Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Rourke
It doesn’t look like the night before Christmas here. No stockings. No lights. No decorated tree reminding me of her.
Instead, I’m sprawled on the couch in the same clothes I’ve been wearing since I got here, surrounded by empty takeout containers and gas station junk food not worth the cardboard it came in. The TV drones in the background with some Christmas special I’m not really watching.
This is another reason why I hate Christmas.
This exact feeling. The crushing loneliness that settles into your bones and reminds you that everyone else in the world is with the people they love while you’re here trying not to think of the only person you want to be with on Christmas. Make that two people—Janie and Aria.
I hope she’s happy.
Because I’m not. I’m miserable.
I stumble off the couch, reaching for my empty glass before catching sight of my reflection in the dark window. I look like the unhappiest man alive.
But I did it for her. The thought should make me feel better, but instead, it just makes the emptiness bigger.
I reach for my phone and then remember I forgot my charger and my phone’s completely dead. I grab the remote, flipping through channels, which all seem to be showing the same Christmas movie on repeat—same happy ending with different faces.
Basically, everything I never had.
When my parents died, I had to learn to live with unfinished business.
I never got to see my dad stay sober for more than a few weeks.
Never got to experience a Christmas without someone shouting or passed out.
I used to think that meant I was doomed to repeat their mistakes, that their dysfunction had been somehow passed on to me.
But Janie showed me that broken beginnings don’t have to mean broken endings. That I could be different and maybe even better. And that the holidays weren’t a life sentence I had to repeat each year.
I just wish Nick hadn’t gotten in the way.
The rational part of me knows I did the right thing by stepping aside, but sitting here alone in this cabin, watching other people’s happy endings play out on screen, I start to wonder if I really did.
I move to the kitchen and peer into a mostly empty mini-fridge when I hear the strangest sound: a wail in the distance. For a second, I think I’ve imagined it.
Then I hear it again.
My heart stops. I know that cry. I’ve heard it at three in the morning, in the dark, when she just wants to be held.
I cross the cabin in a few strides and bolt outside, following the cry like it’s pulling me by an invisible thread.
Just past the neighboring cabin, I see someone on the ground, holding a baby, surrounded by bags and what looks like…Christmas decorations?
Even in the darkness with her back turned, I’d know her anywhere. The way she holds her daughter, rocking her softly.
“Janie?”
The baby’s crying stops and Janie’s head snaps toward me as she stumbles to her feet, her eyes widening. Her hair is a mess, her cheeks stained by tears, and her coat smudged with dirt from the ground.
And I just stand there, speechless—because she’s here, like the ghost of a Christmas dream I didn’t dare believe in.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
She blinks rapidly. “I came for you.”
“For me...why?”
She motions toward the pile behind her. “You forgot it all. So I came…” She shifts on her feet slightly. “To bring Christmas to you.”
I stare at the pile. The gesture. What it all means. “But how did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t.” She moves Aria to her other hip. “I knocked on the door of that one first…” She points to the cabin where we stayed last time. “But you weren’t there.”
“Because that cabin was booked. Wait…” I glance around for her car. “How did you get here?”
“I drove. Well, most of the way until my car broke down on the highway.” She stoops to lay a sleepy Aria in her car carrier. “A nice tow truck driver brought us the rest of the way.”
I stare into the dark, the pieces of her story still fuzzy in my head. “Let me get this straight…you tried to drive all the way to Santaville with Aria?”
“Yes.”
“And your car broke down?”
She nods.
“So you took a ride with a stranger?”
“Uh-huh.”
“All to find me?”
She rises, pressing her lips together. “I’d do it again, Rourke. I couldn’t let you spend Christmas alone.”
“Janie, you shouldn’t have. Nick threatened—”
“Nick changed his mind,” she says quietly.
“He doesn’t want custody, Rourke. He just wants control.
He saw I was moving on and wanted to get back at me.
He never actually cared about his daughter.
” She pulls an envelope from her pocket and holds it up.
“Do you know what I couldn’t stop obsessing over when I read this?
That you thought loving us meant you had to leave. ”
I rake a hand through my hair. “I was trying to protect you—”
“From what?” She steps closer, tipping her face to mine. “You taught me what it means to choose love over fear. To accept that sometimes life is complicated—but we can still choose each other.”
She presses the letter against my chest. “You don’t get to make this decision for me, Rourke. You don’t get to decide I’m better off without you.”
“Janie…”
“No.” Her eyes are fire now, tears streaming down her face. “You told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life making me happy. Was that a lie or the truth?”
The accusation in her face guts me. “It was always the truth. Every word.”
“Then stop trying to protect me from the one thing that actually makes me happy—you.” Her fingers tighten around the letter still pressed to my chest. “When my car broke down, I was so frustrated because nothing was going according to plan. The perfect Christmas I’d imagined was falling apart.
Then I realized it wasn’t the broken car or the ruined plans that upset me—it was that you weren’t there.
” She pauses, pressing her lips together.
“I don’t need you to be perfect, Rourke Riley.
I don’t need you to love the holidays or have all the answers or be anything other than who you are. I just need you to stay.”
Then she steps back and unzips her coat, and that’s when I see it: underneath, she’s wearing my jersey.
Her eyes lock on mine. “Remember our bet? About me wearing your jersey?”
“I thought the bet was off…”
“We agreed that we both won—which means we owe each other something.” She steps closer, near enough that I can see the curl of her lashes. “And I came to collect.”
“Collect what?”
“Everything.” Her palm moves to my chest, right over my heart, where it’s beating wildly. “I want Christmas mornings with you, Rourke, and new memories—messy ones, loud ones. I want to watch you cut our tree every year…then wrap you in lights and kiss you next to it.”
She gives me a smile with tears in her eyes. “I want you to teach me how to skate. And then watch you teach Aria too. To go to all your games and lose my voice because I’m screaming for you.”
Her hand slides up my shoulders to my neck, fingers tangling in my hair.
“I want to fight about how many decorations are too many and whose turn it is to get up with Aria. I want all of it—the boring, beautiful, ordinary life with you. Because that kind of life…would be the best Christmas gift I could ever imagine.” Her fingers stop moving as her gaze lifts to mine.
“I love you, Rourke. I was scared to say it before. But after watching you walk away, I’ve never felt so sure of anything in my life. ”
I draw her close, kissing her mouth as fire races down my body.
“Me too, angel,” I whisper, trailing kisses along her cheek, then down her throat, letting my lips memorize what my heart already knows. Between each kiss, I whisper, “I won’t leave you. Not ever again. I’ll always love you, Janie.”
When my mouth reaches her collarbone where my jersey stretches across her shoulders, I pull back to take her in. “I love the way you look in my name.”
She reaches up to touch my face. “I never want to take your name off.”
“I hope you never will.” Taking her hand, I kiss the inside of her palm. “You’re sure about this? Even knowing Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday?”
“Wait…” She frowns slightly. “You’re admitting it’s not the worst holiday anymore?”
A laugh rumbles out of me. “Don’t push your luck, Bennett.”
Her grin widens. “Too late. Already did.”
I shake my head, trying not to smile. How does she make surrendering to her feel like winning? “Fine. I may see some benefits to Christmas.”
She tilts her head, eyes sparkling. “Oh really? Like what?”
“Being wrapped in lights for starters.”
She bursts out laughing. “Okay, but what else?”
“Kissing you under the mistletoe an obscene number of times.”
“An obscene number?” She raises an eyebrow. “How many are we talking?”
“I’m thinking we find out together.” I lower my mouth to her ear. “Starting tonight.”
Her mouth lifts. “Do any of these have to do with the actual holiday?”
“They all do. You’re a very convincing teacher, Ms. Bennett. I can’t wait for more of your holiday lesson plans.”
She rises on her toes, bringing her lips close to mine. “Just for the record, I think we both learned a lot this season.”
“What did you learn?”
“How to love a hockey player.” She pauses, her smile turning soft. “And how to let him love me back.”
“Best lesson plan ever,” I murmur against her lips.