We slowed to a snail-like pace on the ice. Young men whipped around us and lapped their girlfriends, who scowled after them as they clung to the boards and made their slow procession around the rink.
“Thank you for sharing the spirit of Christmas with me this year, Ethan. For the first time in my life, I feel like I understand what the holidays are truly about.”
He skated around in front of me. “Come to my mother’s with me on Christmas Day. Spend it with my family.”
My instinct was to say no. My gut reaction was to shake my head and insist I didn’t want to intrude. But there was a part of me that knew these people would be my family too someday.
“I’d love to,” I breathed.
He kissed me on the ice beneath the seventy-six-foot-tall tree and I felt that long-gone feeling of hope and magic in my belly that I’d felt as a little girl before I fell asleep on Christmas Eve.
Chapter 38
Ethan
“Are you sure you have the presents?” Kathryn patted down her coat pockets, searching for something. What that might have been, I had no idea.
“They’re in the trunk of the car,” I said.
“Good. And the yams?”
“By the door to grab on our way out.”
“And the wine?”
I held up the gift bag with a shimmery gold bow that held the bottle of wine we were bringing over to Miriam and Robert’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. “I’ve got the wine.”
Kathryn nodded approvingly. “Okay, I think we’re good to go then.”
We’d spent the morning here at my penthouse together. We hadn’t gotten much of anything done aside from ravaging each other’s bodies, but that was my ideal way of spending the first half of the day. We lounged in bed far too late and nearly missed our window of opportunity to rush out the door to meet her foster parents for brunch.
It was my first time meeting them. To say I’d been mildly nervous would have been an understatement. I cared what these people thought of me. Even though Kathryn insisted I had nothing to worry about and that they were good, decent, hardworking people who would like me as soon as they met me, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated. Parents were parents. There was no way around it.
But they’d liked me after all.
Her foster dad, William, and I had hit it off when I joined him in the kitchen while he was making bacon. He wasn’t one of those overbearing guys who wanted to make sure I had good intentions with Kathryn. He was quite the opposite actually. He’d told me it was nice to see Kathryn with someone who made her happy.
I suspected he didn’t need to know my intentions because he knew Kathryn was damn well capable of taking care of herself. Plain and simple.
After brunch, we’d returned to my place to get ready for dinner at Miriam’s. Kathryn had some last-minute giftwrapping to do for the presents and she’d roped me into helping her tie ribbons and tape down on the gifts. Once that was done, she’d sent me down to the car with two loads of presents while she curled her hair and put on a pair of sparkly gold earrings in the shape of snowflakes.
If someone had told me two months ago that I’d be spending Christmas Eve with Kathryn Rouche, I’d have laughed in their face and told them to pound sand. If they’d mentioned she would be wearing festive earrings on top of that? Well, that would have just been preposterous.
But here she was, wrapped up in her winter coat, ready to brave the snowy weather and head to Miriam’s. She carried the yam dish we’d whipped up last night that was topped in brown sugar and pecans. It was our contribution to the meal and my family recipe. Kathryn wanted to help in the kitchen but I’d been wary to give her too much free rein.
She was a loose cannon when it came to spices and salt.
Luckily, the yams turned out looking pretty yummy. We brought the last bit of things down to the car, piled in, and left the parking spot. The residential streets weren’t busy. They never were on Christmas Eve. We kept to the back roads and avoided major intersections as best we could on the way to our destination.
When I pulled into the driveway of Miriam’s house, I felt another flutter of nerves.