by Teri Wilson
If Felicity’s surprise kiss in the middle of downtown Lovestruck hadn’t convinced him that she was ready to try to make their fragile little family permanent, the stockings sealed the deal. They hadn’t been there when he’d left for the firehouse earlier. She must have put them up sometime after they’d found each other in the blizzard, and the sight of them filled his chest with such unexpected joy that it hurt.
He clutched at his heart. Felicity was trying. Those stockings were proof that she was ready to go all in. A foursome of red-and-white-striped socks hanging from a mantelpiece shouldn’t have been enough to make a grown man cry, but Wade found his throat growing thick all the same.
He swallowed hard and made his way to the porch in three easy strides, bounding up the steps with all the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning. The front door opened with a creak and, as he spotted the flannel blanket spread neatly on the floor beside the decorated blue spruce and the silver ice bucket carrying a bottle of Moët & Chandon at a jaunty, celebratory angle, one word echoed in the back of his head.
Home.
He felt his face split into a grin as he dropped his duffel bag on the floor by the front door, where it hit the wooden planks with a thud. Wade had lived in this house for almost five years, and somehow right now, standing on the threshold, he felt as if he were teetering on the edge of some sort of precipice. Life before, and life after.
After. He chose after. After was what he wanted, what he needed. Jack had been right. Once Wade had told Felicity how he felt about her a whole new world had opened up to them—a whole new life.
He still needed to tell her about the adoption application, which he’d do right away. They’d have to get in touch with the social worker and add Felicity’s name to the paperwork, but they could deal with that tomorrow. Christmas Eve. Tonight belonged to the two of them, just him and Felicity. Besides, officially filling out the paperwork to become a family on the day before Christmas had a certain poetic ring to it. It would be something they could celebrate every year as a family, along with Christmas Eve.
Wade glanced again at the stockings hanging from the mantel and then headed to the kitchen, expecting to find Felicity warming up a bedtime bottle for Nick. But just as he reached for the swinging kitchen door, she bustled right through it, nearly crashing into him.
“You’re home. I just put Nick down for the night, and Duchess is happily gnawing on a soup bone in the nursery, so she won’t crash our picnic.” Felicity’s cheeks went pink as he took in the cute little Christmas apron she was wearing. It had ruffles and was printed in swirling red-and-white stripes, like a Starlight peppermint candy. “It’s silly, I know, especially since all I had to do was call and order a pizza. It’s not like I’m actually cooking, but I did a little shopping this afternoon. I guess I’m feeling especially Christmassy.”
“I can see that,” he said, casting a meaningful glance at the stockings.
“I had the best day. I can’t wait to tell you all about the conversation I had with Alice this afternoon.”
Wade tugged the frilly strings of her apron and reeled her toward him while she let out a playful little yelp.
“The apron is perfect. You’re adorable, and I want you to tell me all about your day—every last detail,” he murmured against the side of her neck as his hands slid into her tumbling waves of hair. She was softness and light, and when she melted into him with a sigh, he could hardly believe his luck.
He should have known, though. When he’d exited the firehouse on the opening night of the living nativity and first saw her standing there wrapped in miles of blue silk with a baby in her arms and tears in her eyes, he should have known. That was the moment his life had changed—the moment he’d lost his heart to Felicity and Nick both. He just hadn’t realized it yet.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Somewhere deep down—somewhere in the very pit of his being, tangled up with all the other thoughts and feelings he did his level best not to think about—he’d known. How could he not have? It was never a coincidence that the baby had turned up at his fire station. He’d been dreaming about little Nick for fourteen nights in a row, wondering why he’d been the one who’d answered the call that night. Of all the firefighters in the LFD, why him?
And then the baby had made his way back to Wade, cradled in the arms of the only woman in town who could possibly know what it felt like to care so much about someone so tiny and so vulnerable and still be utterly powerless to have any sort of real impact on their future. It had terrified Wade as much as it had stunned him. Nick deserved better than him. He deserved a man who knew what it meant to be a father.
But with Felicity beside him, Wade felt like he could be that man. Christmas had brought them together this year for a reason, and that reason wasn’t just Nick. It was because they made each other whole.
I want to marry this woman.
Wade’s mouth moved from Felicity’s neck to the tender spot behind her ear, where he could feel the boom of her pulse against his lips. She felt so alive when he touched her, like a glorious, shimmering force of nature. It was like holding sunshine in his hands.
“Felicity,” he murmured.
“Yes?” she said, in a breathy, tremulous voice that nearly brought him to his knees.
Marry me. Let’s do this right. He couldn’t just blurt it out, though. He still hadn’t told her about the adoption application yet. That should come first, shouldn’t it?
He still had time to come up with a special Christmas proposal. Why did he feel so panicked, like he had to get the words out as quickly as possible? It wasn’t now or never.
“There’s something I need to tell you, too,” he said.
She pulled back to smile at him. “I hope it’s not that you don’t like pepperoni, because that could be a deal breaker. I’m willing to negotiate when it comes to extra cheese, but only a monster turns down a pepperoni pizza.”
“I’m not a monster,” he said, and for maybe the first time in his adult life he truly believed it. Just because he shared his father’s last name didn’t mean he was Fred Ericson’s son.
“That’s a relief.” Felicity’s eyes danced, and before Wade could change the topic of conversation from pepperoni to adoption papers or even marriage, the doorbell rang.
“Oh! That must be the pizza. Can you get it while I go grab some champagne glasses from the kitchen?” She headed back toward the kitchen.
Wade’s heart hammered hard in his chest. “Absolutely.”
Felicity aimed a final glance at him over her shoulder as she pushed through the swinging door. “Just so you know, this is already the best first date I’ve ever had.”
And just like that, the riot in Wade’s soul found its calm. A storm might still be brewing outside, but he and Felicity were home now. They were together. While snow pattered against the windowpanes, they’d sip champagne beneath the boughs of the big blue spruce and plan their future. This Christmas would be the first of many. Next year, they’d probably take Nick to have his picture taken with Santa Claus. The year after that, he’d be old enough to set out a plate of cookies and milk before he went to bed on Christmas Eve. Soon afterward, Wade and Felicity would be up all night every Christmas putting together bicycles and complicated toys, and Wade would love every second of it. He could see the years playing out in his head like a favorite holiday movie—the kind people never grew tired of, no matter how many times they’d seen it.
And it all started right here, right now.
Joy welled inside Wade’s heart as he strode to the front door, but when he swung it open, adrenaline shot through his system, fast and hard. His limbs grew twitchy, and all of his senses went razor sharp, the same way they always did when he arrived at the scene of fire. He could hear the snowflakes landing on the pavement in soft, delicate whispers. He could smell the cheery, holiday scents of evergreen and frost, but they seemed cloying all of
a sudden. Too fragrant, too sweet. And the panic roiling inside him was so thick he could taste it.
He gripped the doorknob tight, blinking as he tried to make sense of why the teenager on his doorstep wasn’t carrying a pizza box or wearing one of the signature red-checkered hats from Lovestruck Pizza. There was no car in the driveway with a pepperoni pie decal emblazoned on its side—just a young girl on his porch dressed in an oversize hoodie and a pair of salt-stained Converse sneakers with a hole in the toe.
Nick’s biological mother.
* * *
Felicity couldn’t find any proper champagne flutes in Wade’s kitchen cabinets, so she grabbed two wineglasses instead. Then she paused, thought better of it and switched them out for two chunky ceramic mugs with reindeer faces and peppermint-striped handles. It just seemed like it might be more fun to drink out of Christmas cups. So she gathered them in one hand, slid two plates in her other and pushed through the swinging door with what felt like a smile as big and silly as the reindeer-faced mugs.
Then the world seemed to tilt sideways.
Felicity recognized the young girl standing in the entryway at once. The scene outside the firehouse was seared into Felicity’s memory with such clarity that she’d never forget the teenager who’d banged on the car window while she’d been waiting for Wade to change into his costume for the living nativity. She couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried.
And she’d definitely tried...oh, how she’d tried. For days afterward, she’d done her best to shake the memory of how helpless and frail the infant had looked in the girl’s arms, how frightened the teen seemed...the tremble in her voice and her awestruck expression as she’d thrust the baby at Felicity.
Look at you. You’re the Virgin Mary, right? It’s like a sign.
Bile rose up the back of Felicity’s throat. The reindeer mugs clanged together in her grasp as she started shaking violently from head to toe. A sign. Right. She’d actually let herself believe that moment had been fated, and here she was...about to get her heart ripped completely out of her chest.
Again.
“Felicity, sweetheart,” Wade said, turning slightly toward her as his gaze flitted back and forth between Felicity and the girl. “This is—”
“Nick’s mother,” Felicity said, finishing for him. She set the mugs and plates down on the closest surface—she wasn’t even sure what it was. An end table? A bookshelf? Everything had gone blurry and terrible. Spots swam before her eyes, and she’d known if she didn’t rid herself of the dishes, they’d eventually crash to the floor.
Why couldn’t she breathe? Why couldn’t she hang on to anything? Everything she tried to grab hold of always seemed to slip away. The mugs. The plates. Ariel... Baby Nick.
“Why don’t we all sit down and talk?” Wade said, motioning for the girl to step farther inside and take a seat on the sofa.
She moved past him, fiddling with the strings of her hoodie as she sat down. She looked almost as lost and cold as she had that night outside the fire station. Where was her coat? Where were her parents? Felicity wanted to wrap her in a blanket and make her a cup of hot cocoa almost as much as she wanted to tell her to leave and never come back.
What was wrong with her? She wasn’t cut out to handle this. She’d tried to warn Wade. She’d tried to explain it to him. She’d flat-out begged.
Please, Wade, please. Don’t make promises you know you can’t keep.
He looked at her, imploring her with his soulful gaze. “Felicity?”
She shook her head. Don’t. How could he ask her to sit down with them as if this was just a normal social call? As if Nick’s mother wasn’t there to take her baby back?
That had to be the reason. Why else would she turn up out of the blue, right before Christmas?
“I, um...” Felicity bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling as she took a sharp inhale. She probably needed to sit down before she collapsed, but she couldn’t seem to take a single step toward the sofa. “There’s something I should take care of.”
“Wait,” Wade said, and the ache in his eyes became too much for Felicity to take. He looked completely torn, unsure whether to stay and find out what the girl wanted or to follow Felicity and make sure she was okay. “Please?”
She wasn’t okay. She’d probably never be okay again.
She couldn’t believe she’d let him convince her that everything would be all right...that they were a family. She knew better. She’d already learned this lesson once before. What made this time any different?
This time, you’re in love.
She loved Wade just as much as she loved Nick, and she’d foolishly believed that being in love would protect her somehow. Oh, how wrong she’d been.
“It’s fine.” She took a backward step, focusing intently on the Christmas tree so she wouldn’t have to look at Wade. Or the girl. Or the stockings hanging from the mantel. But then her gaze homed in on the ornament Wade bought a few nights ago at the Christmas festival—a porcelain teddy bear with a baby blue banner strung from one paw to the other that read Baby’s First Christmas.
There was nowhere safe to look. The graceful boughs of the tree went liquid as tears swam in her eyes.
“I’ll be right back,” she lied.
Instinct told her to go straight to the nursery and scoop Nick out of his crib so she could hold him one last time. She needed to memorize the feel of his warm, tiny body pressed against her chest, the little kitten sounds he always made when he slept, his soft baby powder scent and the feel of his fine, wispy hair against her lips when she kissed the top of his head. But she couldn’t.
If she did, she’d never let him go. So on shaky legs, she went directly to the guest room instead, and while Wade sat in the living room with Nick’s mother, Felicity dragged her empty suitcase out from under the bed and started to pack.
Chapter Sixteen
“Felicity?” Madison looked her up and down and then cast a glance over Felicity’s shoulder as if in total disbelief to find her alone on the doorstep of the home she shared with Jack and the twins.
Not technically alone, actually.
“Is that the Birkin-eater?” Madison said, gaze narrowing at the dog in Felicity’s arms.
Madison hefted the little spaniel higher into her grip. Duchess was quite a bit heavier than she looked—probably because of all that fancy canned food Wade insisted on buying for her. And also probably because Felicity had just carried the little beast five long blocks while also dragging her wheeled suitcase behind her.
Good gravy, what a mess I’ve made.
“Of course it’s Duchess.” Honestly, what other Cavalier King Charles spaniel would Felicity be dragging all over Lovestruck? “I sort of dog-napped her just now. Not on purpose—it kind of just happened.”
She sniffed.
“What on earth is happening right now?” Madison said as night fell around them in swirl of velvety darkness and snow flurries. When she finally caught sight of the luggage at Felicity’s feet, her eyes went wide. “Did you walk all the way here from Wade’s house?”
Felicity nodded without further elaboration, and her teeth started chattering again. Since the second she’d set eyes on Nick’s mother, she’d been unable to stop trembling. Everyone in Lovestruck could probably hear her bones rattling by now.
“It’s freezing out there. Come inside.” Madison hooked an arm through Felicity’s and led her into the house as if she were incapable of taking another step on her own.
Maybe she was. Felicity didn’t even know. All she knew was that she’d needed to get as far away from Wade and Nick as possible before she became broken beyond repair.
“But keep that dog away from my handbags. And my shoes.” Madison rubbed her hands up and Felicity’s arms. “You’re shaking like a leaf. What happened? Did you and Wade have an argument?”
No—but they would o
nce Wade discovered that Felicity had slipped out the back door without saying a word. Not to mention the accidental dog-napping.
What should she have done? Leave the poor dog behind? Duchess had abandoned her soup bone, plopped onto the guest bed and proceeded to pout the entire time Felicity stuffed things into her suitcase. Felicity hadn’t been able to look the spaniel in the eyes. Those melting brown irises were just too much to take, especially once Felicity had finishing tossing things into her bag and tiptoed to the back door of Wade’s cottage.
Duchess had inserted herself in Felicity’s path and refused to budge. Felicity had done her best to explain things to the dog in desperate whispers, but it hadn’t helped matters at all. In fact, it had only made things worse. Duchess had started whimpering, and Felicity had no choice but to grab the poor distressed pup and take her along on her impromptu getaway.
“We didn’t have an argument. It was worse than that.” Felicity shook her head, and Duchess swiped at one of the tears on her face with a dainty pink tongue.
So much worse.
“Who was at the door, babe?” Jack said, strolling into the room wearing a green sweatshirt with the words Feliz Navi DAD emblazoned across the front of it.
Felicity tried to laugh—dorky dad fashion was always funny, no matter the circumstances—but it came out as a strangled sob.
“Look, hon. It’s Felicity,” Madison said, leading her to an overstuffed recliner and tucking a blanket around her legs while Duchess’s tail wagged back and forth. “Her bags are on the porch. Can you run and get them? And maybe heat up some water for tea?”
Jack stared for a beat, clearly not understanding what Felicity and Wade’s dog were doing in his living room—with luggage—until Madison shot him a meaningful glance, propelling him into motion.
