How could she ever have believed him cold and unfeeling? He had all this tenderness and love inside him, just waiting for him to feel comfortable enough to let them out.
“It’s going to be a wonderful Christmas, isn’t it?” she said.
“The very best one ever.” His gaze held promise and possibilities. “Until next year, anyway. Something tells me that from here on, everything will just get better and better.”
EPILOGUE
“ALL RIGHT, GIVE IT to me straight, Miss Chloe,” Marshall said. “I have it on great authority that my Christmas tree last year was the second-best tree in town. I’m hoping to move up in the ranks this year. What are my chances?”
His seven-year-old stepdaughter pursed her lips and gave serious scrutiny to the tall and bushy blue spruce that took up an entire corner of their den.
“It’s so big. I don’t know. It’s like twice as big around as the one Will and me did for you last year. I hope we have enough lights and ornaments.”
“Are you kidding?” Christopher exclaimed from the floor, where he and Will were untangling string after string of lights for Marshall to twist around the branches. “How could we possibly not have enough ornaments? You’ve been cutting out paper snowflakes since the Fourth of July!”
“I have not,” she retorted. “Remember? I made all the paper hearts for the wedding, so I didn’t even start on snowflakes until after that.”
“Okay. Fine. Since September.”
Marshall smiled, remembering all those hearts strung around the stone patio in the backyard, where they’d had their reception—just two days after he and Andie signed the papers buying his grandmother’s house from Wynona.
He couldn’t think of that day without his own heart wanting to burst out of his chest. Random snapshots of that day seemed permanently implanted in his mind, his own little mental slide show he could take out whenever he needed a break from the tough job of county sheriff.
Standing in the front of the little church in Haven Point with Christopher by his side as his best man, palms sweaty and nerves zinging.
His mother in the front row, holding Uncle Mike’s hand and already sniffling into a tissue.
His sisters, Cade, Elliot, his aunts and all the people he loved filling the other rows.
And then Andie. His amazing, beautiful Andie, walking down the aisle with an uncharacteristically solemn Will on one side and sweet, pretty Chloe on the other, all three of them prepared to merge their lives with his.
He thought he couldn’t possibly ever be as happy as he was in that single moment, watching his future walking toward him—but every single day since had been even better.
Even when his kids were squabbling.
“I had to start making snowflakes in September,” Chloe insisted to Christopher. “We have fifty trees to decorate.”
“Exaggerate much?” Christopher said. Though his words were a little snide, he smiled when he said it.
Chris adored Chloe and Will. As soon as Marsh accepted that he couldn’t imagine any future without Andie and her kids, he had been concerned at first that it wasn’t fair to introduce two new young children into the picture when he was still trying to forge a relationship with his son. Christopher didn’t seem to mind, though. He seemed to get a kick out of both of them and had relished the chance to have younger siblings for the first time.
“We have to decorate this huge tree that’s as big as two other trees,” Chloe said now, ticking her count off on her fingers. “I have one in my room. Will has one in his room. You have one in your room in the attic. Mom has one in her new office over the garage. How many is that?”
“Still not fifty,” Will pointed out helpfully. “That’s only five.”
“I also cut out about a billion snowflakes for Grandma Charlene and Grandpa Mike and for Grandma Louise and Grandpa Herm and I made some for Aunt Wynona and Uncle Cade and for Jazmyn and everybody.”
“If we don’t have enough snowflakes for our tree, we’ll know it’s because you gave them away to everybody else in town,” Christopher teased.
“If we don’t have enough, Chloe can just make more,” Will said. “She’s superfast and she has paper in her room and can get more from Mom’s office.”
“Who can get what from my office?”
After they had been married a year, was his heart still going to pound like this every time he saw her? What about two or ten or twenty? He turned to find Andie coming in, cheeks a little pink from the short walk outside from her new office.
Christopher’s room had been carved out under the eaves in the old house. He loved the slanting ceiling and the dormer windows. It was small, but that didn’t seem to bother him, since half of his stuff was still at his grandparents’ house next door, where he still spent plenty of time with Herm and Louise.