Page 76 of Sweet Surrender

“We brought the trailer,” Zane said. “It’s parked around the corner.”

“Wow,” Becca said. “Well, this is amazing—it’s the best Christmas present ever.”

“Hopefully not,” Zane said.

She glanced up at him, but his lips were sealed, his jaw flexing, like he was holding something back. He lifted her into the cart as if she were lighter than air, and then hopped in beside her.

“Here,” he said, pulling the blankets over both their laps. “Will you be warm enough?”

“Yes,” she told him. “Thank you.”

He clucked to Pepper and the old horse began pulling the cart around the park with a surprising spring in his step. The clip-clop of his hoofbeats rang out against the pavement and Becca couldn’t help noticing a few people gazing out at them from the storefronts in town.

“You okay?” Zane asked her.

“Yes,” she said, nodding up at the faces peeking out of the apartment windows above the shops. “More than okay. But I think we’re attracting some attention.”

“We always seem to do that,” Zane growled.

She could only laugh.

“What?” he asked. “Can’t a man talk with a woman in peace?”

“Sure,” she told him. “But not if he’s doing it in a horse-drawn milk cart trotting around the town park on Christmas Eve.”

Suddenly, Zane was laughing, his head thrown back, the sound ringing through the snowy park.

“Wow,” Becca teased him, delighted. “Zane Lawrence is laughing at me.”

“I’m laughingwithyou,” he corrected her, panting a little.

But that only made her laugh too.

“Thank you for this,” she told him after a moment. “I was feeling a little homesick.”

“Of course you were,” he said, serious now. “No one should spend Christmas Eve alone.”

She smiled up at him. His eyes shone in the starlight, and he was so handsome it was almost blinding. Of course he’d had this romantic ride planned all along. She should have known better when he’d made up some excuse about having stuff to do tonight.

“So, how would you like to spend your holidays?” he asked. “I mean, how do you picture them in the future?”

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “I don’t really know. I think I’d love to have a big family, lots of noise and home-cooked food, maybe sing carols around the tree, and read the Christmas story out loud for the kids?”

“It sounds like youdoknow,” Zane said with a smile. “That’s a great answer. What about regular days?”

The horse turned and they headed down the long side of the park, past where the boys were chasing each other around the big Christmas tree.

“I kind of like the way my regular days are,” she said, shrugging. “I love teaching, and planning. And it’s been fun this week visiting with you and the boys at the farm.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“I really like the big family dinners,” she confessed.

“More than a fancy dinner at the Moose?” he asked.

“Oh, I loved our first date,” she told him carefully. “But yes, I definitely like family dinners even more than fancy restaurants.”

“Me too,” he said softly.

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