Page 143 of All I Want For Christmas

"Do you want me to come and get it?" He gave her a wicked little grin. "’Cause, you know, I'd really enjoy that."

She laughed. She should've made something sexy. Dammit. Finally, with a sigh, she handed it over.

It was like his—a four inch by four inch square of white cardstock with a drawing in the middle that she’d colored, then glued painted popsicle sticks to the sides to create a “frame”.

He studied it, not saying anything for a long moment. Savannah held her breath.

Theo finally lifted his gaze. He looked touched.

Her heart squeezed.

"I love this. I'm thinking I might hang it up somewhere in the house. Not just wait for Christmas."

She snorted. "Come on."

He reached out and snagged her hand, bringing it up to his lips and pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. "Seriously. This is perfect. The bayou trees, with their deep extended roots grounding them, and their branches reaching up to the sky.” He cleared his throat. “And the birds flying off, but knowing thatthose trees are home, no matter where they go.” He kissed her hand again. “Rootsandwings."

Damn. He'd gotten the message, exactly.

The tree was pretty obvious. The bayou too, she supposed. Drawing tall grass and water hyacinth—mostly just squiggles on her drawing—weren’t terribly hard. She’d opted for simple Vs for the flying birds though. She definitely couldn’t draw birds.

She just looked into his eyes waiting for him to say something more.

He didn't. But he leaned over and gave her a long sweet kiss.

Well, that was good. At least he wasn't running and screaming.

LATER IN THE DAY they each had a video call on Savannah’s computer with their families. Theo’s mom, dad, and grandma wanted to say hi to Savannah, but Theo sat at the foot of the bed while she talked to her parents. They didn’t know she was traveling with anyone and introducing them over the computer wasnotideal.

They did, however, make a call together to the gang down in Autre. Everybody gathered around the computer screen at Ellie's and for about forty-five minutes, they felt like they were part of the party. Everybody was sitting around drinking, eating, laughing and talking. They exchanged gifts. Becca even opened the gift she'd gotten for Savannah to show her on screen.

When they disconnected, she looked at Theo. He gave her a grin. "We pick pretty great people, don’t we?"

"Those people might be my second favorite thing we have in common."

His grin grew. "Yeah, what's the first?"

"The way we fit together." She didn’t just mean physically. They really did just seem to fit. In the things they both liked, in the ways they were different.

But then she moved into his lap, straddling his thighs, and his big hands went to her ass, bringing her up against him, and yeah, she meant physically too.

And later after dinner, when he pulled her into his arms to dance, the way they fit then proved it just as well. It felt so natural to dance with him. Some of the songs were fast, and he twirled her around and dipped her back, and they laughed. Some of them were slow, and they swayed together, her head on his chest, and she just sighed happily.

It was all so perfect. These couple of days, just him and her, had been magical. She could stay here for another two days. Or weeks. Or months. Just like this.

So when they woke up the next morning and found out the roads had been cleared earlier than expected, and they could leave, she was actually disappointed.

Chapter

Nineteen

Theo was pissed.

He was standing outside the Merry Falls Lodge on a bright, sunny, albeit cold, day after one of the best weekends—hell, one of the bestChristmases—of his life…saying goodbye to the woman he’d fallen in love with.

“I can’t believe he’s sending you to the farm after all,” he told her with a scowl.

She was supposed to be getting on an airplane with him. But her boss had called and decided that now that the roads were open, there was no reason she couldn’t make the trip up to the Monroe Family Farm.

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