Page 144 of Season of Gifts

The depth of his sincerity draped her in a solemn hush.She rose from her false swoon, she and Jay both hastily rearranging themselves in respectful postures—Jay on the floor in public-appropriate waiting pose and her on the couch beside Henry in a demure, ladylike formal tea pose.She folded her hands in her lap.

Henry met their gazes and smiled—not enough to break his serious manner, but enough to send unspoken praise radiating from him.His deep green robe darkened his eyes somehow, and he wore the intensity he carried in a scene or when he focused intently on a sketch.Gravitas, that was the thing.

He tapped the presents again, and her eyes and chin followed the sound before her brain even sent the message.He lifted one about the size of the old check boxes Mom used to reuse every Christmas for little gifts.Holding each end by two fingers, he offered it to Jay.“Merry Christmas, my dear one.”

Jay accepted the box with both hands, his grip almost wider than the gift he cradled.He studied it, unmoving, and finally pulled the ribbon carefully around the corner and slid the box free of the bow.The ribbons tumbled down his thigh to the floor as he lifted the box lid.

Eyes wide, Jay gasped and bobbled the box.His shaking hands fell a good inch before he latched onto the box so tight his knuckles turned white.

Henry reached across the gap and squeezed Jay’s hand.“Allow me?”

Jay nodded and kept nodding, his lips pressed together and his eyes wet and shining.

A bracelet rose in Henry’s delicate hold.Three braided loops of rich brown leather bound by a silvery figure eight—an infinity symbol—cradled emeralds like her birthday earrings in either side of the endless curving line.

An everyday cuff.No wonder he couldn’t speak.She couldn’t, and it wasn’t even hers.The claim to match his wedding ring wouldn’t draw attention, but Jay would know.The gift was everything he needed—the weight of ownership and the freedom of belonging.

“These actually arrived”—Henry lifted a second bracelet and nudged Jay to release the box—“a few moments before the wedding.I’ve been waiting quite a while to see them on you.Though, I think, not so long as you have been waiting.”

Jay shoved his sleeves back to his elbows, his hands still shaking.

The first bracelet clasped with a quietclickaround Jay’s left wrist, and the second followed on the right.Henry took hold of Jay’s hands, tugging so his arms hung extended and the emeralds sparkled in the mix of tree lights and sunlight and firelight.“Jay.My love.Thank you for all the years together and all the years yet to come.”

Leaning toward Henry, the slope of his back the very definition of yearning, Jay stared at his wrists and shed silent tears down his cheeks.Swallowing hard, he lifted his head.“I’ll wear them every day.Like that poem you read yesterday—I’ll carry your heart with me, too.”

Kiss him, she urged Henry, her mouth firmly closed.He didn’t need the hint.

Clasping the back of Jay’s neck, Henry drew him forward and bent to meet him.“You already do.”

Their kiss burned with steady passion.Not a blazing wildfire their family shouldn’t witness, but a strong, constant flame and a reminder of the vows they’d made.Alice’s heart throbbed in echo.These men she loved brought so much love of their own to every commitment, every promise—integrity and intensity, the fires that sustained them all.

Henry’s kiss left Jay with the sweetest hazy glow.He sat back on his heels and clasped his hands like he was politely waiting to see her gift, but he was stroking the leather bracelets with his thumbs, and his eyes fixed on nothing but utter bliss.

When Henry shifted to face her, he wore a conspiratorial smile that invited her in.Do you see how I’ve reduced our dear boy to a puddle?Do you imagine I’ll do less to you, feisty girl?

Okay, maybe he didn’t sound like that in his own head, but he sure did in hers.The box he held out to her was less oblong, more square, and her fingers trembled as they brushed his.

“Merry Christmas, my beloved Alice.”The full weight of his gaze landed on her, electric and charging her like a lightning rod.“This, too, arrived on our wedding day.I must say, it was quite the challenge to resist bedecking you in the entire set at once.”

She ordered her brain to function with words, and it produced a smile instead.Green ribbon crackled against her fingernail as she scraped it around the side of the box.Deep breath, that was good.Important.She lifted the lid and let it fall.

On a bed of black silk rested a silvery necklace with a hefty pendant.The curving swirl holding it formed a vertical infinity, an hourglass-like shape with an enormous emerald at the bottom and a smaller brown diamond above.A set, yes—with their wedding rings and the earrings he’d given her for her birthday.The emerald pendant had the same pear shape, and the brown diamonds were called cognac.A river of them flowed through the band she’d been wearing on her finger for the last five and a half weeks.

“It’s stunning.”And she couldn’t force her fingers to touch it, not until he had, but she could hardly say that in front of his mother and brother.In a moment she and Jay would go show off their gifts—Mother especially would want to see them, if the stones had come from the same heirloom set as their wedding bands.But this moment belonged to her and to Henry, a claiming every bit as powerful as their wedding day.He’d presented her with a day collar.“I love it.I love you.”

“May I?”Henry dipped his hands into the box and freed the chain from the grooves holding it in place.“The pendant can be placed on any chain.”He raised the links toward her neck, and she bent her head automatically, her voice too unsteady to risk more words.“I’ve taken the liberty of including several lengths and weights to suit any occasion.You will be able to wear this with anything.”

Or with nothing but her skin and other gifts he’d given her.

He wrapped her neck in both hands, inside the plush robe and the cozy flannel of her pajama top, his grip firm and comforting.Fingers danced with the soft hair at the nape of her neck, arousing and ticklish.The electricity shivered through her, down to her curling toes.

“Yes,” Henry murmured, low and heated.“That’s what was needed.”

The strand lay against her neck, the weight of platinum heavier than silver, and the pendant nestled in the notch where her collarbones met.Henry trailed his fingers along either side.“Alice.Thank you for trusting me enough to say yes.Your courage and vulnerability have made our lives richer than I dared imagine.”

Her eyes burned.Her throat burned.She might be a star coalescing into being as Henry brought all of the elements together and commanded them to make light.

Closing her eyes sent the tears spilling over, but they rolled forgotten in the power of Henry’s kiss.

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