Chapter 27
Q uinn, Delilah, Jesse, and Gavin spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together at Otter Bluff.
On Christmas Eve, they listened to Christmas carols, decorated the house with pine boughs and big red bows, baked cookies for Santa, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas , then set up Santa’s plate of milk and cookies on a table near the fireplace.
It took a long time to get the boys settled down to sleep—along with several threats that Santa might not come if he knew the kids were still awake.
When the kids were finally asleep, Quinn and Delilah brought their stashes of wrapped presents out of a closet in Delilah’s bedroom and placed them under the tree—putting the ones marked From Santa up front.
It made sense for Quinn to sleep over, since the boys would be up at the crack of dawn begging to open their gifts. It wouldn’t be fair to make them wait for Quinn to get here, Delilah thought.
That was mostly an excuse. In truth, she just wanted him there.
Delilah and Quinn ate Santa’s cookies and drank his milk, then they went to bed and made love quietly, so the boys wouldn’t hear. They were getting good at it.
The morning was a flurry of torn wrapping paper, gift boxes opened and thrown aside, and squeals of excitement from the boys as they unwrapped their gifts and revealed video games, books, board games, and art supplies.
Quinn had a goofy look of contentment on his face as he sat on the sofa in sweatpants and a T-shirt, sipping his first cup of coffee of the day and watching the boys.
That look scared Delilah when she glanced at him and saw it. That look hit her like a punch to the chest. Quinn was in love—with the boys, at least, if not with her.
Until now, she’d fooled herself that she could walk away from this on January first without anyone getting seriously hurt. But that look—the way Quinn was absorbed with happiness watching Jesse and Gavin—told her it was already too late for that.
Delilah opened gifts from the boys that they’d made with Dolly—a clay flowerpot full of herbs that Gavin had painted with a happy sun and lollipop-shaped trees, and a jar of lavender sugar scrub from Jesse.
Delilah exclaimed with pleasure at each one.
“Dolly helped me make it,” Jesse said. “She’s got a recipe. You can see the lavender in there. See?” Jesse pointed at the jar.
“I see it, honey.” Delilah opened the lid and smelled the contents. “It smells wonderful.”
“It’s got trees,” Gavin said, pointing to his flowerpot.
“It certainly does. They’re lovely.” Delilah scooped Gavin into her arms and gave him a squeeze.
When the boys were done opening their gifts, Delilah and Quinn exchanged theirs. She gave him a lightweight camping hammock he could string between two trees—an item he’d mentioned that he wanted the last time they’d gone hiking. He gave her a handmade scarf he’d seen in one of the boutiques on Main Street. The colors reminded him of her, he said.
Both of the gifts were chosen carefully, Delilah noticed. They were personal, but not too personal. They said, I’m thinking about you, but not I love you .
Right now, though, she felt considerably more for him than a travel hammock could express.
“I love my scarf.” She leaned over to give him a kiss.
“I’m glad.” He gestured toward the hammock, which was sitting on the sofa next to him. “You think this thing will hold two people?”
She grinned. “The box said it would.”
His eyebrows rose. “That gives me ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?” Jesse asked.
“Ideas for the naps we can take,” Delilah put in quickly. The boys tended to resist naps, so she hoped that would put the conversation to rest.
Thankfully, it did.
They ate a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, then Quinn and Delilah tidied up the living room while the boys played with their new things. Jesse wanted Quinn to see his new video game, so Quinn played it with him for a while after the cleanup was done.
After breakfast, they took a walk together on the beach, then they came back to Otter Bluff with sand in their shoes and seashells in their pockets.
Later, over a Christmas dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes, fresh rolls, salad, and pie, Delilah thought the day had seemed perfect.
Almost perfect.
The only thing marring it was the tick-tock of the timer they’d set on their relationship. They would have to decide where this thing was going—and soon.
But that wasn’t what was on Delilah’s mind as she sat in front of the Christmas tree after dinner, a fire crackling in the fireplace and a mug of hot cocoa in her hands. She was thinking that she finally had the kind of family life she’d always wanted for herself and her boys—and she’d found it not with her husband, but with someone who might decide not to be with her past the next week.
Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped them away quickly, hoping Quinn wouldn’t see.
He did see, though.
“Are you okay?” He’d been sitting on the carpet with Gavin, helping him assemble an indoor tent Quinn had bought him as a kind of clubhouse, but when he saw the look on Delilah’s face, he got up and came to sit next to her.
“Yes.” She took in a ragged breath. “Fine.”
“You’re leaking a little bit.” He reached out and wiped a tear from her face with his thumb.
“Yeah, I guess I am.” She laughed, blinked a few times, and willed herself to get her crap together. “It’s just … thank you. The boys have had a wonderful Christmas, and it’s because of you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You put in a ton of work on this whole production. I’d say they owe their happy holiday to you.”
“You don’t get it.” She shook her head.
“What don’t I get?”
She glanced at the boys, who were so absorbed in their gifts that they likely weren’t listening to them. She lowered her voice to keep what she was about to say just between herself and Quinn.
“What you don’t get is … is that I was barely managing when you met me. I was trying to hold it together for the boys, but …” She shook her head. “I was a mess. I was miserable. And I was dreading Christmas because I thought … I thought it would be a reminder of the divorce, and the disaster of my marriage, and all of the things I couldn’t give Jesse and Gavin now that their father is gone.”
Damn it. There went the tears again.
“But,” she went on. “You made me want to be happy again. Not just for them, but for me. You made me feel hopeful . And believe me, that’s no small thing.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her until the boys yelled “Ew!” and “Gross!” and “Mom, that’s embarrassing!” Then they pulled apart, laughing. Quinn grabbed a wadded-up piece of tissue paper from someone’s gift box and threw it at Jesse. The tissue bounced lightly off his head.
Quinn had felt the same way. He’d had no one to spend Christmas with, no one to buy gifts for, no one to make happy memories with. He’d wanted to forget that such things as holidays even existed.
But then he’d met Delilah, and all of that had changed. She and the boys weren’t his family—not really—but they felt like it. Suddenly, he’d had things to look forward to. Suddenly, he’d been a part of something again.
“You know,” he said, “we’re going to have to figure this thing out sooner rather than later.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” She shifted on the sofa to face him.
“You have?”
“Yes.”
Nerves rattled around in his stomach as he waited for what she had to say. Whatever she said next—that she wanted to stay or that she wanted to go, possibly without him—would either send him soaring or crashing down to earth in a painful jumble of broken parts.
“Okay. What have you been thinking?”
She let out a breath and squared her shoulders, preparing herself. Okay, so it was something that required preparation.
“The boys and I have to leave Otter Bluff on January first. Our rental agreement will be up, and the house is booked to someone else after that.”
“Yeah. Okay …” He was starting to sweat a little.
“And I thought …” She hesitated, almost like she was trying to mess with him. “I thought we’d look for another place here in Cambria. A long-term rental, maybe, until we can figure out a plan for what we’re doing. I can look for a job, and I can enroll Jesse in kindergarten and Gavin in preschool, and you and I … we can take our time. We won’t be on a deadline anymore, and we can just … just be together and see how it goes.”
Quinn was so relieved that he felt dizzy. “You’re staying.”
“We’re staying.”
He swept her into his arms and let out a whoop of joy that had the boys coming over to see what was going on.
“What happened?” Jesse asked.
“Did you get another present?” Gavin asked his mother.
“I think I’m the one who got the gift,” Quinn said. Probably the best one he’d ever received.