Page 44 of Getting Wrapped Up

However, there were a handful that Kate felt they should leave. One was aBaby’s-First-Christmaswith a photo of Kaelyn, another was anOur-First-Christmasornament, not unlike the one Lauren had showed her. There was no photo, but the date painted on it was the first Christmas Joe and Phoebe would have been married. There were a few others from trips, including their honeymoon, that Kate left in the boxes next to the tree for when Phoebe and Joe got home.

She hoped they hadn’t taken anything away from Phoebe and Joe by not letting them decorate the tree this year.

“Damn,” Kate said quietly.

“What’s wrong?” Again Levi moved in behind her and wrapped her in his arms.

She really liked it there.

“Kaelyn. And Phoebe and Joe. This is their tree. They should decorate it together as a family,” she said.

Levi was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “You’re absolutely right.”

Kate sighed. “We screwed up.”

“Nope,” he said. “We put up a tree for us. And we’ll enjoy it tonight and then we’ll take it all down in the morning and they can decorate it together another day. We’ll tell them we got them the tree as a hospitality gift.”

“But the lights…” She stopped right there. He’d done it. It didn’t matter that it had clearly frustrated the crap out of him. It was something new to him, but he’d tackled it for her. “And we hauled all this down.” She looked up into his eyes. “You’d do that?”

“Of course.”

She turned and put her arms around him. “Your soul is so light gray it’s almost white.”

“Well, worrying aboutallof these people having a perfect Christmas isn’t hurting, I’m sure,” he agreed with a grin. “But let’s not get crazy. I passed white without a chance of going back when I was about sixteen.”

“I want to hear these stories.”

“Someday. Maybe.” He kissed her on the nose.

Someday. That word held so much…promise.

But someday was far beyond Christmas. Far beyond when she was back in the real world in California.

“So next we need a fire, some wine and the movie,” she said, keeping her tone light.

“Yes, okay. I’ll work on the fire. You find the wine.”

“Great.” Some space would be nice. At the moment, she was pretty equally torn between the urge to just strip and see what he did and the urge to get in her rental car and speed out of town without a look in the rearview mirror. This Christmas wasn’t supposed to be like the others—no heartbreak, no regrets.

The thing was, she was now in too deep to not miss him like crazy when it was over anyway. But she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to work up actual regret about any of this.

Her mind shifted through her thoughts and feelings faster than she could keep up. She went to the fridge, then the cupboards and the pantry but came up empty handed in the wine department.

“All I could find was this jar labeled Booze,” she said, coming back into the living room several minutes later. The glass quart jar was full, the top sealed and a big red ribbon around it with a tag that read “Cranberry”. That sounded Christmassy.

“Booze sounds good to me,” Levi muttered, sitting back on his heels in front of the hearth. He sighed and looked up at her. “The fireplace doesn’t work.”

“Really? That’s weird.” She hid her grin. It was not a gas fireplace. There was no on switch. It was clearly a real wood-burning fireplace and it obviously worked. There were blackened logs in it and tools that were clearly not for show.

Kate was willing to bet that Levi hadn’t ever lit a real fire in his life. Hell, she only knew it was possible because she’d read about it in books and seen it in movies. It wasn’t like the guys she hung out with regularly went around building fires all the time. Nor did any of them have a need to do such a thing.

Levi wasn’t the outdoorsy type and she didn’t care a bit.

Was Travis Bennett sexy in his work boots and gloves? Sure. But Travis would have been sexy in a burlap bag. It was the guy, not what he wore or did that could push Kate’s yum button.

And Levi pushed it. Hard.

Levi was a guy more used to ties than denim, and that was just fine with her. A guy who could fix and build things from scratch with his own two hands was nice. Even sexy in some ways. But she could hire someone to get all of that done.

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