Chapter 2 Christmas Morning
Christmas Morning
Noah
How hard can it possibly be to buy a Christmas gift for one’s husband?
In truth? Virtually impossible.
Christian, coming down from the high of our holiday bout of making love, curled into my side. “We’ve been here almost nine months.”
“I know.”
“That’s like, almost a year.”
I chuckled. “I know.”
“I think I love you more than the day we arrived.”
Laughter bubbled in my chest. “I think I know that as well.” I pulled him closer and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “We have dogs awaiting us.”
“I’ll go.” He yawned.
The past week had been insanely busy at the grocery store—especially with the collection of food for the soup kitchen—and Christian had come home and fallen into a deep sleep every night.
We hadn’t made love in four days—pretty much a new record for us.
Both being twenty-six meant high sex drives.
Plus, this was one of the ways I knew how to demonstrate my love.
Hopefully, when we were less driven to fuck each other—like in sixty or seventy years—he’d still know how much I loved him.
“Let me go. You either go back to sleep or take a long shower.” I caressed his stubbled jaw. “I’ve got you.”
“Yeah, you really do.” His eyes drifted shut.
I extricated myself, propelled to the shower, and was ready to go with Sable, River, and Stormy within a short period of time. We hustled downstairs and, after I shoved my feet into my boots, we tromped out into the backyard.
The air was fresh, and the sight of our land as far as I could see gave me a sense of peace.
Miss Esmeralda’d had a minor medical scare last week, and that terrified me.
I didn’t want to think about the world without her.
People grow old. People die. Circle of life and all that shit.
I shuddered. Yes, time inevitably marched on.
I just offered a request to the universe that I got to keep her for longer.
Stormy, after having chased the puppies around for a long time, sat by my side.
“Breakfast?”
She bolted for the house.
River and Sable followed. They’re not going to be puppies for much longer. The siblings were almost a year old, and Stormy had passed that milestone a while back. Her maturity helped me greatly in my training sessions.
After wiping down wet paws, we headed for the food bowls.
Christian and I worked hard to ensure each dog waited calmly for their food. Which happened most of the time.
After I’d provided everyone with breakfast, I turned my attention to preparing pancakes and bacon—with real maple syrup—for Christian. Whether I’d be serving it to him in bed—
He traipsed into the kitchen with damp hair and a grin on his face. He smacked a kiss to my lips. “How can I help?”
“Sit and enjoy watching me?”
He squeezed my ass through my denim jeans. “A pleasure.”
And so we chatted while I cooked. Soon enough, we were eating what, if I could say so myself, was damn good grub. A thought occurred. “You fed the cats?”
“Yep. Left their door open, too, but they don’t seem interested in coming downstairs yet.”
“Because they know the syrupy plates will be in the dishwasher before they get to the kitchen.” We’d only made the mistake of not clearing everything away just once. And had discovered Jasmine loved syrup. Clearly she’d been trying to coax Snowy to join her when we’d arrived back.
Neither cat had appeared the least bit embarrassed at having been caught. Hence the putting of dishes into the dishwasher after every meal.
“That’s true. You cooked, I’ll clean up.”
“We’ll do it together and be finished sooner. I can’t wait to show give you the gift I arranged for you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Arranged? I thought we agreed on no gifts.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right—like organizing a reunion party with my first training class wasn’t a gift.”
“Hey, that party was for me as well.”
“Yeah. You put everything together and then served food. I sat in a pile of puppies for the entire party. That hardly seems fair.”
“You had fun?”
I blinked. “Of course.”
“Then that was totally fair. Look, Noah, I don’t need—”
“Doesn’t matter. This isn’t something I can return.”
He cocked his head.
“So let me help with the cleanup and we’ll go into the living room where, despite all the odds against it, our tree is still standing.”
He laughed. “Yes, miracles do happen.”
I snagged his hand and squeezed. “They really do.”
This time, he blinked. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Now—” I grabbed our plates. “Be quick.”
In fact, we hustled. Christian had no idea what I was up to—of that, I was certain.
We decided on hot chocolate as we headed into the living room. The sun shone brilliantly, and all the bulbs on the tree sparkled. “Should I turn on the lights?”
“On the tree? Absolutely.” A shy grin this time.
In truth, we had several gifts for each other—all practical things. I’d have sworn I now had enough pairs of underwear to last until I reached Armageddon.
Same for my husband and socks.
Finally, when all the wrapping paper and decorative bags were tucked away, I moved to the couch.
His eyebrows shot up as I pulled his gift out from its hiding spot.
“I never thought to look there.”
I cocked my head. “Did you look anywhere?”
“Uh…no.” Honest man to a fault. “I figured if you wanted me to know, then you’d just tell me.” He gestured to the gift. “I think I can guess.”
“I’ll bet you absolutely cannot.”
He appeared startled, with a furrow in his brow. “Oh. I assumed it was some kind of painting of our home. And maybe the land.”
“Nope. But I now know what to get you for your birthday.”
“Noah—”
“I’m quite certain I can find an artist in town who could use the commission.”
He nodded.
That’s the way to convince him—make it about someone else’s gain.
I handed him the gift.
He hesitated.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just…whatever this is, you clearly put a lot of thought into it.”
“Okay…not certain why that means you can’t open the gift.”
“I want to cling to the idea of love that’s gone into this.”
We were seated on the floor—surrounded by docile pooches.
I moved to Christian and wrapped my arm around him. “Yes, I did this from love. Yes, I hope you love it. I also might die from the anticipation.”
He chuckled. “No one ever died from waiting.”
“You say that now…but you can’t prove that.”
His laughter resonated through the room. “You always know the right thing to say.” Slowly, he ran his finger along one seam and loosened the tap.
“Oh my God. We’ll be here all day. Just rip the paper!”
“Okay.” He ripped the paper on the back side and unveiled the wire so we could hang the piece right away. Once he had all the paper removed, he flipped the art over.
I’d seen this dozens of times, and it still took my breath away.
“Noah.” He said my name on an exhalation. Then he pressed his fingers to his lips.
Oh damn. He’s going to cry.
And he did.
So I held him.
Until the sobs subsided. “I don’t know how to take that.” I chuckled. But I did. I’d touched him—as I’d known I would.
“How…?”
“Well, Soren. And then Jack.”
He gave me a look—including a knit brow—which assured me that he was clueless.
“I gave Soren about a hundred photos.” I pressed a hand to Noah’s still-damp cheek. “He put them together in such a way that it appeared we’d posed for a family portrait. Jack, a local artist, took that collage and painted this.” I gestured to the artwork.
Christian and I sat in the center—holding hands.
Stormy sat up next to me. Sable and River were posed—River on Christian’s lap and Sable on mine.
Jasmine was twined around Christian’s shoulders while Snowy sat on mine.
We all appeared to be looking into a camera.
No one looking at this would think we hadn’t posed for a portrait.
His hand hovered over the painting. “This is…stunning.”
“Well, we’ll have to thank Jack and Soren when we get the chance.”
“I don’t know Jack.”
“I’ll introduce you. And Soren’s coming over tomorrow.”
“Oh?”
“I forgot to tell you? He doesn’t have any family nearby—” Or any, that he’d ever spoken of. “—So I invited him to join us. He hasn’t seen this—we’ll have to hang it on the wall so we can show it off.”
“It’s…amazing.” He turned to press a kiss to my lips.
River chose that moment to waken, decide he wanted in on the action, and to launch himself into my lap.
Christian placed the painting on the couch just as Stormy decided she wanted to be part of the chaos as well.
Being five times bigger than the pups, things were always dicey when she got frisky.
Except she appeared to understand her size and was careful around them.
Less so when she was trying to crawl into Christian’s lap.
As strong as he was, even he couldn’t handle a Newfie who was well over one hundred pounds.
We laughed as the dogs vied for our attention and things got even merrier when Jasmine and Snowy deigned to join us.
Total chaos.
And I’d never been happier.