Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
S everal hours later, Natalie was still wiping away tears—although this time, they were tears of laughter as she and Gabe examined her handiwork.
“It looks… nice?” he said in a hesitant voice. Then, seeing her brows furrow, he immediately amended, “It looks beautiful. Stunning, in fact. The most professional-looking wreath I’ve ever seen.”
“It looks like it’s been through the ringer,” Natalie said, dissolving into another round of laughter as she held up the raggedy wreath she’d spent the past hour meticulously crafting. She and Gabe were back in downtown Chestnut Cove, participating in a wreath-decorating contest hosted by one of the local churches. Despite the weather, half the town seemed to have shown up, with people of all ages crowding around the long tables set up in the church’s multipurpose room to show off their design skills.
Natalie’s wreath was the most pathetic-looking of the bunch, with a crooked plaid bow on top, a snowman that looked half dead dangling from the bottom, and an assortment of ribbons, tiny ornaments, glitter, and feathers haphazardly glued around the sides. Natalie had chosen the feathers on a whim, hoping to achieve a funky, festive look; instead, the wreath looked like it had been on the losing end of a fight with a barn owl.
Natalie eyed Gabe’s own creation with a scowl. “How did you get it to look so perfect?” Indeed, his wreath, complete with perfectly symmetrical bows, glittery faux snow, and sprigs of holly, looked like it had walked right off the pages of a holiday magazine, while hers closely resembled something that had spent the past five years in the dump.
Gabe raised one shoulder in a playful shrug. “What can I say? I’m a man of many talents.” Then he picked up her wreath and examined it with a critical eye, a smile playing across his lips. “I don’t know what you’re so mad about. I think it’s adorable. Just a little tweak here…” He tried and failed to reattach the snowman, but its head only dangled further off th e bottom before it slipped off altogether, crumpling to a sad heap at their feet. “Whoopsie,” he said with a grin.
“Stop trying to sabotage me,” Natalie said, yanking the wreath from his hands. She poured another generous helping of glue onto the frame, then picked up the snowman and shoved him back into place. Then, carefully, she carried her wreath to the table and presented it to the judges—Faith, along with two older gentlemen Natalie hadn’t yet met.
“It’s… well, it’s interesting, isn’t it?” one of the men said, adjusting his glasses as he leaned in further to study the wreath. He ran his weathered hands over one of the feathers. “Definitely unique.”
“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Faith hooted, slapping her hand against her thigh as she doubled over with laughter. She glanced at the two men beside her, then pointed to the slumping snowman. “Should we create a new award? ‘Most likely to scare the children?’”
“Very funny,” Natalie said, pinching Gabe in the arm and eliciting an owwww after she heard his snort of laughter. She turned the wreath around, admiring it once more. “You know what? I’d like to respectfully withdraw from the competition. This little beauty is coming home with me. ”
“I always did believe in Christmas miracles,” Faith said with a wink. Then she handed her a participation certificate—Natalie had noticed several preschoolers proudly displaying their own—and Natalie and Gabe left the warmth of the church hall and stepped back into the frosty winter air. Their conversation quieted as they navigated the snowy sidewalks, Natalie’s arm tucked in Gabe’s once more.
When they reached his truck, which was coated in another fresh layer of snow, he helped her into the passenger seat, then leaned in toward her. “If you’re up for it, I have one last thing in mind before we call it a night.”
Natalie, who was in no rush to head back to the inn, readily agreed. The soft notes of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” were floating out from the radio as Gabe drove through the quiet streets, and Natalie hummed along to the familiar melody as she gazed out the window at the dusky purple sky, highlighted in brushstrokes of coral and teal where the sun was slipping beneath the mountains.
A short time later, they pulled into the driveway of a beautiful yet humble cabin tucked back into a grove of towering pine trees whose boughs were bent under the weight of the snow. Soft twinkle lights were strung around the front porch, and a family of softly glowing mechanical snowmen were waving to passersby. An evergreen wreath with a red bow hung from the front door, and the windows were framed with garland.
“I haven’t had time to finish decorating the outside yet,” Gabe said as he slipped his key into the lock on the front door and turned the knob. Natalie’s eyebrows shot up as she glanced around at the outdoor decorations—of which there were plenty—but she kept her observations to herself.
Until Gabe pushed open the front door and the two of them stepped inside.
“Oh, my…” Natalie breathed, covering her mouth with one hand as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. Somewhere inside the house was, well, an actual house , with furniture and walls and a television and all the normal things one might expect, but Natalie couldn’t see any of it, because it looked as if a Christmas decoration warehouse had exploded over every surface.
She had no idea this many Santa Claus figurines existed in the world, let alone in a single cabin in the middle of nowhere. Santa Clauses on motorcycles, Santa Clauses with fishing poles. Santa Clauses gobbling cookies, Santa Clauses drinking ale. Santa Clauses petting reindeer, Santa Clauses wrestling with penguins. Santa Clauses here, Santa Clauses there, Santa Clauses every-freaking-where.
“Uh,” Natalie said, because her mind was otherwise blank. She gave Gabe a questioning look.
He grinned. “My mother started the collection when she was a kid, and I continued it. Now I have hers, too… between the two of us, I think we’ve amassed upwards of three hundred of them.” He traced his finger down the motorcycle-riding Santa’s back wheel. “Every Christmas, my dad would carry boxes and boxes of these little guys down from the attic, and my mother always waited until I was around so we could set them up together. We used to get such a kick out of them. Someday, I hope to pass the tradition along to my own children.”
If Natalie wasn’t so horrified, she would have found them funny—maybe even adorable—but her feet seemed to be frozen to the floor. She glanced around her, taking in the dozens—no, hundreds —of Christmas touches all around Gabe’s house, from the standard wreaths and candles to more unique decorations, like a chipped porcelain Santa kneeling beside an infant in a manger, his hat in his hand.
“Ah, yes, the praying Santa.” Gabe tenderly lifted it from its spot on the mantel and held it out for her to admire. “This was my mother’s ultimate favorite, and mine too. It reminds me that Christmas is about so much more than decorations, and presents, and hot chocolate. It’s about something more. Something much more.”
As he returned the figurine to its place of honor, Natalie wandered around the cozy cabin—trailing her fingers along a snowman throw blanket, examining an antique tabletop sleigh pulled by plastic reindeer, coming face to face with a human-sized wooden elf holding a velvet bag of wrapped gifts. The entire time, her heart was in her throat, her stomach was vaguely nauseous, and her eyes were filled with tears she was careful not to let Gabe see.
Because she would have loved this. She used to love this. Christmas had been her favorite time of the year, the most magical part of her childhood, until that magic had been permanently banished from her heart.
“I know this seems like a bit much—in fact, I may have gone a little overboard with the decorations this year, but…” Gabe shrugged. “Why not go all out, right? So many of these decorations I inherited from my parents when they died, and they have such a special meaning for me, and for Holly too. She and Sophie live in an apartment and don’t have too much sp ace for decorations, so they love coming here and seeing everything… you should see how my niece’s eyes light up whenever I bring out the Santa Claus collection. My mother…”
He trailed off and cleared his throat, and when he spoke next, his voice was low, rough. “She would have loved to have been here for that, so this is one small way I can honor her, keep her spirit alive for the granddaughter who barely remembers her.”
He stopped speaking then, and Natalie was silent too, each of them lost in their own thoughts, their own memories and heartbreaks. “It’s lovely,” Natalie finally said, after an almighty internal struggle to banish her thoughts—lock them up and throw away the key, just so she could function. “And your home is beautiful.”
For the first time, she noticed the Christmas tree by the front window, lost amid the rest of the decorations, undecorated except for a few strands of lights that remained unplugged. “Did you run out of time?” she asked with a small smile, pointing toward the tree. “I can’t imagine how long all this decorating must take you.”
“Too long,” he admitted with a laugh. Then he stepped toward the tree, brushing his hands against its bare branches, which emitted the faint scent of pine. “But no, I didn’t run out of time. I always save this for last, and for a special day, too. Usually Sophie and Holly come over and help me hang the ornaments—we go all out, with music and hot chocolate and more cookies than our stomachs can handle. But I thought that this year…” He hesitated, looking almost shy. “Well, I thought that this year, you and I might do it together. Give me something to remember you by, once you’re gone.”
Oh… oh, no. No no no . Not this, anything but this, but Gabe’s face was earnest, and he had done so much for her— so much, and, well… it also sounded kind of wonderful, didn’t it? The two of them, huddled around the softly glowing tree as the snow fell from the darkening sky and Bing’s voice floated out from the old record player in the corner. It sounded kind of magical, the way things should have been.
The way things could still be?
Gabe took a step closer to her, his dark eyes roaming over her face, all traces of shyness gone from his expression. “Would that be okay?” One corner of his lips curved up in a smile. “You know, seeing as you don’t like Christmas and all.”
Natalie wasn’t sure how it happened, or who made the first move, but suddenly she was in Gabe’s arms, and his hands were in her hair, and around her waist, and their lips were touching in a kiss that was new yet somehow familiar, like an old song that was nearly forgotten until someone played it again. The kiss… oh, the kiss. It was warm and gentle, and soft… so soft, his lips on hers, exploring, leisurely at first and then with an urgency that nearly broke her. Then it was fire and passion, and her soul was singing with happiness, and rightness, and the knowledge that this moment, right here, had been written in the stars for an eternity.
When Gabe finally pulled away—it could have been seconds, it could have been years, but it most definitely wasn’t enough—he stared at her, his chest rising and falling in time with her own. “Wow,” he whispered, raking his hands through his dark hair, looking at her in disbelief, and awe, and something that looked a whole lot like love. “Just… wow.”
Natalie couldn’t have agreed more.