Chapter 1 Let It Glow #2
“I’m glad I wore my Thanksgiving pants,” she said, rubbing her stomach. “Everything was so good.”
“I’m sorry you weren’t able to see your parents today,” I said into her hair.
“Honestly, it’s fine. We’ve never been huge on the holiday, the Christmas rush starts tomorrow and things get pretty intense at the store. I think this might have been the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had.”
“It’s definitely the best I’ve ever had.” I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Everything’s better when you’re here, babe.”
She looked up at me with those gorgeous blue eyes and I felt it again, that inconvenient, bone-deep certainty that had been building since the night I met her and showed absolutely no signs of letting up.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever been,” she whispered. Her eyes were shimmering.
“Me too,” I whispered back, and kissed the tears away before they could fall.
Damn it. I was a love-struck idiot and there was nothing to be done about it. “Don’t tell anyone that. As far as you know, I’m horrible and mean to everyone. Got it?”
She giggled and snuggled deeper into the crook of my arm. By the end of tonight, she’d have a whole new benchmark for happiness.
Gryff and Artie came into the room and stopped abruptly, planting themselves directly between us and the TV.
“Hey Artie,” Gryff said, his voice oddly stilted, like he’d rehearsed this twice and was still not feeling great about it. “Would you like to build a snowman?”
“Yes, Gryff.” Artie’s delivery was equally wooden. “I would like to come and play.”
They stared at us.
We stared back.
Kelsey broke first. “Um, guys, I think it might be a little cold for that.”
Artie turned to me with increasing desperation written across her entire face.
“Declan,” she said, looking directly into my soul. “Would YOU like to build a snowman?”
“Artie, are you okay?” I asked.
“I LIKE WARM HUGS,” Gryff announced.
Oh. That was the signal.
I stood up fast, threw in a stretch for good measure. “Babe, I think it’s time we head back to the cabin and get away from these weirdos.”
“Yeah, okay.” Kelsey gave me a what-have-you-gotten-me-into look and went to find Pooh.
I waited until she was fully out of earshot.
“You two are about as subtle as a hammer to the face,” I whisper-yelled.
“Oh my god, I was so nervous,” Gryff said, pressing his hand to his chest like a Victorian woman receiving bad news.
“I can’t believe it’s really happening,” Artie breathed.
“Get out of here before you blow the whole thing.” They scattered like the unmedicated chaos agents they were.
“I can’t believe you bought her a backpack,” Kelsey said.
“She has very short legs,” I said. “There’s a lot of snow.”
There was, even in November Bear Claw Mountain was already blanketed, which was why I’d picked up a hiking pack to carry Wiener the Pooh on the trail between the cabins. Her little pink belly was not built for frost. I was not going to apologize for that.
“And the hat?” Kelsey asked.
I turned and looked at her. “Do you want her ears to get cold, Kelsey? Do you?”
“Okay, tough guy.” She giggled. “The pompoms really do pull the whole look together. I need a picture of this for Instasnap.”
She got a few shots, then went quiet. Her gaze drifted over my shoulder toward the mountain.
“Declan. Did we leave the lights on at the cabin?”
I followed her gaze to the warm amber glow in the distance.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t we go find out?”
I took her hand and we started up the trail.
The closer we got, the clearer it became that the glow wasn’t just coming from inside the cabin. Candles of various sizes lined a rose petal path from the trail all the way to the porch steps.
We climbed up together and I finally let myself look at her face.
Her eyes were already shimmering.
“Declan?” she whispered.
“Yeah, baby,” I said, and pushed a stray strand of hair back from her face. “Why don’t we go inside?”
My siblings had absolutely outdone themselves. Every surface was covered in candles and bouquets of roses in various shades of pink. Rose petals scattered across the bed, silver trays arranged with chocolate-covered strawberries and cupcakes from the bakery in Denver that we loved.
She stood in the middle of it and turned in a slow circle.
“Declan,” she said softly. “What’s happening?”
I got down on one knee and took her hand.
“Kelsey, these last couple of months have been the best of my life. I know this whole thing started with you trying to run a showmance, but you are the realest thing I’ve ever had.
And I know it’s fast, but I love you so damn much I can’t let another minute go by without asking you to be my wife.
” I opened the box. “Will you marry me?”
She answered by leaning forward and kissing me, which I was going to take as a yes. Then Pooh took it as her personal cue to join in and immediately stuck her tongue directly into my ear.
“Aw, Pooh girl, are you excited we’re getting married?” Kelsey said, laughing and crying at the same time, scooping Pooh out of the pack. “Did you just kiss your Daddy?”
I was going to have to sit with how much I liked hearing that.
Once our sausage demon was safely on the floor investigating a rose petal, Kelsey kissed me properly. I slipped the ring onto her finger, round cut diamond in platinum, a double halo designed to look like a snowflake, because I’d known exactly what I was doing since the day I’d ordered it.
“Declan.” She held her hand up and looked at it. “It’s beautiful.”
I got up off the floor before my knee could file a formal complaint, we had a game Sunday, and pulled her against me, kissing her deep, already thinking through the logistics of all these layers, when Kelsey squeaked and pulled back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought I saw someone at the window,” she muttered.
I rolled my eyes.
I opened the front door and walked around the side of the cabin.
All three of them were scattered across the yard in white snow suits.
Jules had curled herself into a ball on the ground, apparently under the impression this made her look like a snowball.
Flynn had wedged his entire enormous frame behind a tree that was, very generously, half his size.
Isak had flung himself face down in the snow in what I could only call a reverse snow angel.
“I can see all three of you,” I said.
“Fine, fine.” Jules uncurled herself and stood up. She was wearing the beard from Dad’s Cause for the Paws Santa costume, but upside down, so it fanned out around her head in a white halo.
“What are you supposed to be?” I asked.
“A yeti. Duh.” Like this was obvious. Like this was the only logical conclusion anyone would reach.
Flynn and Isak climbed to their feet. Flynn at least had the grace to look slightly guilty. Isak still had snow packed into both eyebrows.
“Stop spying through my windows and go home,” I said, in the football voice.
“Why is it always ‘stop spying through my windows’ and never ‘hey, thanks for lighting two hundred electric candles and arranging all my fancy snacks’?” Jules asked, completely unbothered by the football voice. Nothing bothered Jules. It was genuinely unsettling.
“We wanted to see if she said yes,” Isak said. “We feel that entitles us to a small payoff.”
“You got your payoff. One of the strawberries is missing and I know it was you,” I said.
“I told you he would notice,” Jules said, smacking him in the stomach.
“And one of the cupcakes,” I added.
“It had to be even,” she muttered. “And I split it with Flynn.”
“Traitor,” Flynn gasped.
“Get out of here, all three of you,” I growled.
“Pooh Poo,” Jules called toward the door. “Come on, we’re taking you home. You do not need to see what’s about to happen here with your sweet innocent puppy eyes.”
Pooh rocketed out the door, churned through the snow like a determined little snowplow, and launched herself into Jules’ arms.
Jules headed down the trail, triumphant.
“Don’t worry,” Flynn called back over his shoulder. “We won’t tell anyone you cried.”
“I set a camera in the flowers by the door to capture the big moment,” Isak yelled from somewhere in the darkness, “so you might want to turn that off before you—”
“Do NOT finish that sentence,” I shouted back.
Kelsey laughed.
“Chaos gremlins,” I muttered, turning back to her. “I’m so sorry. They’re going to be your family now.”
“Don’t apologize.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “This is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Me too, sweetheart.”
I kissed her once more and we headed back inside to properly celebrate our engagement.
After I found that camera and turned it off.