73. Alice
Chapter seventy-three
Alice
C hristmas morning with Henry’s family had a rhythm and an order to it, flowing along like the mix of classical music and traditional carols playing on the stereo. Loving and merry without being boisterous. But the whole thing—everyone laughing and opening gifts, the lights glowing on the tree, the fire crackling in the fireplace, Henry’s cinnamon rolls warm and gooey and delicious—clung to Alice with a prickle that refused to shake loose.
A new flannel pajama set and a borrowed robe wrapped her in layers of comfort. A gorgeous Christmas sweater rested at her knee. The matching gifts for her and Jay had come from Mother—she’d commissioned the knitting projects from Lina months ago, just after the fall cleanup visit. Henry admitted to sneakily providing sizing from the clothes Alice and Jay had worn that weekend.
But as she sipped the real hot chocolate in her mug, and she admired and applauded the presents Mother and Santa Claus had given Henry’s nephews, the world still sat askew. Off. Irritating as an itch between her shoulder blades.
In a quiet gift gap, as Gabriel hunted for the next one to open, she sprang to her feet. “I need a refill. Anyone else, while I’m going?”
Jay, eyes shining, smile as big as a house, reached for her mug. “Here, I can get it so you won’t miss anything.”
“Oh, well…” Damn. She needed the break, but he wanted to serve. This was the family Christmas he needed, all the big emotions—medium emotions, because Henry’s relatives were more golf clap than pro wrestling crowd. Jay was thoroughly wrapped up in the unwrapping, guiding Gabriel and Robert the Fifth on distribution of presents and asking smart questions about their gifts and what they’d use them for.
“Actually, Jay”—Henry scooped Jay’s mug up with his teacup—“I believe your presence is needed as master of ceremonies. Alice, why don’t you and I gather the cups and refresh everyone’s beverages.”
Her quick escape for a breather rapidly evolved into a full tray and Henry by her side for every step. The kitchen door swung behind them, a pendulum coming to rest as Henry slid the tray onto the counter.
She set her cup down—still two-thirds full, clear evidence of an ulterior motive and sloshing like a guilty conscience.
Henry pulled his and Jay’s cups from the tray and lined them up beside hers. Jay had more than half a mug of hot chocolate left. Henry had a teacup so full it flirted with the decorative line around the rim. “Would you rather have quiet space or a friendly ear, sweet girl?”
Sagging into his shoulder, she closed her eyes and breathed in the comforting bite of citrus and leather from his cologne. She’d started the day off giddy, their bed a luxurious tangle of bare limbs that could’ve happily held them all day. Two hours later, and she was holding back a mope monster for no reason.
“Not sure. I feel…” She blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “Weird.” Which was ridiculous. “And I shouldn’t. It’s the best Christmas I’ve spent in, hell, probably seventeen years? The only Christmas I’ve celebrated in the last ten for sure.”
Henry slipped his arm around her back and curled her to his chest. His chin rested against her cheek. His heart beat reassuringly steadily. “Let us dispense with should , hmm? Feelings ask no moral judgments of us. That is our intellect insinuating itself where it is unneeded.”
He would know.
“Yes, I do have a fair amount of expertise with that.”
“I didn’t say—”
“No, your shoulders thought it.” He rubbed her back in strong circles. “As did mine. I take no offense at such truths, which is perhaps the most solid indicator that I am returning to equanimity.”
She could hardly pass that up. “I would’ve said the most solid indicator was—”
He claimed her mouth, his amused growl vibrating against her lips. “Do you recognize what you’re doing, dearest?”
Aside from fetching drinks no one needed—well. “Deflecting with humor so I don’t have to talk about why I’m feeling weird?”
“Very good.” His approving hum sent a happy shiver down her spine. “Setting aside the issue of should , then, let us consider the explanation behind your judgment from a different perspective. The day is a joyous one. However.” Gently drawing her away, he clasped her face in his hands. “It is also a prominent reminder of a decade of such days lost to you and your sister, and of the preceding years marred by strain and conflict.”
Sure, when he put it like that. All out there and truthful and cutting into her with precision. Ten years of being alone on the holiday, defiantly telling herself she wasn’t moping or missing out on anything special. A long call with Ollie, when they both could. A much shorter call with Mom, usually cut off when the background grumbling got too tough to ignore.
The years before that had been awkward at best. The bar was set at “holiday without shouting,” which was so low a gal couldn’t limbo under it. Trip over it, maybe.
“The last few months, I thought a lot about how Jay would feel this Christmas.” Fiddling with the cups, she lined up the handles in a row. Two teacups for Henry and his mom. Two coffee cups for Robert and his wife. Four hot chocolate mugs, because once she and Jay had voiced that option, the kids had politely asked for it instead of milk or juice. “Things being so different for him, estranged from his family, not in the place he always goes. I tried to think of ways I could help fill that void for him. I wasn’t thinking about…”
Her and Ollie opening presents, tearing into the wrapping paper with way more gusto than Henry’s nephews. The year sitting in hospital chairs. The one in a booth at the diner, because Dad kept grousing and Ollie was crying and Mom hustled them into their coats over their pajamas and shouted at Dad to sit home and stew if he couldn’t give his girls one day of peace.
“Alice?” Henry brushed her cheeks.
She blinked free the tears, and he swept them clear. “I wasn’t thinking about how I would feel going from the void to the real deal. All the family stuff I missed out on.”
Hell, she’d been deflecting all month long, imagining that Henry’s countdown calendar was only about Jay and his needs. As if she didn’t have pieces that needed filling in on her personal jigsaw.
“Often it is far easier to focus one’s efforts on helping someone else than it is to face our own pains.”
Like, say, micromanaging a care plan for one’s mom instead of asking for help comforting a scared little boy one used to be. “You don’t say?”
“I do say.” He cradled her close, wrapping her up in both arms and swaying slowly. “As you may have noticed, I have extensive recent experience in this area as well.”
“I had noticed that.” And now she was doing it again, flipping the conversation away from focusing on herself. “Sorry. I should—” She clicked her tongue in her teeth. “I mean, I want to stop doing that. I want to be uncomplicatedly happy today, not comparing now with then.”
“You may find difficulty achieving that goal if you refuse to allow yourself space to grieve, my sweet.”
Grieve was a big word for her piddly complaints. Shouldn’t she be past those—there went that should again, shoving its butt where it didn’t belong. “I’m listening.”
“These unhealed hurts arise when they will, and pushing past them simply grants them more power on their next return.” He stroked the back of her neck above the edge of the robe, his touch a signal for tight muscles to unclench. “Shall we acknowledge that those years of deprivation were not so unimportant as you may have pretended? You were, in fact, dealt a not insignificant loss. The sadness you refused to feel then—shrouding it with indifferent defiance, perhaps—spills out now because you are confronted with what could have been.”
She could joke about how her family would never-ever have been as orderly and disciplined on Christmas morning as his was, and that would be true. But it would still miss the point.
She did want the years back. The ache in her chest hadn’t been caused by anything wrong today. The ache came from the constant false front for neighbors and the kids at school and even Mom when she came home with a furrowed brow and droopy shoulders and swollen feet she propped on a kitchen chair. “So how do I let go of that?”
“Tell me quickly, without thinking about it, what you are feeling this morning.”
“I wish things had been different.” The words kicked her in the chest and pushed a lump into her throat. Her mind chattered at itself, a chorus of angry opposition insisting her childhood had built character and made her resilient and taught her to be independent and strong. Fuck, barely more than a year ago her biggest fear had been that wanting Henry’s dominance made her weak.
But this network of fail-safes they’d built made her strong. Loving people and letting them in made her strong. Not all this BS lying to herself about what she didn’t need in her life.
“I’m angry. I’m angry at the guy who drove the forklift, and at the company for fighting the claim, and at my dad for not finding a better way to cope, and at my mom for not making him, and at Ollie for needing me, and at myself for letting those feelings control me for so long. For shutting down all the other emotions. For not really living half my life. For wasting all that time.” The fierce whispers clawed out of her, a long line of hurts unspoken. But they didn’t come tainted with the horrifying bitterness of wishing Dad had died. That had been just one more lie to herself, another way of saying see, I don’t care .
Henry assessed her in his steady green gaze. The upturned corners of his mouth held soft encouragement. “And how do you feel now?”
She barked a laugh at the answer the brain trust shoved forward. “Um. You know how when you get food poisoning—”
Henry slowly raised one eyebrow.
“—and everything inside feels absolutely awful, but you don’t want to throw up, because ugh, gross?”
He might have been hiding a laugh of his own. “Go on.”
“But then you do throw up, and afterward you feel a million times better?”
“A million times, hmm?” As he finger-combed her hair, he followed the curve of her ear. Her skin tingled where he touched her, familiar but new, soothing but enticing.
“A million times.” Shuffling closer, she tucked her hands into the pockets of his robe and tugged him toward her. “A million billion.”
“Excellent.”
He caught her mouth in a kiss, waves of gentle pressure as if he could draw the last drops of poison from her. Which he and Jay kind of had by filling her up with love instead. That suggested love was dense enough to displace hurt and hate. Maybe a liquid metal that started at the bottom and seeped into—
“You”—Henry kissed her again, hard and quick—“have the most delightful shiver when you’re entertaining a new thought.”
The door nudged open, and Jay slipped through the gap. “Not to interrupt, but I got voted to check on the tea and sympathy. Everything okay?”
“I got overwhelmed.” A twinge of embarrassment flared, and she pushed through it. Jay would be happier knowing how she felt than he would wondering what she was shielding him from. “Turns out having a merry Christmas after years of lousy ones is emotional and requires kisses to fix.”
With a deep exhale and a crooked smile, Jay closed the distance. “I’m a great handyman, if you need more help fixing that.”
“I do.” She spun slowly, resting her back against Henry as he clasped his forearms across her waist. “A few more kisses and I’ll be ready to go out and make those happy memories.”
Jay followed her lead, nuzzling her cheeks and bumping noses until she sealed their mouths together. The heat surpassed hot chocolate, with extra healing properties she filed under being in love.
Letting him go, she sighed with ostentatious relaxation. “Now that was the refill I needed.”
Tipping his head toward the counter, scanning the cups, Jay snorted. “It for sure wasn’t your drink. We can at least heat these up while we’re in here, though.”
Henry unwound his arms and squeezed her shoulders. “And then, perhaps, we might exchange our gifts. I do have some small tokens suitable for this audience.”
“We do, too.” She flashed a smile at Jay, and he added a double thumbs-up. Hopefully Henry would appreciate the coordination that had gone into his gifts from them. “One hundred percent family friendly.”
The tray Jay carried out featured a plate of caramel apple slices alongside the topped-off drinks. Once the goodies had been distributed, Jay knee-walked between the piles of gifts the boys had opened and dug their much smaller stack from under the tree. They were the last of the adults to exchange gifts. Probably an age order thing—Mother had started, and then Henry’s brother and his wife went, all in brief breaks as the boys quietly absorbed themselves in the latest things they’d opened from Santa Claus. Jay’s robe trailed him like a bridal train on his way back to them, and he presented their gifts with a game-show flourish. “So, rock, paper, scissors to see who goes first?”
While Jay had his hands full, she threw scissors. He stuck out his tongue at her, flexing between solid and curled, then waggled his eyebrows.
Henry lifted the top two boxes from the stack. “I would prefer to be last, my dears. Why don’t we start with the two of you exchanging gifts?”
Jay tipped the rest of the stack toward her. She caught their gifts for Henry, thin and matching, and a midsize box. Jay kept the bottom one, her gift for him. She patted his leg with her foot. “You go first.”
He rotated the box in all dimensions. He pressed his ear to one side and shook it gently. The contents rustled and rattled. “Could be dangerous. Awful lot of noise going on in there. Is it an ice cream maker?” He shook it again. “Must be an archery set.”
Gabriel crept forward. “The box isn’t long enough for the arrows.”
“Shoot, it isn’t, is it?” Lips pursed, Jay stared intently at her and infuriatingly slowly ran his finger under the tape at one end. “It’s too big to be socks. Maybe a coat covered in alarm clocks.”
Laughter turned the boy’s cheeks red. “That’s not real.”
“It could be, though.” Jay shook the box and winked at her. “Until we open it, what’s inside the box could be anything.”
“That’s science.” Gabriel’s brother craned his neck for a look. “But based on your specific box and on the gift-giver, we can narrow the possibilities to the most probable. Santa Claus has properties beyond physics, so maybe he could fit an archery set in that box. But Aunt Alice has to obey the rules.”
She’d never been an aunt before. And now she was an awn-t aunt, not an ant aunt, and instead of staring at the blank white walls of a rental apartment, she was watching her husband enlist their nephews in a game of what if over the gift she’d given him.
“And she loves you, so she would have chosen a gift she thought you would enjoy. What do you like, Uncle Jay?”
“I dunno, what do I like, Alice?” That fucking innocent face. If a smirk could wear a halo, Jay would manage it.
She aimed for a nonchalant shrug, big emotions clouding her eyes and closing her throat. “You’d know if you’d open the box.”
Jay ripped through the paper with a dinosaur roar. Gabriel squealed and flopped backward. Mother wore a grand smile, holding her phone steady in two hands, panning with the slow precision of an expert videographer.
Henry laced his arms around Alice’s waist, the waiting gifts surrounding them on the short sofa with its fancy scrollwork edges. “How are you feeling now, dearest?” he whispered.
“I love this.” She cupped her hands over his, squeezing happiness from heartache. “I love everything about this.”
“Then we shall repeat it in endless variations.” He kissed her temple just as Jay folded back the box lid.
“Holy s—smokes, Alice.” Sweet brown eyes wide, jaw open, Jay flipped his gaze between her and the box of goodies in his lap. He unloaded piece after piece with ooh s and ahh s and a cool or six. “Did you rob a science lab?”
She might have gone overboard. But the pieces weren’t expensive, and the memories they’d make would pay for them a thousand times over. “It’s all necessary, I swear. The kit didn’t come with the graph paper for charting, and then I thought, you know, as long as we’re doing ballistic trajectory, we could also do projectile motion—”
“That’s a slingshot!” The children perused the pile without touching, calling out the kits as Jay unpacked them. “And a catapult!”
“A trebuchet, actually. See the mechanism in the design image?” Pointing out the difference to his little brother, Robert gave Jay a nod. “You’re lucky, Uncle Jay. Aunt Alice is like Santa Claus. She knows the best gifts are educational and fun.”
“I’m the luckiest guy I know, Robert.” Jay turned the box over and shook it, but his gaze never left her. “That’s it for me. Thank you, Alice. We’re gonna have a blast with all of these. You wanna open yours? Less exciting, but I did think about it real hard.”
“I know you would’ve picked it out with a lot of care.” Letting go of Henry, she lifted the box and tossed out an evil laugh. “Mwha ha ha! The prize is mine!”
Snowmen and reindeers and nutcrackers fell prey to her long swipes across the paper as Jay and the boys laughed. The lid lifted from the top. Nestled in tissue paper rested a pair of calf-height black boots. The rugged bottoms would be perfect for commuting. The leather uppers had a stylish dominant feel about them, thanks to the decorative buckles. She stroked the butter-soft outsides and the cozy-fuzzy insides. “These are gorgeous, sweetheart.”
“I asked Henry for help finding the right pair. They should fit.”
The hint of nerves in his tenor had her yanking out the paper balls holding the toe shape and dipping her stocking feet into the warm lining. “Will you zip them for me?”
“Anytime.” A bright calm swept his face as he knelt in front of her. Cradling her heels, he zipped the boots.
She steadied herself against his shoulders as she stood—not to keep her balance but to keep their balance. He was performing a service, after all, and praise and petting were his due.
“How do they feel?”
She took an experimental stroll to the fireplace and back. Jay tracked every moment; Henry nodded approvingly.
“They feel amazing. Perfect size, comfy from the get-go.” Stepping around bits of wrapping paper, she slid a boot along Jay’s thigh and reclaimed her seat. “These will be great for wearing to work all winter. What made you think of it?”
Bent over her, he carefully freed her feet. “The ones you have were getting thin. Once we had those first few melts in March, you got to lunch with damp socks and said winter was ending just in the nick of time. So I figured you could use a new pair before the big unfreeze hits or those seams open up.”
He’d remembered. All these months. She’d forgotten until she’d dug out her boots a few weeks ago and the frosty wind reminded her. Cupping his face, she planted the most public-appropriate peck on his lips she could manage. “Thank you for paying so much attention to what I need.”
Jay squirmed only a little, probably wriggling out through his muscles what would otherwise be a soft whimper.
She drew back at just the right moment to catch Mother’s fond smile. Mother fluttered her hand and laughed, shaking her head. “You young lovebirds are a much better drama series than listening to the social set’s gossip. You leave me with such good feelings for the future.”
“Did we pay you for that segue, Mom?” Jay teased the two thin packages by Alice’s hip off the couch and waved them in midair. “’Cause we think that’s exactly how Henry’s gonna feel about these gifts—hopeful about the future.”
“I am well-compensated with your companionship this week, darling.” Crossing her hands in her lap, Mother nodded regally. “Were I to seek remuneration, it would be that and nothing less.”
“I confess, I find myself in the same position.” Henry accepted the first of the gifts, the one Alice had wrapped in the old-timey Christmas tree paper. “Alice and Jay’s companionship is more wealth than I might amass in a lifetime of other gifts.”
Alice leaned against him, laying her head on his shoulder. “But you’re still going to enjoy the gifts, right, husband?”
“Thoroughly.” He pressed his thigh against hers as Jay sprawled in front of them. Rather than rip into the package, he neatly lifted the tape and slid free the envelope inside. “Doubly secured. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’ve selected for me.”
“Well, we”—she gestured between herself and Jay, as if Henry wouldn’t know who his spouses were, duh—“wanted things that would cater to your tastes. Fun, but practical, too.”
If Henry didn’t finish opening the envelope soon, her heart would bounce out of her chest and do it for him.
“My gifts are always practical.” Jay buffed his fingernails against his shirt, ignoring the scoffs from her and Henry. The punny shirts he often found for Henry were the exact opposite of practical. But they’d incorporated his sense of humor with her practicality this year. A little co-sub coordination couldn’t hurt. “I am the maestro of practicality.”
Henry tipped free the card. He inhaled softly, and his eyes sparkled. “A mystery and a challenge. I could not have thought of anything better. How did you happen upon it, my sweet?”
Waving at Jay, she nudged Henry forward. “Open Jay’s, too, and then we’ll explain. It’s kind of a set.”
Henry kissed her temple and accepted the second gift. “I do appreciate a matching set.” He made quick work of opening it—just as careful as with hers, but faster. He’d for sure noticed Jay sitting up straight. “My goodness. Appetizers as well? Rare…small batch…” He murmured to himself as he studied the card. With a crooked finger, he lured Jay into a kiss as chaste as hers had been. Still wriggle-worthy, though. “I will be delighted to share these with you.”
“Share them with the rest of us before we go mad with curiosity, darling.” Mother’s dry wit gave voice to Robert’s raised eyebrow and his wife’s dipped chin.
“Oh, so”—Jay extended one arm toward Alice—“Alice got Henry a spice of the month club subscription that’ll send him different rare stuff from all over the world and recipe suggestions for it.” Plating his hand, Jay yielded her the floor.
“Because he’s so inventive in how he spices up our lives.” Her sunny smile hid all hints of sultriness, but Henry’s intense stare promised she’d find out just how spicy later. “And Jay got Henry a rare cheese of the month club subscription that sends three different kinds every month and a recommended palate pairing. Because…”
Kneeling on his legs in something pretty close to waiting pose, Jay bowed from the waist. “Because we can sample thirty-six cheeses in the next year, but I dare any of them to be as cheesy as my love for you.”
Henry’s rich baritone laugh rang out at full volume. A chorus of more laughs followed, the entire room warm and friendly and just—familyish. The way families ought to be, anyhow, kind and supportive and amused by even the worst puns.
“Thank you, my loves.” Henry held both cards tightly in his fingers, bending the heavy paper slightly. “I am grateful for the gifts, and the sentiments, and most especially the promise of a full year to experiment together and discover what tickles our senses.”
Experiment with their senses, ha. So smooth, that man. And his poker face was impeccable. Way better than hers or Jay’s. After the sensory game he’d played with them last night, she couldn’t keep the shivery energy off her face. Catching Jay’s gaze, she joined him in swooning sideways, pressing her hands to her heart. “Can’t wait.”
Jay inched toward Henry and propped himself on one elbow, peering over the front of the couch. “Pretty sure that makes it your turn, Henry.”
“It does indeed.” Henry settled two modest packages on his lap. Curled ribbons formed deep green bows on the tops. His weren’t wrapped like hers and Jay’s; they were true boxes with lids, tops and bottoms wrapped separately in paper showing sprigs of mistletoe and pine boughs on a gold background. He tapped his finger on them gently. “As the two of you did, I thought about the importance of time spent together and daily practicality in these gifts. I trust you will recognize that they are imbued with my love for you and the bond we share.”
The depth of his sincerity draped her in a solemn hush. She rose from her false swoon, she and Jay both hastily rearranging themselves in respectful postures—Jay on the floor in public-appropriate waiting pose and her on the couch beside Henry in a demure, ladylike formal tea pose. She folded her hands in her lap.
Henry met their gazes and smiled—not enough to break his serious manner, but enough to send unspoken praise radiating from him. His deep green robe darkened his eyes somehow, and he wore the intensity he carried in a scene or when he focused intently on a sketch. Gravitas, that was the thing.
He tapped the presents again, and her eyes and chin followed the sound before her brain even sent the message. He lifted one about the size of the old check boxes Mom used to reuse every Christmas for little gifts. Holding each end by two fingers, he offered it to Jay. “Merry Christmas, my dear one.”
Jay accepted the box with both hands, his grip almost wider than the gift he cradled. He studied it, unmoving, and finally pulled the ribbon carefully around the corner and slid the box free of the bow. The ribbons tumbled down his thigh to the floor as he lifted the box lid.
Eyes wide, Jay gasped and bobbled the box. His shaking hands fell a good inch before he latched onto the box so tight his knuckles turned white.
Henry reached across the gap and squeezed Jay’s hand. “Allow me?”
Jay nodded and kept nodding, his lips pressed together and his eyes wet and shining.
A bracelet rose in Henry’s delicate hold. Three braided loops of rich brown leather bound by a silvery figure eight—an infinity symbol—cradled emeralds like her birthday earrings in either side of the endless curving line.
An everyday cuff. No wonder he couldn’t speak. She couldn’t, and it wasn’t even hers. The claim to match his wedding ring wouldn’t draw attention, but Jay would know. The gift was everything he needed—the weight of ownership and the freedom of belonging.
“These actually arrived”—Henry lifted a second bracelet and nudged Jay to release the box—“a few moments before the wedding. I’ve been waiting quite a while to see them on you. Though, I think, not so long as you have been waiting.”
Jay shoved his sleeves back to his elbows, his hands still shaking.
The first bracelet clasped with a quiet click around Jay’s left wrist, and the second followed on the right. Henry took hold of Jay’s hands, tugging so his arms hung extended and the emeralds sparkled in the mix of tree lights and sunlight and firelight. “Jay. My love. Thank you for all the years together and all the years yet to come.”
Leaning toward Henry, the slope of his back the very definition of yearning, Jay stared at his wrists and shed silent tears down his cheeks. Swallowing hard, he lifted his head. “I’ll wear them every day. Like that poem you read yesterday—I’ll carry your heart with me, too.”
Kiss him , she urged Henry, her mouth firmly closed. He didn’t need the hint.
Clasping the back of Jay’s neck, Henry drew him forward and bent to meet him. “You already do.”
Their kiss burned with steady passion. Not a blazing wildfire their family shouldn’t witness, but a strong, constant flame and a reminder of the vows they’d made. Alice’s heart throbbed in echo. These men she loved brought so much love of their own to every commitment, every promise—integrity and intensity, the fires that sustained them all.
Henry’s kiss left Jay with the sweetest hazy glow. He sat back on his heels and clasped his hands like he was politely waiting to see her gift, but he was stroking the leather bracelets with his thumbs, and his eyes fixed on nothing but utter bliss.
When Henry shifted to face her, he wore a conspiratorial smile that invited her in. Do you see how I’ve reduced our dear boy to a puddle? Do you imagine I’ll do less to you, feisty girl?
Okay, maybe he didn’t sound like that in his own head, but he sure did in hers. The box he held out to her was less oblong, more square, and her fingers trembled as they brushed his.
“Merry Christmas, my beloved Alice.” The full weight of his gaze landed on her, electric and charging her like a lightning rod. “This, too, arrived on our wedding day. I must say, it was quite the challenge to resist bedecking you in the entire set at once.”
She ordered her brain to function with words, and it produced a smile instead. Green ribbon crackled against her fingernail as she scraped it around the side of the box. Deep breath, that was good. Important. She lifted the lid and let it fall.
On a bed of black silk rested a silvery necklace with a hefty pendant. The curving swirl holding it formed a vertical infinity, an hourglass-like shape with an enormous emerald at the bottom and a smaller brown diamond above. A set, yes—with their wedding rings and the earrings he’d given her for her birthday. The emerald pendant had the same pear shape, and the brown diamonds were called cognac. A river of them flowed through the band she’d been wearing on her finger for the last five and a half weeks.
“It’s stunning.” And she couldn’t force her fingers to touch it, not until he had, but she could hardly say that in front of his mother and brother. In a moment she and Jay would go show off their gifts—Mother especially would want to see them, if the stones had come from the same heirloom set as their wedding bands. But this moment belonged to her and to Henry, a claiming every bit as powerful as their wedding day. He’d presented her with a day collar. “I love it. I love you.”
“May I?” Henry dipped his hands into the box and freed the chain from the grooves holding it in place. “The pendant can be placed on any chain.” He raised the links toward her neck, and she bent her head automatically, her voice too unsteady to risk more words. “I’ve taken the liberty of including several lengths and weights to suit any occasion. You will be able to wear this with anything.”
Or with nothing but her skin and other gifts he’d given her.
He wrapped her neck in both hands, inside the plush robe and the cozy flannel of her pajama top, his grip firm and comforting. Fingers danced with the soft hair at the nape of her neck, arousing and ticklish. The electricity shivered through her, down to her curling toes.
“Yes,” Henry murmured, low and heated. “That’s what was needed.”
The strand lay against her neck, the weight of platinum heavier than silver, and the pendant nestled in the notch where her collarbones met. Henry trailed his fingers along either side. “Alice. Thank you for trusting me enough to say yes. Your courage and vulnerability have made our lives richer than I dared imagine.”
Her eyes burned. Her throat burned. She might be a star coalescing into being as Henry brought all of the elements together and commanded them to make light.
Closing her eyes sent the tears spilling over, but they rolled forgotten in the power of Henry’s kiss.