Next we head into a toy store to look for ideas for Tyler’s other Christmas presents. Naturally Matthew is attracted to a section towards the back with all the building toys—Legos, erector sets, and the like. I have to wonder if he’s shopping for our son or himself. When he finds a toy robot on display and his brow furrows as he picks it up, I know his mind is going a mile a minute on how to modify and upgrade it. I watch with amusement as he opens the back and examines the wiring. Within seconds he’s moving things around and rewiring and pressing the buttons of what looks to be a tiny keypad. He finishes and kneels to the ground, placing the robot on its feet, then hits a button to switch it on. I watch it take a few steps forward and it lifts its head slightly to look at me.
“Hello, Sam,” it says in a robotic voice. “You are very pretty.”
I laugh out loud, raising an eyebrow at the smug man kneeling on the ground. “How the hell did you get it to do that?” I ask through my snickering.
He stands up with the robot in hand and places it back on the shelf. “Tricks of the trade, my dear,” he says airily. “Well, that and my company had a hand in developing that particular toy. It’s programmable and teachable, and anyone Tyler’s age could work it out with practice.”
“Impressive,” I tell him. “Perhaps we should bring my new admirer out on the rest of our date.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, he wastes no time turning me away from the robot. “If that’s the case, I might have to smash the little bastard into a million pieces,” he mutters so only I can hear him.
“Very mature,” I say, rolling my eyes exaggeratedly and grinning at him as we leave the toy store.
We head down the street and spot Bonnie standing outside the bookstore talking to a couple people. Spotting us, she smiles widely and waves us over.
“It’s nice to see the two of you together again,” Bonnie says to us after giving each of us a hug.
I glance at Matthew beside me, who looks back with an odd expression. “Better than nice,” he comments softly, causing me to blush slightly. “I don’t know about you two ladies, but I’m starving. I think we’ve got enough time before the lighting to grab something. Want to join us, Bonnie?”
She shakes her head and waves us away. “You two enjoy yourselves,” she instructs. “We’ll catch up later.”
Before we walk away, I catch Matthew shooting Bonnie some sort of meaningful look that has me suspicious, but I’ll keep it to myself for now. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s enlisted Bonnie to help out for some surprise for me and past experience says if they’ve teamed up, this is bound to be a very interesting night.
Neither of us is in the mood for anything fancy, so we head down the street to one of our favorite little diners where we each order a cheeseburger and fries. While we eat, I notice Matthew is grinning at me like a complete dope. When I ask him what is so interesting he just shakes his head and mutters something about how happy he is that I have no problem eating in front of him like most girls would. I have no interest in finding out which girls he might be talking about, so I take it as the compliment I’m sure he meant it to be and finish off my dinner. Afterwards, he leads me back into the cold night, his arm wrapped protectively around me as we arrive in town square where we can just see a huge Christmas tree decorated from tip to trunk standing tall and proud as it waits to be lit up.
I’m not sure what it is about this event that I always enjoyed so much—maybe the excitement from the town’s citizens or the way all the children seem to vibrate in anticipation—and I’m actually a little surprised to realize I missed this while I was away. Matthew stands behind me when we make our way towards the front, wrapping his arms around my waist to shield me from people jostling for a better look. He rests his chin on my shoulder and sighs contentedly in my ear, and I melt back into him, completely relaxed. As we wait, I feel Matthew’s fingers gently rubbing my belly right over where our baby is growing. I could easily fall asleep like this and I think he knows it.
As the town mayor, Don Green, enters the square, I automatically move my hands to rest over his, our fingers interlocking, and he pulls me closer to him. I can barely focus on what’s happening a few yards from us when I feel his breath against my ear.
“Stay with me tonight,” he breathes. I freeze, my body tensing in shock at his words. I want to turn to look at him, but he holds me in place, swallowing hard. “Just for tonight. Tomorrow morning I will take you back to Claire’s if that’s what you want, but for tonight I just want to pretend like everything is great.”
“Matt…” I nearly whimper, uncertain how I’m going to respond.
“We don’t have to do anything, Samantha,” he assures me, still speaking directly into my ear. “But just for tonight I want to fall asleep with you in my arms and tomorrow I want to wake up that same way. I can’t tell you the last time I got a good night’s sleep, but I do know it was with you. Please, Sam. Give me this.”
I move around in his arms enough to look up at him and I can see the desperation in his eyes. “Are you asking me or are you telling me?” I ask.
“Begging, actually,” he answers, pulling me out of the way of the rest of the crowd so we have some semblance of privacy. “Can you really tell me you’ve fallen asleep without trouble in the time we’ve been apart? I know you better than you think, Sam, and I know you need this too.”
He’s right and a very small part of me hates him for that. But I certainly can’t deny how incredibly tempting the thought of falling asleep with him seems right now. And since he’s being so candid with me, it’s only fair that I share one of my thoughts as well, one I’ve had since the first time he ever kissed me. “I never thought I would be the type of person to need someone else,” I admit in a whisper. “And it amazes me how much I seem to need you sometimes.”
Nodding, he’s never looked more serious in his life. “It’s scary, isn’t it?” he asks. “Knowing your happiness is dependent on another person and you have absolute zero control over it. I mean, I can try and argue all my points with you about why we should be together, but at the end of the day, you have a power over me that nobody else in this world could ever have. That absolutely terrifies me, Samantha. And you know me; hardly anything scares me. What does that tell you?”
It tells me a hell of a lot. And I agree with him one hundred percent. I nod. “I’ll stay with you tonight,” I tell him in a whisper, watching his expression change from vulnerable and scared to incredulous joy and disbelief.
“Yeah?” he whispers back.
Biting my lip against a smile, I nod again. Next thing I’m aware of is his hands in my hair, his lips on mine, and his tongue begging for entrance. I respond immediately, holding onto him to keep myself steady. One of his hands falls to my waist, pulling me flush against him and I gasp at the hardness pressing into me. If we were left to our own devices, I have no doubt of where this would lead; luckily the nearby crowd erupts in excitement, jolting us back to the present. Our eyes are wide in shock and our breathing is rapid. Matthew glances around us and begins chuckling at our situation, which of course gets me laughing. Rolling our eyes at one another, we turn back just in time to see the tree come to life, and while my judgment of the situation might be impaired slightly all things considered, it’s probably the most beautiful Christmas tree I’ve ever seen.
And it certainly doesn’t hurt to have Matthew’s arms wrapped around me.
––––-o––––-
Once the lighting of the Christmas tree is finished, Mayor Green, who also doubles as the owner of the town’s best ice cream shop, directs everyone down the street a block or so for cookies and hot chocolate. Clearly Samantha expects us to join them, since that’s what we’ve done the last few times we’ve been here, but I have no intention of sharing her with anybody else tonight. I ignore her questioning look for the moment and lead her by the hand towards a path that runs through a dense wooded area which surrounds the town. Snow crunches under our feet and the voices from
the town square become fainter the further we get, and I have to take a moment to realize what just happened between us.
However temporarily it might be, Samantha is coming home with me. That alone is enough to make me want to run around whooping and jumping for joy, but I manage to keep my cool, reminding myself that it is temporary. Tomorrow I’ll be taking her back to Claire’s unless she decides otherwise. And no matter how difficult it is, I can’t let myself get my hopes up that tonight has somehow magically changed everything between us for the better and we’ll be a happy family again very soon. I have to take my time with this, despite my normally short patience with such things. I can’t make her come back to me; it has to be her choice. If I somehow managed to just convince her this is what’s best for her, me, and our children, I know down the line she’d hate me for it. Hell, I’d hate me for it.
“Where are we going?” Samantha finally asks the further down the path we get.
“You’ll see,” I tell her mysteriously through my grin. “Not much further…”
Finally we arrive at the end of our current path and Samantha gasps at the sight of the horse-drawn carriage that awaits us. The carriage itself is all black with a canopy over the passenger bench. I know exactly what to find in there—a thermos of hot chocolate and a couple of blankets for us to curl up under. The horses are all white and almost blend right in with the snow, and they seem eager to get going. One closest to us looks over and huffs, stomping at the ground beneath it impatiently. Right behind the horses, holding the reins, the driver gives us a brief nod and smile.
I turn to Sam to see her reaction and it’s better than I’d expected. She is, without a doubt, surprised. Her eyes are wide and watery; her mouth is open slightly as she takes everything in. “What do you think?” I ask her softly. “Want to go for a ride?”
Slowly, her head swivels around to look at me as though she believed we’d just come to look at the carriage rather than actually taking it somewhere. “What about your car?” she whispers.
Snorting a laugh, I press a kiss to her temple. “I’ve got somebody coming to pick it up and take it home for me. The car will be fine,” I tell her.
A smile begins growing across her face reaching her eyes and I think I could easily stare at her for the next several hours and have no desire to do anything else. “Okay,” she says quietly, even a little shyly. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Beaming at her, I help her up into the back first before pulling myself in. The bench is cushioned and surprisingly very comfortable and it certainly doesn’t hurt that the first thing she does when I sit down is slide right up to me so I’m forced to put my arm around her for her comfort and mine. Not that it’s much of a daunting task. When the driver looks back at us, I nod and the carriage lurches to a start. I reach down to a bag at my feet that sits beside our shopping bags and remove the heated blanket I stashed here for our use, spreading it across our bodies for warmth. I press a little button in one of the corners and it’s a matter of seconds before we’re both comfortably toasty. Satisfied that it works, I reach for the thermos in the bag and two coffee mugs, and proceed to pour hot chocolate into each, handing one to Samantha.
“You think of everything, don’t you?” she asks me rhetorically.
Chuckling, I reach back into the bag for the marshmallows. “Maybe not everything,” I reply, dropping a handful into her mug before adding my own. “But when it comes to hot chocolate, I never forget the marshmallows.”
She laughs and we clink our mugs together and sip before checking out the scenery around us. I wasn’t sure how well this would work out—whether it would be too cold or whether Samantha would be up to it. When she was pregnant with Tyler, there was a period where no matter what I did, she had motion sickness. Luckily it only lasted a little over a week, but that was a very long week. It doesn’t seem like she has that side effect this time around and I’m very thankful.
“So does this run on batteries?” Samantha asks.
I look at her in confusion to find her examining the blanket that’s covering us. Her curiosity is one of the reasons I fell in love with her in the first place. Unlike most women who just nod and smile when I talk about my job or my interests without attempting to comprehend any of it, Samantha was always interested in what projects I was working on and what went into making them functional and successful. “Actually no,” I reply. “It’s got a port that you can plug into a wall charger like a cell phone. And it holds enough power to keep it warm on the highest setting for twelve hours.”
She makes an impressed face. “One of yours?”
I nod, grinning.
“Very nice.”
Feeling smug, I pull her a little closer to me—to keep warm, I tell her when she raises an eyebrow at me—sip at my hot chocolate, and enjoy the ride. After a while of following the path through the countryside, we head back into town and ride through the main street towards the Christmas tree and slow to a stop when we see a group of carolers in the square. Even though it’s not every day a horse and carriage drives through their town, everybody seems more focused on the music rather than the oddity of us. Samantha is grinning happily at the carolers and I’m just pleased I managed to choose the right activities for our date. We don’t spend much time in town before the horses are taking us towards my house, and I glance at Samantha, knowing she knows where we’re headed.
“I was a sure thing, was I?” she asks teasingly. “Agreeing to come home with you, I mean.”
I shake my head. “You are anything but a sure thing,” I tell her. “I had planned for us to head to the house for a few hours, then, if you wanted, I’d take you back to Claire’s later. Hence the reason I have someone bringing the car back. But I assure you, I’m more than happy to adjust all my plans.”
After a moment of staring me down, she nods. “I am too,” she whispers, resting her head on my shoulder.
One of the reasons I chose this location to build my home was the beauty of the surrounding area. Growing up and moving around so much didn’t allow me to get too attached to any one place, and base housing isn’t exactly constructed for the view. Out here, I can walk out into my yard on any clear night and look up a millions of stars, something I didn’t really see as a kid. It actually came as a surprise to me when I looked up one night and could actually see constellations. Samantha grew up with that sort of thing, living on a farm in the middle of nowhere and having the closest big city be a hundred miles off. I think it amused her greatly the first time she caught me staring at the sky in complete awe. Despite that, she would gladly join me out on the lawn whenever I had the fancy to drag a blanket out and just lie down to look up for hours.
Much to my delight, tonight’s sky is completely clear and when I push the canopy back, we’ve got a perfect view of the stars. Though I didn’t know it was possible, I can feel Samantha relax even more against me and sigh happily at our night show. We don’t need to speak—we’ve already done plenty for the time being—so we just ride in silence, occasionally pointing out a constellation to the other or tracking a shooting star across the trees.
Life is far from perfect right now, but this is damn close.
It seems like hardly any time at all has passed when we’re climbing off the carriage, thanking our driver, and patting the horses to thank them as well. We turn and watch as the carriage heads back down the driveway. The moment it disappears, I feel my nerves returning, and one glance confirms Samantha is feeling the same. I know what I would love to happen tonight and I don’t think she would protest, but I’m certainly not going to push her into anything. It’s enough—for now—that she’s here with me. And if we’re lucky, we can get through some more of our issues tonight.
“I thought we’d light the fire pit out back,” I tell her quietly, taking her hand and leading her up to the front door. “Make s’mores, have some of Bonnie’s apple cider…”
She smiles shyly. “That sounds absolutely perfect.”
I smile back. “Good.
”
It feels good, walking back into my home with Samantha. I want that feeling to last forever; I have to keep reminding myself this is still a temporary arrangement. I switch on lights and we remove our coats, hanging them on the rack beside the door. Walking past the windows overlooking the backyard, Samantha stops suddenly as though something caught her attention. I know what it is before I walk up behind her to follow her gaze.
“The guesthouse is gone,” she whispers, sounding shocked. I nod. “Why?”
I shrug. “Couldn’t look at it anymore,” I say simply. “So after they finished getting what they needed of Leo’s, I arranged to have it demolished. Maybe I’ll have another one built someday, but I couldn’t have that one staring at me all the time.”
She nods as though she understands exactly why I felt the need to go to such drastic measures. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, still staring out into the night. “I haven’t even asked you how you’re handling everything that’s happened with Leo…”
“I’m okay,” I assure her quickly. “Getting closer to a better place every day. I’m not thinking about it as much as I have been.”
She turns to face me, her eyes full of concern. “You miss him.”
It’s not a question, but a statement of fact and one I can’t deny. “Yes, I do,” I respond quietly. “And every time I catch myself thinking about him, I have to stop and remind myself that he betrayed me and tried to kill me and hurt my family. Stupid, right? You’d think that would be at the forefront of my mind, as a continual reminder, but it’s not. I miss my friend.”
“It’s not stupid,” she says. “Especially after twenty years of friendship. It’s not like you knew what he’d been up to for months before he died—until you saw him that night at that cabin, in your mind, he was still your loyal best friend who would do anything for you and you would do anything for. And you told me yourself his last act was to save your life, that he took a bullet for you. As incredibly hurt and pissed off as I am at what he’s done, I love him for saving you. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come back with Tyler. It would have killed me.”
Young Revelations (Young Series) Page 43
