Epilogue

“Just a slight bend in your elbow…good. Breathe. Always breathe. Never stop breathing.”

Ally sat in the middle of her prenatal yoga class. She was surrounded by eight moms-in-waiting, all in varying stages of pregnancy. Sue was due in two weeks, Laura was in the first trimester. Ally beamed as she looked around the room. This was her favorite class. “Okay now, ladies, let’s transition into Supta Baddha Konasana.” The women eased their backs down on the mat in rhythm with Ally.

As she lay there, Ally glanced out the window. She could see all the way across to Charlie’s, where Jake was spraying another coat of faux frost on the diner window. December again. Had it really been four years since she’d first rolled into town? Her mind flashed back to a singular moment, a moment right out of the movies. The moment she reached up for that call button, the moment Jake drove his pickup truck out onto the runway to stop her from leaving. One moment, one crazy moment that changed everything.

Her thoughts flickered across the events that followed like a flip-book.

“Excuse me, but I think that’s my ride,” she told the familiar flight attendant. “I need to get off.”

“Off? Seriously?”

“Yes.” Ally started gathering her backpack from beneath her seat. “When your knight in shining armor rides up, you don’t question it. You just go.”

“Damn straight you do,” said the woman in 14C. “Go get him, honey.” The flight attendant smiled and raised her voice to be heard above the murmur.

“Folks, hope you don’t mind. But we need to take a quick trip back to the gate. Looks like one of our passengers left her heart behind.”

Dozens of faces were pressed against round plane windows when Ally descended the stairs like a queen to find Jake standing at the bottom waiting for her. As she navigated the last step, Jake took her hands in his, and she felt a rush of warmth shoot through her. His touch gave her goose bumps.

“You’re crazy,” she said.

“I know,” Jake said. For a moment they just looked at each other, drinking one another in, reveling in the moment. A new beginning. So much of life ahead, as the song said. So many dreams to come true.

“Buddy, would you mind kissing her? We’ve got a schedule to keep.” Jake and Ally looked up to the top of the stairs. It was Captain Kendall the pilot who was speaking. She was huddled with her crew. They seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the little drama.

“I guess we should,” Ally said. “For our fans.” She glanced up at the cabin windows, where eager passenger faces were watching.

“You’re right,” Jake said. “Wouldn’t want to let them down.” Then he took Ally’s face in his hands and put his lips on hers. The kiss began slowly and sweetly, his lips caressing hers, first the top, then the lower, both at the same time. And then they began to kiss harder and more passionately, their bodies leaning in, and Ally reached her arms around his head and drew him even closer. And she forgot about the cold and the tarmac, the audience watching them from the plane. It was a kiss that felt like something, a new beginning, a new life, a second chance at love.

Ally and Jake spent Christmas and New Year’s in Bethlehem that year, and Ally had never been happier. With Libby running the diner in his absence, Jake offered to move to L.A. to support Ally while she sorted things out and tried to put the pieces Tim had shattered back together. He stood by her while she navigated the troubled waters.

“Just so you know,” Jake said one winter’s evening as he and Ally took a sunset stroll on the beach in Santa Monica, “if you want to stay in L.A. permanently, then that’s where I’ll be. I won’t be happy anywhere if you’re not with me.” Ally slipped her arm around his waist and smiled when he said that.

“How about a compromise?” she said. “You help me sort things out here, and then we move back to Bethlehem. As a matter of fact, that’s not even a compromise. Because that’s where I want to be. I’ve never found a place that felt more like home.”

It took a little over five weeks for Ally to sell her house in Santa Monica and close up the studio. The yoga studio building owner was able to lease it right away and used the deposit to cover the unpaid rent. Ally was happy when Devyn told her she’d easily found another job managing a gym in West Hollywood.

And, as expected, Ally never heard from Tim again. Her neighborhood cop friend Austin said he did a little snooping and discovered that Tim and Brooke were no longer in the country.

“The credit card trail has them somewhere in Asia. Don’t worry,” the cop said, “karma will catch up to them…eventually. It always does.” But Ally didn’t really think much about Tim anymore. She wished him no ill will, and a part of her was grateful he’d done what he’d done. For, if he hadn’t run out on her, she never would have found true love. And she knew there was nothing in the world like true love.

“I’m going to miss you,” Devyn said at a going-away party for Ally the night before she and Jake drove a moving van back to Bethlehem. “You’re more than just a great yoga teacher and boss…you’re good people, too. A good friend.” Then Devyn leaned in and whispered in Ally’s ear. “And I think Jake’s a keeper.”

…

Jake shook the faux-frost can one more time and heard the little balls jiggling around inside. He gave the diner window a few more shots of spray and stood back to admire it. Not too shabby, he thought. He glanced over at Ally’s Posers Yoga Studio. He still smiled at the name on the window. It was Libby’s idea.

He could see the class going on inside, as well as Ally there leading it. His mind drifted back to that Christmas Day, the day he followed Doc Baker’s sage advice and went for it. And he knew that, even if he made a thousand good decisions over the course of his life, the decision to drive his pickup onto the runway at MCR that Christmas Day to block Flight 1225 would be the best decision he ever made.

“Hey, babe. How was your class?”

Jake had Ally’s coffee ready when she walked through the door of the diner. She came over to him, gave him a peck on the lips, and took it from him.

“It was awesome, as always.” She took a sip. “Mmm. Best cup yet.”

“You always say that,” Libby said as she passed. Ally looked around the diner, called out hellos to the regulars. She knew them all by name, knew their families, their stories. She was a part of them now.

“Need me to pitch in?” she asked Jake.

“Naw, I think we got it covered. Besides, you’ve got to take it easy nowadays.” Jake rested his hand on Ally’s belly. She was nineteen weeks and still just barely showing. “I think I just felt our baby kick.”

“Probably giving you a fist bump,” Ally said with a smile. “Can you take off tomorrow? I want to drive down to Grand Junction and look for a dress for the wedding.”

“Sure thing,” Jake said. “Anything for my wife.”

…

“Amelia, I loved you the first moment I saw you, and I know I’m going to love you until the last moment. You are my one true love. The love of my life.”

Ally dabbed her eyes with a paper napkin at wedding reception table number seven. Jake squeezed her hand and then leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. At the head table, Robbie raised a glass of champagne to toast his wife, looking down at her beside him with a love in his eyes so pure Ally knew they were going to make it. Amelia and Robbie’s love story would go the distance.

This was no happy ending, it was a happy beginning.

Ally picked up her glass of water and joined in the toast. And, as she looked over at her own husband, she realized she had something in common with Robbie. She’d also found her one true love—in a little town called Bethlehem.

Turn the page to start reading A Family for Christmas by Viv Royce!

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