“I was shocked to see you at the assembly,” Seth said to Tia once he returned to Maxi’s. “What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t want to miss your big speech.” As she slid into his arms, he couldn’t avoid the memory of telling Eli only half an hour ago that they were just friends. Maybe he would’ve been able to convince himself it was true, except he’d come straight home from the assembly instead of hanging out at his mother’s with his younger brothers, whom he didn’t get to see very often, because he couldn’t wait to be with her.
It wasn’t that they were just friends. He had to acknowledge that. It was that he couldn’t trust love. Not after what his birth mother had done, and not after losing Shiloh. Love sucked. It wasn’t to be trusted, and he was done letting it mess with his heart.
That was also why he wasn’t going to reply to Brady this year, either. Brady’s text had swirled around in his mind the whole way home, reminding him of the hope he used to harbor of reconnecting with his biological family—and making acid churn in his stomach because what he wished for and what he could allow himself were two different things.
“Are you happy with the way it went?” she asked.
“I think so.” The moment he buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply, he began to feel better. What they had couldn’t last, but he was going to enjoy it while he could. He needed to remind her not to count on too much from him, but he’d be a jerk to initiate that conversation on Christmas, which gave him a pass for the next two days. He would deal with reality later and continue to live in this bubble.
“You smell delicious,” he murmured as he began to kiss her neck.
“Are you sure it’s me and not the broccoli cheddar soup I’m making?”
He could smell that, too, although he hadn’t been able to identify what it was. “You’re making broccoli cheddar soup?”
“I am. And some dinner rolls.”
“From scratch?”
“Of course. You can’t be a Mennonite girl without learning a few things in the kitchen. I can make the best jelly you’ve ever tasted, mouthwatering pies, which is why I’m making two pecan pies to take to your mother’s tomorrow, and turkey and stuffing and gravy and...lots of stuff.”
“You’ve been holding out on me,” he said jokingly.
“I was channeling movie star Tia Beckett. But I realized Christmas calls for some of the skills I learned as Sarah Isaac.”
“Do you ever feel like two separate people?” he asked, lifting his head.
She nodded. “Sometimes.”
He thought about his childhood, the boy he’d been and the man he’d become. “So do I.”
“Which person do you like better?” she asked.
“Definitely this one. You?”
“I miss some things about my life back then. The simplicity. The safety. Thinking my parents and those around me had the answers to life’s toughest questions. Being able to rely on a whole community to come to my aid, if necessary. It can be colder and harsher and lonelier on the outside. But...”
“What?”
“I think this version of me is better. At least I don’t feel pressure to conform or try to believe something I can’t.” She suddenly let go of him. “I’d better stir the soup so it doesn’t scorch on the bottom.”
Reluctantly, he let her go and was surprised to find a small Christmas tree on one of Maxi’s expensive tables when he walked into the living room. “Where did this come from?”
“I saw a tree lot on the way home and had to stop. But that’s probably silly, right? It was sort of impulsive.”
“It’s not silly at all. Are you going to decorate it?” he asked.
“I don’t have anything to decorate it with. I’ve never done the whole Christmas thing, but this year I... I don’t know... I sort of felt like trying it. Maybe it’s part of letting go of Sarah Isaac and more fully embracing who I’ll be in the future.”
He smiled because she was going to be okay. She was stronger than she knew. She would overcome the accident like she’d overcome all the other challenges in her life so far.
“I know you’re not that excited about Christmas,” she added. “Do you mind having a tree here?”
“No,” he said. “But we have to get some ornaments.”
“We do?”
“We can’t leave it like that. That’s not doing the ‘whole Christmas thing.’”
She grinned. “Then, we’ll go as soon as the food’s done.”
He checked his watch. “It’s nearly three. We have to hurry if we want to buy anything. The stores close early on Christmas Eve, especially here in Silver Springs.”
“I can leave the rolls to rise and turn off the soup. The pies haven’t gone in the oven yet, so we’re good there.”
“Perfect.” Since he hadn’t gone back to the house with Aiyana, he hadn’t eaten since the bowl of cereal he’d had for breakfast. He was hungry, but he figured he could pick up a small snack to tide him over while they were out. It was suddenly important to him that Tia have the kind of Christmas she was looking for. “I’d better line up Pentatonix for some Christmas songs while we drive over.”
“You don’t mind Christmas music, either?”
Not if it was for her.
Tia held one of the small arm baskets that’d been stacked by the door of the local gift shop as Seth helped her load it, and they spent almost thirty minutes choosing ornaments they liked. Tia had a feeling it didn’t go like this for most people—where every ornament was expensive and unique—but they didn’t have a lot of other options. There were no large stores in Silver Springs where they could buy more standard decorations, and there was no time to drive anywhere else before everything closed.
She was wearing her beanie, but she’d removed her sunglasses so she could see in the dim shop, and she’d untied the scarf so that Seth could hear her when she spoke. “What about this one?”
Although there were quite a few people out on the street, rushing here or there, trying to get last-minute preparations in place, there weren’t many people in this particular store, so the shop clerk had been watching them for a while. She flashed Tia an eager smile whenever Tia looked up, giving Tia the impression the woman knew who she was, but after approaching just once when they came in to see if they needed assistance, she’d left them alone, and for that Tia was grateful.
Seth looked at the fat snowman holding a top hat in its hand. “That’s a definite yes,” he replied and put it in her basket.
“If we keep going, we’re going to need a bigger tree,” she remarked.
He shrugged. “Then, we’ll get a bigger tree.”
“It’s too late. The lot was shutting down when I bought the last one.”
“Fine.” He moved to another display. “But we have to get these lights and this star for the top.”
“Why?”
“If you’re going to do this, you need to do it right,” he said and laughed. “Every tree has to have lights and a topper.”
He pushed Tia aside when she tried to pay at the register and bought them himself, but before she left, Tia turned over one of the business cards by the register, signed it and gave it to the woman who’d been so respectful of her privacy. “Thank you,” she murmured.
The woman’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “No, thank you!” she said excitedly. “I didn’t want to ask, but... I thought it was you.”
“Merry Christmas.”
When they came out of the store, Seth took Tia’s hand. “That was nice of you.”
“I could see her watching me.”
“I could see it, too,” he said as they strolled down to Sugar Mama and bought cookies and mint hot chocolate they then carried to the park.
“So...what do you think?” he asked when they reached the giant Christmas tree he’d wanted to show her.
She’d left her scarf untied so she could drink her hot chocolate but felt far less self-conscious than she had in a long while. She smiled as she gazed up at it. The sun was beginning to set and the lights were just coming on. “It’s spectacular.”
“I thought you should see it for the sake of inspiration,” he said.
She fit comfortably against him when he put his arm around her. “I’m definitely inspired.”
They took a selfie in front of the tree. It was the first picture Tia had taken since the accident—not counting the cover of People—but she was so happy she didn’t care that her face wasn’t what it had been before, especially when Seth held a piece of mistletoe he’d purchased at the gift store over her head and said it was a tradition to kiss beneath it.
They took a selfie of them trying to do that, too, but keeping the mistletoe overhead and one arm stretched out far enough to fit them both in the frame wasn’t easy. They came away laughing at the shot they’d gotten as a result.
A group of people passed by, wishing them a Merry Christmas, and Tia responded in kind, but none of them seemed to recognize her. She didn’t think any of them had looked too closely. Busy celebrating themselves, they hurried on.
By the time she and Seth started back to the car, they could see their breath misting in front of them.
“It’s getting cold,” he said.
“We need to start a fire in the fireplace when we get home.”
“You mean turn on the fire? Maxi only has a gas fireplace.”
“Hm.” She wrinkled her nose. “Won’t smell like a real fire. But beggars can’t be choosers.”
“You’re really trying to experience it all, aren’t you?” he said, smiling.
She supposed she was. She wished she had his present to wrap tonight. Because she hadn’t been able to find anything for him in town, she’d gone online while he was at New Horizons and purchased a monogrammed leather carrier for his expensive brushes. Because of the personalization, it would take two weeks to arrive, but she figured she’d just print out a picture of what she ordered and wrap that so he could at least see what it was.
Once they got back to Maxi’s, they put off finishing dinner until they could decorate the tree, since they’d eaten half a sandwich before buying the ornaments and had cookies and hot chocolate after.
“It’s a masterpiece, right?” he said, standing back when the tree was done. “Is this a tradition you’d like to incorporate from now on?”
She watched the lights twinkle between the many ornaments Seth had insisted on purchasing for her and felt, for probably the first time, the magic other people talked about experiencing at Christmas. “Absolutely,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a better day. What about you? Don’t you think it’s been wonderful?”
When he didn’t answer right away, she turned to look up at him. She thought that maybe he was struggling with the whole Christmas thing. But he wasn’t looking at the tree—he was looking directly at her when he said, “I do.”
Seven of Aiyana’s eight sons were home for Christmas—Eli and Gavin with their wives and kids—which made it absolutely chaotic. Sometimes they all talked at once, and they teased, hollered, groaned and laughed as they competed in online games, card games, board games, even who could eat the most pie. Tia was both a little intimidated by the hubbub and enchanted by it. Although there were only three kids in her family, because her mother had had difficulty getting pregnant, most of the Mennonites she’d known had a great deal more children. She was used to big families. But she hadn’t been part of that world for eleven years, and the celebration here was on an entirely different level.
“How are you holding up?” Aiyana asked when she found Tia standing off to one side, watching Seth try to beat Bentley at a new virtual-reality game.
“I’m doing good,” she said.
“It probably seems a bit crazy here.”
Tia had helped pick up the wrapping paper after they’d opened gifts. But the floor still wasn’t clear. There were unwrapped presents stacked everywhere, including what she’d received—the beautiful mirrored trees from Seth, a gold bracelet from Aiyana, a scented candle and matching lotion from Eli and his wife, a pressure cooker from Gavin and his wife and a box of See’s Candies from the younger boys. “It’s magical,” she said. She understood what her family meant when they said that Christmas had become too commercial in the outside world. She supposed a case could be made for that. But she loved the holiday, anyway, and preferred to focus on the beauty of spending time with family, making and enjoying a good meal and celebrating peace on earth and goodwill to all. “It’s not too much for you?”
“Not at all.” She almost admitted that it was very different from the Christmases she’d experienced as a child, but she hesitated to take the conversation in that direction. Aiyana had asked about her family while they were getting ready to open presents, and she’d answered honestly. She’d said they lived on a small farm in Iowa and that she had two siblings. The only thing she’d left out was the Mennonite aspect. She figured she might tell Aiyana one day that she’d been born Sarah Isaac, if Aiyana was still part of her life. But she had no idea what the future would hold. Although she couldn’t imagine her time with Seth coming to an end, she could tell he was still holding back—and she knew why.
Maybe he’d never get over Shiloh. Maybe she wasn’t everything Shiloh was or she wasn’t enough to satisfy him in any kind of permanent way.
She was about to excuse herself so she could step out of the room and go somewhere quieter to call her family to wish them a Merry Christmas, when she got a text from Nina at People.
Did you get it?
Get what? she wrote back.
Sent you the mock-up for the cover. Check your email. It’s beautiful. Merry Christmas!
It was touching to Tia that Nina would take the time to message her on Christmas Day. She couldn’t help feeling gratitude for how Nina had handled everything—although she was hesitant to feel too much gratitude when she didn’t yet know how the cover had turned out.
“Is that your family?” Aiyana asked when she noticed Tia using her phone.
“I need to call them,” she said instead of answering directly. “Is it okay if I go into another room so it’ll be easier to hear?”
“Of course,” she said and took Tia down the hall to a room at the back of the house she said was Cal’s and her office.
Tia stood between the two desks as she used her phone to navigate to her in-box. The dress she’d been wearing for the photo shoot was gorgeous. She had no doubt it had photographed well. It was her face she was worried about. Had Miguel been trying to enhance or hide her scars?
Butterflies rioted in her stomach as she found the email Nina had been referring to and downloaded the attachment.
The cover had a wintry theme, as she’d expected. She saw that in a general sense right away but wouldn’t allow herself to look directly at her own picture. She was so nervous she had to ease into it.
First, her eyes ran over the shout lines that touted the content. A new year of fit and healthy, The best of plant-based eating and Oscar hopefuls were three she read before coming to the blurb that corresponded with the cover: Tia Beckett. Accident. Recovery. And an Oscar nod for Expect the Worst?
It all sounded so matter-of-fact. So...possible.
At last, she allowed her eyes to focus on the subject of the cover, and because her knees suddenly went weak, she had to lean on one of the desks.
The thud of her own heartbeat filled her ears as she stared at herself for several seconds. Then she felt a huge smile spread across her face. She wasn’t as beautiful as she used to be. But she didn’t look as bad as she’d expected, either. As a matter of fact, given the circumstances, she looked pretty darn good. The team at People hadn’t hidden her scars, but they hadn’t done anything to make them more apparent, either.
Hugging her phone to her chest, she let her breath seep out in relief. She’d made the cover of People, just like she’d dreamed about when she was a little girl. She was going to take a moment to celebrate that accomplishment, to be grateful for it.
When she was ready, she finally turned to the article inside and perused the photographs they’d included with it, before reading the headline: Up-and-coming actress Tia Beckett. After surviving a near-fatal accident, Tia looks forward to mental and physical healing and, possibly, an Oscar for one of the best performances of the year.
“What are you doing? Are you okay?”
Tia looked up to see Seth.
“Nina sent me the cover,” she explained.
“The woman you’ve been dealing with at People?”
With a nod, she held up her phone, and he strode over to take it.
“Wow,” he said on a long exhale. “You gotta be proud of that, Tia. It’s drop-dead gorgeous. You’re drop-dead gorgeous.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “You really think so?”
“Are you kidding? There’s no question.”
He seemed absolutely committed to his answer; she didn’t get the impression he was just being nice.
“What does the article say?” he asked.
“I haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet. There are some other pictures I was looking at first. Those show close-ups of the damage to my face, but they could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Mind if I read it out loud?”
She was feeling encouraged enough that she didn’t hesitate. “Go ahead.”
As Seth began to read, Tia hung on every word. The article talked about the crash and how she’d had to put her career on hold while she recovered. It went over all the things she’d told them during the interview, but it also indicated that she might be able to return to acting some day and suggested that she was almost a shoo-in for the Oscar for Best Actress.
When he finished, Seth set her phone aside and looked over at her. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good,” she said and realized it was true. The road ahead wouldn’t be easy, but she was a fighter, a survivor.
“I’m so happy for you,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”