“To your left just a tad…no, no…too much, Randy…I said a tad…just a smidge, Honey…okay…that’s too far to the right now,” Nora dictated from the sofa.
“How does it look?” Randy exhaled, making one last adjustment to the wreath above the mantel.
“Maybe you should come down and see if you think it’s straight…I can’t really tell,” Nora sighed, scribbling last minute notes in her notebook.
“What do you mean you can’t really tell? You’ve been barkin’ out directions like you have some sort of master’s degree in garland engineering, and now you’re gonna tell me you don’t even know what straight looks like?” Randy huffed, stomping down the ladder. He took one look at the wreath and curled his lip. “That’s as good as it gets, Nora,” he grumbled as he took out his tape measure and climbed the ladder once more.
“It’s perfect,” Nora declared, standing to go into the kitchen. “Zach is outside playing basketball in the driveway. Why don’t you have him help you put the toy soldiers out? I think that is the last chore on your list!”
Randy gestured with the tape measure as he followed Nora into the kitchen, offering it as proof that the wreath was indeed straight and centered above the mantel. He reached for a Christmas cookie, still on a sheet of wax paper on the counter. Nora slapped at his hand. “Randy, those are for when the kids get here!”
Randy took a deliberate bite of a gingerbread man and raised his eyebrow. “Have you given any thought to where everyone is going to sleep?”
Nora reached for a diagram that was hanging on the refrigerator. She slid a homemade, reindeer, Christmas magnet that Zach had made at school to the side and removed the single sheet of paper.
Randy glanced over Nora’s shoulder, examining the sketch with an intensity that took over his features. He pointed to a large box shape near the back of the drawing of their house. “Nora, this isn’t right; you’ve messed it up or something,” he shook his head. “You have David’s name written in the master bedroom…”
“What’s wrong with that?” Nora asked, sounding slightly miffed.
“I’m the master…that’s what,” Randy said gruffly, as he snatched the paper to examine it for other errors.
“I thought David and Melissa should take the master bedroom,” Nora said with a shrug. “They will need plenty of room with Leah and the twins, so I thought they could use our room, and we’ll sleep on the couches in the living room.”
“Why can’t David and his bunch have the living room, so I can have my bed?” Randy raised an eyebrow.
“Randy, I’ve thought this all out. That simply won’t work,” Nora said, reaching for her paper. “If the children are sleeping in the living room, how in the world are we supposed to explain Santa Claus never coming down the chimney? You and the boys are going to be busy little Santa’s helpers on Christmas Eve night, my friend. I’m giving you the entire living room to work.”
Giving up on winning that argument, Randy smiled wryly. “So have you broken the news to Grant that he and Hailey are sharing the guest room with Rachel and Wally, or do I get the pleasure of telling him?”
“What do you mean?” Nora asked, confused.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Randy shrugged. “But don’t change it…seeing Ozzy Osbourn and Harvard Law trying to survive a long weekend together could be the highlight of my holiday season!”
“Do you think Grant will complain?” Nora asked sincerely.
“I know it’s been awhile since you last saw him, Nora, but you remember Grant, right?” Randy scoffed. “Lawyer, married to a teacher, tall kid, blond hair, big mouth, easily annoyed, fiercely blunt…”
“Go,” Nora said, shooing her husband away. “Get the toy soldiers set up in the driveway! In a few hours, all the kids will be home for Christmas!”
At the airport, Patton held his mother’s hand, his blond curls sticking out around the edges of his Army green toboggan. Hailey straightened his shirt as she knelt down next to him. “Now, Patton,” she smiled, squeezing his little hands in hers, “remember what we talked about; all of your cousins are going to be at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and Mama and Daddy need you to be on your very best behavior.”
Patton nodded. “I’m only three,” he added.
“We will take that into consideration,” Grant chuckled as he eyed his mini-me.
Hailey stood and smiled at Grant. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be going home for Christmas this year.” She kissed his cheek. “Thank you for making this happen for us. You’re the best!”
Grant kissed his wife on the lips and lifted Patton into his arms. “Patton, what’s the capital of Rhode Island?” he asked.
“Providence,” Patton said confidently, as if the question was much too easy. “Daddy, that’s only an hour from our house. Mama likes to go eat there!”
“Egypt?” Grant fired back at his son.
“Umm…Cairo,” Patton nodded.
“Gotta be ready for Grandpa,” Hailey grinned with a shake of her head.
“Let’s see…which ones do you have trouble with?” Grant thought aloud. “Michigan?”
“Lansing,” Patton said after a moment, automatically holding up his hand to high-five his father.
Grant smiled as Patton slapped his hand. “Germany?” he asked as he began watching for their luggage on the conveyer belt.
“I don’t have trouble with that one!” Patton declared, offended.
“What are you going to tell General Gramps about your trip to Berlin?” Grant raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll tell him like this,” Patton smiled, breaking off into a string of unpolished German.
Grant corrected his son’s pronunciation of a couple words, and Patton repeated the sentence, pausing to emphasize the corrections, as was the drill.
“Baby, there’s one of our bags!” Hailey announced, pointing.
With Patton in one arm, Grant reached for the suitcase handle and easily jerked it from the conveyer belt.
“How will Santa know where we are?” Patton asked pointedly.
“I called him and told him,” Grant shrugged.
“You talked to Santa?” Patton asked, sounding impressed.
“Well, the man is busy this time of year, Patton, but I left a voicemail,” Grant quipped, handing his son to his wife before bending down to retrieve two more bags.
“I made a list; did you tell him everything I want, Daddy? Send him a text to remind him!” Patton called above the noise of the crowded airport, eliciting adoring looks from several onlookers.
Randy was glued to the Weather Channel as Jack tossed another log into the fireplace.
“Rachel, Wally and the kids are here!” Nora called from her perch in front of the window. “Come-on, Zach,” she grinned gleefully as she shuffled him out the door. “Let’s go get hugs and help them with their bags!”
Randy and Jack followed after them; Jack couldn’t stop smiling, knowing Wally had stopped to pick up Jessica and Emily at their apartment in Nashville on his way to Hope Hull.
“Hey, Mom!” Rachel exclaimed as Tori bolted from the Suburban, eager to begin playing with Zach. Nora stole a quick kiss from her granddaughter before the kids scampered off. Emily helped her youngest sister, Celia, from the car, and, her pigtails flopping, Celia ran into Nora’s arms, talking ninety to nothing about everything she was hoping to find under the Christmas tree.
Jessica threw her arms around her daddy! “Where’s my nephew?” she asked excitedly, her face radiating the joy Jack heard in her voice each time they spoke on the phone.
“He’s on his way!” Jack chuckled. “Y’all are the first to arrive!”
“Come-on,” Randy announced as he scooped Celia up, “who wants a cookie?”
“Cookies!” Celia shouted as Zach and Tori raced inside.
Wally and Rachel were still unloading their car when David and his crew arrived.
Nora rushed back outside in time to be greeted by the twins, Lucy and Lily, wearing matching red jogging suits with Santa Claus appliqués and their names monogrammed in white. Their red hair was pulled back into ponytails, one of them wearing a green hair bow with red polka dots while the other wore a red hair bow with green polka dots.
Lucy and Lily rang the jingle bells they wore around their necks. “Look at our Christmas bells!” they shouted in unison.
Nora pulled the girls into a hug, one on each side. “Leah won’t wear her bell,” Lucy announced. “She doesn’t want to.”
“We brought bells for Zach and Tori and Celia and Patton to ring too,” Lily added.
David winked at his father. “True story!” he laughed as he embraced Randy.
Leah stood next to her mother’s side, eyeing her grandmother and grinning when Nora approached. “Uncle Grant? Uncle Grant?” she repeated over and over.
“Uncle Grant will be here soon!” Nora assured her granddaughter as she took Leah in her arms. “I know he can’t wait to see his Princess Leah!”
Melissa hugged her mother-in-law. “Looks like we decided to arrive all at once on you,” she laughed as a rental car came to a stop on the dirt road, and Joanna and her husband stepped out.
“The more the merrier!” Nora clapped.
“More the merrier!” Leah repeated, and, rubbing her hands against her cheeks, she followed Nora to welcome her Aunt Jo and Uncle John.
Randy chuckled as he walked to greet them with Celia, cookie in hand, hanging from one arm and one of the twins dangling from the other.
Once luggage had been hauled in, and everyone had found their assigned sleeping quarters, the family was sitting around inside, chatting and eating cookies in front of the Christmas tree when the front door opened. “Got room for a couple more?” Hailey grinned as she stepped inside.
Grant followed her inside with Patton in his arms.
Randy and Jack both stood, then, eyeing each other, playfully raced toward their grandson, both calling dibs on the first hug.
Patton giggled as Grant lowered him to his feet to go and meet them.
“Wow,” Grant whispered to his wife, “check out Wally’s sweater…he’s taking that don we now our gay apparel thing quite literally, huh?”
Hailey elbowed Grant, never losing her smile. “It’s festive…I can appreciate it,” she said under her breath.
Nora threw her arms around Grant and Hailey and looked back at the rest of her family all gathered around the living room. “Merry Christmas to all!” she exclaimed.
Nora and Melissa supervised as the kids sat around the kitchen table each decorating their own gingerbread house.
“That looks lovely, Tori,” Melissa smiled at her niece as Nora snapped a picture.
“Take my picture, Grandma; a snow princess lives in my pretty house!” Celia announced as she reached for another purple gumdrop.
“Santa Claus lives in mine,” Zach said, showing off his elaborately decorated creation for the camera.
“Mama, Leah isn’t decorating hers!” Lily tattled.
“Leah, look at mine,” Lucy insisted. “Do it just like this! Look at mine, Grandma! Look at my gingerbread house, Mama!”
“Good job, Lucy!” Nora, kissed her cheek.
“What about mine?” Lily called.
Nora raised her camera toward the twins. “You both did a fantastic job! Now smile pretty for me!”
“Uncle Grant, Patton threw M & M’s at my gingerbread house!” Tori yelled toward the living room.
“I did not!” Patton protested. “I was shooting hoops at my basketball goal!”
“Sounds like you missed,” Grant called easily.
“It’s okay,” Melissa said lovingly soothing both Patton and Tori with gentle pats. “Patton are you done with your gingerbread house, Baby?”
“Yeah,” Patton nodded.
“Whoa, try that again,” Grant called from the living room. “Yeah? Is that what you’re sticking with, Soldier?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Patton blushed slightly as he grinned at his aunt.
“I’m not finished with mine yet,” Lily declared.
“Me either,” Lucy agreed.
“That’s fine,” Melissa smiled. “Keep working. Mama is going to help Leah finish hers!”
“Aunt Hailey, Patton ate the rest of my Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and now I can’t finish my roof!” Lucy called, distraught.
“Lucy,” Melissa wagged her finger. “You are fine. We have more; do not whine.”
“Would you like some cheese with that whine?” Patton laughed, his mouth full.
Grant stood up from the couch. “I think that was my cue,” he sighed.
“Grant, don’t you dare get on to that precious angel,” Rachel laughed.
“Seriously,” David scoffed. “Do we have video evidence of Grant at age three?”
“Mama, Patton got icing on my new dress!” Celia squealed.
Grant raised an eyebrow at Rachel. “Okay, fine, go get your brat,” she winked at her brother.
“Innocent until proven guilty!” Joanna declared.
“The defense attorney speaks,” John nodded.
Patton came running into the living room, his hand smeared with white icing. Grant grabbed his son’s arm before he could touch any furniture or anyone else’s clothes. “The prosecution presents Exhibit A …” he rolled his eyes, as he scooped Patton up.
Grant carried Patton back to his chair at the table, where Nora was waiting to wipe his hand. “It was an accident, Daddy,” she drawled.
Grant looked at Patton questioningly, and Patton stared up at his daddy, his lips zipped, but his eyes grinning. “Live the fourth and plead the fifth I guess?” Grant smiled at his sister-in-law as he kissed the top of Patton’s head.
“Uncle Grant,” Leah said, tugging at his shirt sleeve.
Grant knelt down next to his niece, opening his mouth wide as he pointed at her gingerbread house. “What is that?” he asked.
“What is that?” Leah repeated. “Gingerbread house,” she added with a pleased smile.
Hailey walked into the kitchen, grinning as she took her phone from the front pocket of her hoodie. “Look here everybody!” she called. The kids all turned with cheesy, exaggerated smiles as they posed next to their festive creations, and Hailey tapped the screen of her phone to take a picture.
“Are you putting us on Facebook?” Patton inquired.
“Patton, get over here and stop jumping on the couch like a monkey, please, Son!” Grant insisted as he motioned Patton toward him. “You are supposed to be helping decorate the Christmas tree.”
Patton jumped down off the couch, his bare feet running as soon as they hit the floor.
David laughed as he stood next to his brother, helping Leah hang an ornament on the tree, thinking of how he had prayed for precisely this little boy for his brother, the one who would be payback for everything Grant had put them through.
“I know why you’re laughing, don’t think I don’t,” Grant rolled his eyes. He knelt down to speak to Patton. “Get an ornament out of the box, and let’s help Grandma and Grandpa finish decorating our tree.”
“I’m getting two,” Patton said, taking one in each hand. “Hold me up high; put me on your shoulders.”
Leah reached out to her Uncle Grant. Grant, with Patton atop his shoulders, squatted down to give Leah a kiss on the forehead.
Patton kicked his leg against his daddy’s chest. “I can’t reach it now!” he complained.
“Uncle Grant,” Leah begged.
David smiled at his little brother. “Want to trade? Take Leah, and I’ll take Patton?”
“Sure,” Grant answered quickly. Then, pausing, he frowned playfully. “Oh, you meant like just for right now?”
David snorted. “Just for now,” he confirmed.
“Alrighty, come here you little angel,” Grant smiled at his niece as he lifted Patton from his shoulders and handed him over to his Uncle David.
David and Patton walked around to the other side of the tree as Patton scoped out the best place to hang the snowman he had in his hand.
Hailey was helping Lily hang plastic candy canes on the tree when she literally bumped into her husband. Smiling, Hailey pointed to the ornament Leah was holding. “What’s this?” she asked lovingly.
Leah held the ornament out to her. “Music!” she said finally.
“That’s right,” Hailey nodded. “Those are carolers singing us Christmas songs! I think it would look pretty right here!” She pointed to a spot on the tree, and Leah carefully hung the ornament on the branch.
“Yay!” Leah clapped for herself.
“I hear Patton; I don’t see him; that is never a good thing,” Hailey raised an eyebrow.
“I pawned him off,” Grant shrugged.
“You did? You traded him in?” Hailey nodded.
“Celia, keep away from the poinsettias, Sweetheart,” Nora said, taking her by the shoulders and steering her attention back toward the tree. “Lucy, don’t run with that candy cane in your mouth!” she gasped as Lucy hurried past, holding a small armful of ornaments. Nora laughed a tired yet blissfully happy laugh before adding, “Patton, put baby Jesus back in the manger where he belongs, please, Sir.”
At that, Hailey wrinkled her nose. “Let me find him,” she gulped.
“I swear I left the blasphemous little delinquent of a baby snatcher in super cop’s capable hands,” Grant scoffed. “Dave, you’re letting me down, Bro!”
“Grant, that is our little boy you’re talking about!” Hailey slapped him.
“I meant it in the most affectionate sense, Honey,” Grant called as Hailey rounded the tree to find their son.
On Christmas Eve, all seven kids sat in front of the fireplace wearing matching plaid, flannel, Christmas pajamas and smiling at Nora’s camera as she snapped the final picture of the evening.
“Alright, kids,” Melissa called, wadding up wrapping paper from the floor and adding it to the trash bag David was holding, “it’s time for bed! Santa is going to pass us right over if you’re all still awake!”
“Mama, can I take my new doll to bed?” Lucy begged.
“Of course,” Melissa nodded. “Finish helping Daddy and Grandpa put the rest of the wrapping paper in the trash bag.”
Jessica and Emily worked busily, helping Nora carry trays of snacks from the coffee table back into the kitchen. Emily giggled as she watched Jessica sneak another peanut butter cookie and eat the chocolate kiss off the top. Jessica cut her eyes toward her best friend. “What?” she giggled. “Diet starts day after Christmas!” She shoved the remainder of the cookie into her mouth and smiled guiltily.
“Grant, do you want to help Patton take his presents into our room?” Hailey instructed, watching their son move from one toy to the next.
“Daddy, look at this!” Patton said, holding an Illustrated Classics version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, courtesy of Aunt Jo and Uncle John. “Will you teach me how to read this?”
Hailey watched her husband lift their son into his arms. Patton slung his arms around Grant’s neck, and Grant’s hand rested so lovingly against the back of their little boy’s flannel pajamas as he squeezed him. Hailey smiled admiringly at her two favorite guys, and, putting her arms around them both, she thanked God for her family.
Rachel and Wally were lying down in their guest room bed, kid-free, waiting for their girls to fall asleep in Zach’s room across the hall before piling out of bed to fill stockings and set up gifts.
“Patton, be still and go to sleep, Buddy!” Grant said as he cuddled with his son in the bed across the room.
“Where’s Mama?” Patton asked.
Grant smiled. “She was helping Grandma and Aunt Mel; she’ll come get in bed with us soon!”
Patton gasped and shot up in bed. “Oh no! Dad, I forgot to leave milk and cookies for Santa!”
“It’s all good,” Grant shook his head dismissively, pulling Patton back onto his pillow. “I think Tori and Celia left Santa some cookies…”
“Chocolate chip cookies and a nice, tall glass of milk,” Aunt Rachel assured Patton.
“And I think Uncle David and the twins put some cookies out too,” Uncle Wally added.
“Santa will know they’re not from me,” Patton said confidently. “Then, they’ll get more presents than I do!”
Grant adjusted his pillow with no intent of budging. “Legend has it that Santa only visits little boys who have been good all year long, so you need not waste your time trying to suck up in the eleventh hour, Son!”
“Daddy,” Patton grumbled, shaking Grant’s arm. “Get up!”
“Okay,” Grant said, throwing the covers off and tucking Patton under his arm like a football in one swift motion. He stood up from the bed. “But, I have to warn you…if Santa has to alter his route because you’re still awake while Uncle Zach and your cousins are all snug in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads like good little boys and girls, you’ll probably get shafted on gifts anyway, so this is a gamble.”
Hailey bumped into David on her way back into the living room. “Have you seen my husband?” she whispered. “I thought he was in the bedroom with Patton.”
“Yes,” David nodded with a grin, “and if you value good ole tradition at all, you might want to act fast! As we speak, he is in the kitchen assuring Patton that he has it on good authority that the whole milk and cookies story was a profitable scheme concocted by Borden and Betty Crocker, who hoped to make names for themselves by monopolizing the commercialization of Christmas.”
“Oh, my poor three-year-old…” Hailey rolled her eyes as she started briskly toward the kitchen.
Arms crossed, Hailey leaned against the door casing as Patton walked toward her holding a paper plate with two yellow Zingers on it and carrying a bottle of water. He looked up at his mother, his blond, curly hair a mess and his features mimicking the easy confidence that reminded her of how much he took after his father. “Santa Claus doesn’t even really want milk and cookies,” Patton told her. “It’s all manipulation on the part of the manufacturers.”
“Is that so?” Hailey grinned at her son before raising a skeptical eyebrow in her husband’s direction.
“What man wouldn’t appreciate a little variety, Hailey?” Grant shrugged. “Just tryin’ to help a brother out!”
“Santa Claus likes Zingers, but only the yellow kind,” Patton said.
“How convenient!” Hailey chuckled.
“Huh?” Patton asked as he continued past her to sit his goodies for Santa along the fireplace hearth with the others.
“I mean… how convenient that Grandma had just stocked up on them,” Hailey smiled as she followed her son, all the while glancing over her shoulder at Grant. Once the Zingers and water were in place, Hailey gave Patton a kiss on the cheek. “Run on to bed now before Santa catches you up and passes right over Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Mama and Daddy will be in there in a minute!”
Patton scampered off down the hallway toward the bedroom, and Hailey turned back to Grant. “I need to have a word with you, Mr. Claus,” she whispered.
“In my defense, I thought about telling him that on the first Christmas, the wise men brought gold, frankincense, myrrh and yellow Zingers, but I feared he would share that revelation with his Sunday school class, and then you would kill me.”
“Good call,” Hailey nodded.
Grant pointed to the mistletoe hanging above them. “Tradition, right?”
“Are we sure the entire legend of the mistletoe wasn’t orchestrated by Cupid and his evil followers as a way to begin marketing Valentine’s Day as early as December and encroach on the whole Christmas juggernaut?” Hailey smiled sarcastically.
Grant grinned as he took Hailey in his arms and began kissing her. Just as he got lost in her kisses, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. “I hate to break up this party, but I would love to get a couple hours of sleep tonight, and the kids will be up before sunrise!” David insisted.
Hailey laughed. “I’ll go get Patton to sleep, then I’ll join you,” she promised.
Randy chuckled as he placed an elf hat on top of Grant’s head! “Mom’s making coffee.”
David smiled at his brother and shoved an instruction manual hard into his chest. “You ever put together a dollhouse?”
“Thank you for getting Patton’s basketball goal put together,” Hailey whispered as she dug through a bag of stocking stuffers and strategically filled Patton’s stocking.
“That was a piece of cake…three pieces, and I was done. Two minutes, tops,” Grant said, flopping on the couch. “Please tell me how it is that I have one son…yet I have spent my night putting ridiculously tedious stickers on four little girls’ dollhouses?”
Hailey smiled. “I’d say it definitely puts you in the running for uncle of the year.”
Melissa hung stockings along the mantel in her robe as Rachel took a couple bites out of the chocolate chip cookies her girls had left for Santa.
“Dude, you weren’t supposed to eat all the Zingers,” Wally whispered. “You’re supposed to make it look like he left some!”
“Alas,” Grant shook his head, speaking slowly and too loudly, as though English was Wally’s second language, “what you see as a mistake, my three-year-old will see as proof.”
Hailey rolled her eyes as she stood to hang Patton’s stocking with the others. Nora proudly examined the whole scene. Big, old fashioned, colored bulbs were lit on the tree, and below the tree was bountiful evidence that Santa had come!
There was a gentle tap and the front door cracked opened. “Did we make it?” Jack whispered as he and Jessica slipped inside. Jessica tossed her long, dark hair to the side and waved eagerly at her sister and brother-in-law!
“Just in time,” Randy said, walking toward them with mugs of hot chocolate in both hands.
A few hours later there were kids in Christmas pajamas asleep amongst piles of wrapping paper on the living room floor.
Randy put his arm around Nora, his eyes full of pride as he looked around at their beautiful family. Leah was sitting on the floor next to the Christmas tree twirling a blue Christmas ball with one finger.
Grant was on the couch, sitting Indian style with a box of assorted chocolates in his lap, smashing each of them with his fingers until he found the one he wanted.
“There is diagram, Grant…a key on the box,” David grumbled as he snatched his box of candy from his brother. “You do this every year…just to annoy me!” Grant grinned at his big brother, and David ruffled his hair harshly, giving himself over to the smile he was fighting. He held his brother in a playful headlock a little longer than he had intended and kissed Grant’s blond hair, trying to remember when life had turned out so perfectly.
Grant and Hailey walked hand-in-hand through the light snow that had fallen over night. Hailey didn’t have to ask where they were going as the gentle breeze danced on her cheeks.
“I had to do a little repair work just to get up there,” Grant said as they traipsed through the woods.
“I haven’t seen our tree house in years,” Hailey gulped. “Not since we got married, maybe not even since we moved to Boston…”
As they reached the base of the tree house that spoke volumes of the transformation their relationship underwent during their teenage years, Grant gestured toward it. “Go on up,” he smiled.
As Hailey started up the ladder, her eyes filled with happy tears, and her mind replayed distant memories of nights in a University of Tennessee dorm room when she wondered if the lonely boy she watched across a crowded gymnasium would ever look her way.
Hailey poked her head into the tree house that was a fixture of her childhood and adolescence, even before her innermost feelings were doodled in a red Sharpie along the wooden walls. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared at the wall now. In giant, red letters were painted the words she was never sure she would see the last time she had been in this private sanctuary where she retreated from the world. Hailey pulled her phone from her pocket and held it up to take a quick picture; then she stopped herself. This was theirs and only theirs, and she wanted it to stay that way. She slid her camera back into her coat pocket as she took a mental image of the words that meant the world to her: I LOVE HAILEY NELSON COHEN.
Hailey slowly climbed back down the ladder, and, as soon as her feet were back on solid ground, she spun around to her husband, who managed to amaze her more every single day. “I love you, Grant,” she shook her head as if to say that her words weren’t enough to express the gratitude she felt for everything she had been given. She gently slid her arms around Grant’s neck and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. For a moment, before they began to kiss, Hailey stared into the deep brown eyes of a man who was everything she had ever wanted in a husband and so much more.