CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
Inevitable tension builds in the deepest, hungriest part of me, shimmering outwards.
Jake moves a hand to my heart now, his long fingers spread between my breasts.
I stack my palms over his, and I begin to rock faster.
Jake’s back bends like a bow, his hands slide down to grip my thighs.
My invitation becomes a demand for him to meet me at the top.
When he does, we fall together.
* * *
It’s December first. The main reason we’ve arrived this week is to help Helena decorate for the festive season.
Jake has been worried about his mom for a while, being alone with such a big property to manage in the countryside.
Miles is close by, but he’s already overcommitted and overworked, relentlessly busy with his veterinary practice.
I know Helena well enough by now to know that she’d never ask him for help, anyway.
I’m sure she tells him she’s “quite well, thank you,” whenever he offers, too.
We arrived mid-afternoon yesterday. I vaguely noticed there weren’t any cars parked in front of the house, but I was too tired for it to spark my typical eager curiosity.
When Jake and I walk to the house late this morning, Helena’s car still isn’t here.
Jake sees the confusion in my expression and says, “She’s with Nan in London today,” and it puts my mind at ease.
Jake puts the kettle on, and we open the curtains all over the house to let in the silvery winter sunshine. He gets a fire going in the living room where we’ll make our base of operations, and I put classic Christmas records on the player in the hall.
We chatter at each other in that easy way we have now, unhurried and unworried about what we’ll say, how we’ll say it, or whether we need to say anything at all.
Jake lifts the lid of a cardboard box printed all over with Christmas trees.
The scents of clove and cinnamon, wrapping paper, and the faint whiff of musty attic mildew cling to the treasures inside.
“There will be a note in one of these boxes,” he says.
“We always pack everything away on January second—it’s a family tradition.
Last bit of fun of the festive season. Whoever finds the previous year’s note gets to write and hide the one the following year. Then Mum keeps them in her scrapbook.”
“That’s so lovely. Who wrote last year’s?”
“Mum herself, I think.” He gives me a playful, sensual grin. “Can’t be sure, though. I was … ah, elsewhere on January second.”
We spent those first three days of the new year in my little bed in Queens.
A sprig of dried and crumbly mistletoe comes out of one of the boxes. I imagine all the kisses that have been exchanged beneath it. Kisses upon tiny baby noses and children’s cheeks. Lovers, friends, even strangers.
We make a good team, distributing treasured decorations to each of the rooms they’ll live in for the duration of the month.
In a big red box with frayed corners, I find a scrapbook that Helena has kept for more than thirty years.
There’s a square of every bit of wrapping paper the family has ever used on Christmas Day, the oldest ones faded and yellowed.
On last year’s page, there’s a clipping from the birthday wrapping paper covered in dinosaurs that they used to wrap gifts for me.
I trace a hand over it through the clear protective sheet.
There’s also a summary of all the practical details of each Christmas—the menu, who was there, and the guests they brought. It makes tears well in my eyes when I see my name on the entry from last year. Evie McClane here from America. Birthday girl! Already hoping we see her next year.
The lesson is this: everything about the festive season is meant to be savored. Nothing is inconsequential.
Needless to say, I’m beyond thrilled to have an excuse to start a new sort of journal of my own.
At the bottom of this box, I find the hidden note. As I unfold it, I recognize Helena’s lush, flowy script right away.
He loves her, even if neither of them knows it yet.
* * *
Later that night in the cottage, we’re wrapped in luscious white robes sharing mulled wine when Jake pulls out a small gift-wrapped box from the cabinet under his bedside table. It’s flat and rectangular. Small. He gives it to me without a word. Just a gentle, hopeful smile on his beautiful face.
I set my wine aside and slowly peel away the paper, then I hold the box in both hands to lift off the lid.
My heart pounds so fiercely, I think I can taste it on my tongue.
It’s a key.
“Jake … wh—”
“It’s too much for Mum, now. She’s moving to live with Nan, and she wanted to give us first crack at the place if we—”
“Marleigh?”
“It’s a lot of work, and we haven’t talked about—”
“Yes.” I swing a leg over his lap, raining kisses on his face, his hair. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Jake laughs. His voice is muffled against my mouth. “All right, love. Save some of those yeses. I have something else to give you.” He anchors himself to me with one hand around my waist, leaning away again to grab another box.
This one isn’t wrapped.
It’s a flat box made of solid wood, with twelve tiny doors closed by even tinier gold swing latches. There are twenty-four.
An advent calendar, of sorts. But there’s something different about it. There aren’t any Christmas motifs to be found. It’s painted in lovely pastels—peachy orange, periwinkle, minty green.
Softly, Jake says, “It’s an Evie Advent. One door for every day leading up to your birthday.”
I’m overcome. I lay it aside and let my forehead drop to his shoulder. “God, I love you.”
How is this my life?
I feel Jake’s hand move under my leg. He tips sideways a bit so he can reach into the pocket of his robe. “One more thing, my love,” he murmurs against my temple.
When I raise my head from his shoulder, Jake holds a ring between his thumb and forefinger. Dainty. Dazzling, like he’s scooped a star right out of the clearest, most crystalline winter sky.
“Marry me, Evie.”
I can’t speak yet, so I let my kiss be my answer. But the joy overflows, and then I’m laughing against his mouth, and he’s laughing into mine. “A thousand times, yes. Yes, yes, yes.” And because I’m incapable of not making it awkward, I add, “Thank you.”
He laughs again and slips the ring onto my finger. And it fits, perfectly.
Of course it does.
“I wanted to wait until it snowed, but I think Mother Nature used all of it up last year,” he says, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles. “I’ve been waiting three bloody weeks to do this. I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“I think there’s a compoface story here.” I drop my voice into a plummy newsreader accent. “He couldn’t put a ring on it: London man blames climate change for delayed marriage proposal.”
Jake presses his face into the shallow dip beneath my jaw, his laugh dissolving into a playful growl.
Squirming and giggling, I say, “You should have just told Mother Nature you were planning to propose. That earned you quite a lot of special treatment last Christmas.”
“To be fair, all those times last year when I told people I was going to propose—”
“You were very naughty.”
“I’d like it to go on record that I didn’t specify when I was going to propose to you.”
“You are such a lawyer.” I laugh. I can’t stop looking at the sparkle on my finger. “How does a winter wedding sound?”
“Only if you mean this winter. I’m not waiting an entire year to marry you.”
Fiddling with the open collar of his robe, I say, “Hm. Bit quick, don’t you think?”
“Yesterday wouldn’t be quick enough. Since we haven’t cracked time travel yet, I’d be willing to settle for sometime this month.”
“I do already have that white dress you bought me at Liberty last year.”
Jake tucks a knuckle under my chin, nudging my face up to meet his eyes. “My love, I’m not going to make you wear an old dress on your wedding day.”
“Jake,” I laugh, “I’ve only worn one of those dresses. Ever. It’s new enough. And is it too clichéd to be married at Christmas?”
“Possibly. But it’s a cliché with heart,” he says.
“Ooh, a deep cut from the Evie-Jake lexicon. Nicely played.”
“I’d argue—”
“OK, now you’re just showing off.”
Jake laughs, twining the end of my braid around his ring finger. My hair has grown out since Maddie cut it last year. “I’d argue that now we’re going to be spending the rest of our lives together, we might need to upgrade to, ah … what’s the word? A compendium, perhaps. A chronicle?”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to fill an entire library someday,” I say.
“So, Christmas wedding, future Mrs. Frost?”
Cradling my hands around his beloved face, I lean in and whisper against his lips, “It’s a date.”