Callie and Nash were in the ranch house kitchen, assembling a gingerbread house, when the voices drifted out to them from the adjacent playroom.
“I got a daddy,” Brian said to his cousin Henry, while the two of them worked on constructing their version of the North Pole with wooden building blocks. “Do you have a daddy?”
“Of course I got a daddy.” Henry moved around to put on the roof before adding importantly, “And I got a baby brother, too.”
“I’m going to have a baby brother,” Brian boasted.
Callie and Nash looked at each other. They had been at this for a month now.
Grinning, Nash rose with gentlemanly leisure. “My turn?”
Contentment flowing through her, Callie smiled back. “Have at it.” Because if there was anything she and her new husband had learned, it was that when Brian did not want to understand something, he did not ever understand something.
“Actually, fellas, Brian might have a baby brother, and he might have a baby sister,” Nash hunkered down to explain to three-and-a-half-year-old Brian and four-year-old Henry. “His mommy and I don’t know what kind of baby is in her tummy right now. We’re just very happy that she is going to have a baby next summer. It won’t matter if it’s a girl or a boy.”
“I know what it is, Daddy.” Disregarding Nash’s careful explanation, Brian stood and moved carefully around the beautifully decorated Christmas tree from Echols Mountain to work on the other side of his budding creation. “It’s a boy.”
“Yeah,” cousin Henry chimed in, “I think so, too.”
Nash stood as well and eyed the gloomy winter weather outside.
Callie knew what her husband was thinking. Rain, not snow, was predicted, but you never knew...especially when they were in the midst of record cold.
Her husband braced his hands on his hips. “Well, like I said, it could be either one, fellas. We’ll find out for sure when the baby is born in six months.”
“Daddy! We already know,” Brian countered in exasperation. “It’s a boy. And when he gets here, then we’ll have four boys to play with. Me and Henry and his brother and my brother.”
Callie strolled in to join them—and rescue Nash. “Seems like you boys have it all figured out.”
Brian and Henry scowled. “’Course we do,” they said in unison.
Callie took Nash’s hand in hers. He squeezed her hand in return. They exchanged smiles and retreated to the adjacent kitchen. It was hard to believe how much her life had changed in just one year, Callie reflected happily, but there was no denying that all was good.
After a six-month courtship that was at once low-key and highly romantic, she and Nash had married at the top of Echols Mountain, with just a few family and friends present. Nash had moved into Callie and Brian’s home. And he was using his ranch house as an office to accommodate his growing business.
Once married, they’d gotten busy at expanding their family. And now they were enjoying their second holiday season together. With, she hoped, a very special surprise for them all still to come.
“So what do you think?” Nash asked, as Callie spread the creamy white icing over the roof and down the sides of the gingerbread house. “Since you’re the one with the miracle growing inside you. Girl or boy?”
“You never know,” Callie teased. She dipped an extra piece of gingerbread into the buttercream and lovingly fed it to him. “It could be twins. Possibly even one of each. Multiples do run in my family...”
“Can’t say I’d mind that.” Nash brought her close and kissed her tenderly on the lips. He tasted of sugar, spice and man. “Although it would upset the logistics of Brian and Henry’s plans.”
Callie shrugged and fed him another piece of icing-dipped cake. “Well, then,” she reckoned, “Hart and Maggie would just have to get busy again.”
Nash sobered comically and fed her cake, too. “You’re right.” He dabbed a little bit of icing from the corner of her lip. “Why should we have all the fun?” He threaded his hands through her hair and kissed her again, even more thoroughly this time.
Youthful footsteps pounded on the wood floor behind them. “Ugh! Kissing!” Brian and Henry said in unison.
Reluctantly, Callie and Nash moved apart.
Brian squinted. “Why do grown-ups do that?”
“I don’t know,” Henry declared, “but my parents are always kissing, too. ’Specially under the mistletoe.”
Tired of discussing something he found so disdainful, Brian stepped closer to the kitchen table. “Mommy, is the house ready to decorate?”
Callie brought out the bowls of colorful candy she’d already prepared. “It sure is.”
Nash pulled up two chairs. The boys climbed on and got busy. And for a while all was lost in the magic of placing gumdrops and other assorted candies on the yuletide creation.
When they were done, they all stepped back to admire their handiwork Nash looked out the window once again. “Well, what do you know,” he said in wonder, shaking his head.
Everyone turned in the direction of his gaze. An older couple was coming up the walk. They looked a little jet-lagged. Their arms were laden with gifts.
Nash turned to Callie, a question in his eyes. “I asked your parents to come,” she said softly. “I pointed out that healing the rift would be the best gift of all.”
“And they agreed?” he asked hoarsely.
Callie’s eyes filled with tears of joy, as she nodded. “They love you, Nash. They always have. They just...” Her voice caught, too. “They had a hard time showing it.”
He hugged her close. “This couldn’t have been easy,” he said in a low, choked voice.
It hadn’t been. But there were some things worth fighting for. Family, paramount among them.
She hugged him back, just as ferociously. “They know, with the new baby on the way, it’s time we put the heartbreak of the past behind us and start celebrating all that we have now, in this moment. So what do you say?” Callie took Nash’s hand and then turned to Brian and his cousin Henry. “Are you fellas ready to greet Nash’s mommy and daddy and have them spend Christmas here, too?”
The “fellas” in her life grinned.
“You bet!” they said in unison.
Nash opened the door.
Once again, Callie noted with a smile, they were going to have the Christmas of their dreams.