Luckiest Bastard(16)

“I’m sorry there’s no snow,” I say, drawing her in closer to me. I feel like such a prick for letting her down. They’re expecting snow the day we’re due to fly out. Fat lot of good that will do us, Christmas will be over by then.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. You’ve given me and the kids such a wonderful gift. Snow or no snow, I’ll never forget this vacation.” Shifting her body so she’s facing me, her lips meet mine. “You’re an amazing husband and father for doing this. I love how you’d go to any length to make us happy.”

Her words bring a lump to my throat. Leaning forward, I push her backwards and lay over the top of her. “I love you.” She always knows the right things to say to make me feel better.

The second my mouth covers hers and my hand slides underneath her sweater, there’s a damn knock on the door. Fuck, nothing’s going right for me today. After placing a kiss on her nose, I instruct her not to move, while I get rid of whoever is at the door.

“I have the boxes you requested to be brought to your room this evening, sir,” the porter says when I open the door. Shit, the presents. I was so consumed by the no snow factor, that the kids’ gifts totally slipped my mind.

After helping him unload the trolley, I hand him a tip. I’m still getting used to this whole tipping thing. We don’t do this back home. The only person I haven’t tipped since coming here was the damn driver that picked us up at the airport.

Well, actually, I did give him a tip, but not a monetary one. Once our bags were unloaded from the car, he stood in front of me with his hand extended. Raising an eyebrow, I gave him a quizzical look. “You need to tip him,” Indi said, nudging me.

I had the perfect one for him. “You want a tip? Get some fucking driving lessons, dickhead.” Indi gasped beside me as soon as the words were out of my mouth, but I heard Ross chuckling in the background. Somebody needed to say it. He’s gonna kill someone one day if he keeps driving like that. The kids were already standing inside the lobby out of the cold, with my mother. I’d never swear like that in front of them.

“What’s in all the boxes?” Indi asks coming up behind me and sliding her arms around my waist.

“Open them and see.”

As soon as she removes the tape and pulls back the flaps of the first box, she gasps as her hands cover her mouth. “Oh. My. God. Carter these are all the kids’ presents from home.”

“I know. I had them shipped over here a few weeks ago.”

“Far out,” she mumbles, the shock apparent on her face. “You really went above and beyond.”

After all the gifts are unpacked and under the tree, I pull her into my arms. “Let’s go to bed and finish what we started before we were rudely interrupted.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Getting up on the tip of her toes, she lightly brushes her lips against mine. While I turn off the fake fire, she heads over to close the curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Carter, look. Holy crap, it’s snowing,” she squeals.

Walking up behind her, I see her smile reflected in the glass and the small white flakes floating down from the heavens.

Thank fuck for that.



By some small miracle, it’s still snowing when we wake the next morning. The whole city is covered in a blanket of white. It looks majestic. I’m not sure if the kids are more excited about their presents or the snow. Seeing the pure joy on my family’s faces is the greatest gift anyone could give me.

“This is for you,” I say to my beautiful wife, as I hand her a small box. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” she replies, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tight.

“Open it.” I watch as she tears the wrapping off excitedly.

“Carter,” she breathes. There are tears pooling in her eyes when they meet mine. I brought her a pair of diamond encrusted snowflake earrings.

“Something to remind you of your first white Christmas,” I tell her.

“This is the best Christmas ever. I’ll never ever forget it.”

“Even better than our first Christmas?” I say when she throws her arms around me.

“No. Nothing could top that day. It’s the day I married the man of my dreams.”

I can’t fight the smile that forms on my face. I love that she thinks I’m the man of her dreams.

“Open the envelope,” I instruct next.

“Tickets to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb,” she squeals. “Oh. My. God. Did you find my list?”

“What list?” I chuckle.



After we eat a big Christmas breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant with our parents, I ask Indi to take the kids back to the room and rug them up. I needed to slip out and get a few things before we headed out for the day.