Page 131 of Season of Gifts

The feminine lilt of laughter and conversation drifted from the kitchen.Mother and Alice sat at the table, cups of tea before them.Dishes waited on the counter.

“I didn’t set it.”Alice tipped her face up and welcomed Jay’s good morning kiss.“Figured you’d want to do that.”

“I do, thanks.”Jay dropped a second kiss on Mother’s cheek.“Did you sleep good, Mom?I slept like the snuggliest bunny in the burrow.”

Henry clasped Alice’s shoulders and bent to her ear.“Thank you for the time, my sweet girl.As you undoubtedly surmised, it was precisely the medicine required.”

She shrugged lightly under his hands, but her smile spread wide.“Happy husbands, happy—okay, rhyming is not my thing.”

“Thankfully, I know something that is.”He tapped the last of the envelopes he’d filled nearly a month ago, the creamy heavyweight paper leaning against the blue globe of the sugar bowl Mother had used all his life.“Shall we open the final card now, before we begin preparing our breakfast?”

Alice snatched it up and slid her fingernail under the wax seal at the back.“No, nope, we could wait until after breakfast.”Pinching the card between finger and thumb, she eased it free.“We haven’t at all been making guesses about what it says.”

“Not at all.”He murmured the words into her hair as he left a kiss atop her head.“Such admirable restraint.”

Shivering, she nudged him with her shoulder.“Will you read it to us?”

As she rotated the card, the final artwork appeared.Her quiet gasp drew Jay and Mother from their pleasantries.All of them gazed at the sketch—sketches, truly.He’d filled the front of the card with cameo portraits.The three of them formed the center, their faces a monogram surrounded by Will, Emma, Mother, Olivia, Natalie, and the other friends who’d had a hand in bringing them together.

Alice ran her finger along the edge of the card.“It’s beautiful, Henry.Everyone looks so happy.”

“It’s lovely, darling.”Mother touched his wrist, and he lightly squeezed her fingers.“An excellent composition, well-balanced in the space, and as Alice says, simply overflowing with joy.”

“That’s our family.”Jay nodded decisively, taking the card as Alice passed it over.“You gave us a family for Christmas.”

“Not I.All of us formed this family together, in the choices we made to be vulnerable with one another and trust in the feelings that propelled us here.”His recent lesson in the opposite notwithstanding.

Jay presented the card to him with the formal stiff arm of a seasoned maitre d’.“Your reading materials, sir.”

Mother side-hugged Jay, rubbing his back as he stooped beside her chair.“Splendid form, darling.”

Henry opened the card at the crease and cleared his throat.“My dearest loves: My fondest desire has been to restore the joy of the season for us all, free of outside concerns.”

His lips pulled back across his teeth.“Well, that sentiment didn’t age well.”

Alice snorted.“You can’t control everything.”

“No, I daresay I’ve proved that.”He smoothed the waves in her hair, lifting it off her neck and exposing the tempting curve to the brush of his fingers.“This year has been filled with gifts: with abiding love, with strong friendships, with deep understanding.Yet you yourself are the most exquisite gifts I may imagine.Your presence immensely enriches my life—” He hmphed at the thrust of regret in his ribs.“It does when I do not foolishly cast aside your love to cling to fears that belong to another time.What a mess of contradictions I have been.”

Murmurs of support and affirmation came from all quarters, love in every glance and touch and word spoken.

“Nevertheless, you yet have a final surprise at home to unwrap, as we carry the joy of the season into the coming year.I eagerly await the awe and wonder the next year holds for us.”

The surprise he’d meant had been the family gift, but now too it meant putting Jay in his collar and cuffs for the first time.Watching Alice discover her own anniversary gift.Taking them both on the rug before the hearth, the blazing heat casting flickering shadows across their skin and making them all sweat-slick.The air fragrant with desire, the floating chords of pleading and pleasure.Their new year’s celebration would differ from his original vision, though incorporating the gifts they’d missed in his absence would be invigorating.

Alice lifted her chin, peering toward the card in his hand.“Did you finish?”

“Almost.”Impertinent minx—she’d phrased her query so deliberately.“Ahem.You enthrall and delight me more with every day that passes.I may only aspire to make your lives as happy and fulfilled as you have made mine.All my love, now and always, your Henry.”

He set the card gently on the table once more, a sea of supportive faces gazing up at him.“I’ll hold no secrets from you that you do not wish, my loves.If you would rather know your final gift now, I shall tell you of it.”

A glance passed between Alice and Jay.

“I like your secrets.”Alice squeezed out of her seat without backing the chair into him.“I still want to be surprised.”Facing him, she rubbed the neckline of his sweater beneath her fingers and patted his chest.“I don’t doubt your intentions, Henry.Your judgment lately has been…”

“A little off.”Jay shrugged, his grimace perhaps an apology for the truth.“But we know it’s a temporary thing.”

“Yup, a temporary thing, never to be repeated, because we’ll make sure of that.”

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