s all of them. A universe of stars.”
For a moment, I can’t speak.
“Winter.” I pull off my gloves and stroke her cheek, brushing away the dampness lingering there. “That’s the most perfect way to say it. And I feel the exact same way.” Blinking away my own tears, I hold her gaze as I ask the most important question of my life. “Will you marry me, Winter Clarke? Be my wife? Make me the happiest man in the universe?”
There’s no hesitation. “Yes.” She whips off her mitten and holds her hand out to me. “Of course I will, Enzo Rossi. I absolutely will marry you.”
As I slide the ring on her finger, my heart explodes with joy.
My Winter.
Soon to be my wife.
Between kisses, I keep repeating, “I love you, Winter. I love you so much.”
And after we’ve kissed long enough to not feel the chill anymore, Winter looks down at her finger, to the sparkling gem catching flashes of orange and crimson from the fire. Then her gaze rises to meet mine. “I love you. And I can’t wait to be your wife.” A small smile curves her lips. “Winter Rossi. I like the sound of it.”
Oh.
I frame Winter’s face with my hands and look at the woman I love more than anything. “I love the sound of it. And I love you.”
After everything, I found more than happiness here. I found my future.