Page 34 of Sleighing You
“No…” I answered carefully. “Not always. But I’ve loved it for a long time.” In a small town like Maple Grove, it was hard to hide your past… not that I was hiding who I was or where I came from. My close friends knew about my childhood. Kandi, Lyla, Ford, Yvonne, and Steve. And therefore, I was certain Lyla’s mom Elsa knew… and Steve’s mom, Marty knew. I loved it here in Maple Grove, but the gossip mill was strong, even if it came from a place of love. I had no doubt that somehow my story had spread through the town since my arrival six years ago. “Believe it or not,” I said, “when I was really little, I used to hate Christmas.”
“As akidyou didn’t like Christmas?”
“Correction.” I held a finger in the air to drive the point home. “As a kid, IhatedChristmas.”
His eyebrows jumped in surprise. “Hate’s a strong word.”
I nodded, agreeing. “It is. You should know. You don’t seem to be a big fan of Christmas.”
He sighed and leaned back against a pillow, tugging me in close to him. I could smell the arousal lingering on his skin along with his own woodsy scent, and I nuzzled my face closer to his neck to silently inhale him deeper. “I don’t mean to be such a Scrooge this time of year…” His words faded off and vulnerability flashed briefly across his features. I wasn’t sure who it caught more by surprise—him or me.
“But?” I prodded.
“But when you grow up with a Christmas-obsessed family… I don’t know. I guess I started resenting it. Like people fully expected me to constantly be as in love with the holiday as my parents. And when I wasn’t, they looked at me like I was some sort of freak. Don’t get me wrong… I love my family. My parents are incredible, my sister is a total badass. And eleven months out of the year, we all get along amazingly well. But in December, I never quite fit in with the rest of them.”
His story was so different from mine.Wewere so different. Even as children, our stories could not have been more opposite. And as adults, our reactions to our upbringings resulted in two extremes.
“What about you? Did you also have parents who were too obsessed with Christmas?”
My chest knotted like a too-tight ball of yarn. “I… I didn’t have parents,” I whispered.
His muscles clenched beneath me. “What?”
“I never knew my dad. And my mom… well, she never wanted to be a mom. I don’t remember much about her other than just that she wasn’t around a lot. Christmas with her was… uneventful. I would watch movies and see families doing fun things together—visiting Santa, decorating cookies and trees. And when I’d ask my mom, she would tell me she didn’t have time for that shit. I hated Christmas… and I hated her. Then when I was about five years old, cops came running into our apartment. They arrested her, and put me in a group home.”
Chris’s arms came around me tighter, pulling me into him. His palm curved around the back of my head, cradling me tighter. “It would have been better for me if she had just put me up for adoption when I was born… people wantbabies. But no one wanted a five-year-old little girl whose mother was arrested for prostitution. I would have had a better chance at being adopted if she had just let me go sooner. But instead, I was placed in a few foster homes through the years. Even when she got out of prison, she never came back for me. And none of my foster homes stuck. They weren’t horribly abusive or anything like that. But, they weren’t permanent… they weren’thome.”
I gulped, the emotion clogging in the back of my throat as Chris’s hands rubbed in reassuring circles over my back. “I’m so sorry, Avery.”
“There were home checks and foster parents who tried to help and care for us… but there’s just too many of us there in the system. Too many kids for the average person to focus on or help.” And let’s face it… it was depressing. Most people turned a blind eye to the amount of kids in the system who need help because it was daunting and just plain sad.
“But on Christmas?” I felt a damp tear streaming down my face, and before I could reach up to wipe it away, Chris’s thumb lifted to my cheek. With one soft brush, he swiped away my tear. A tremble rocked down my spine, and I squeezed my eyes closed. “On Christmas, peoplecared. They donated gifts to us and wrote letters telling us to keep up hope. Telling us they loved and prayed for us. Christmas trees were decorated with our Christmas wishes for donations, and strangers gifted us huge turkeys to our foster homes. Our foster parents tried harder around Christmas, and for the first time in my childhood, I did all the things I saw in the movies… I baked cookies, decorated gingerbread houses, visited Santa. My childhood was rarely joyous, but on Christmas? I felt magic that I never knew existed. And I vowed to myself when I was just a kid that I would do everything I could to live every day like it was Christmas.”
I blinked my eyes open to find Chris staring intensely down at me, his face streaked with moisture.
I should have been moved by the fact that he’d been so touched by my story. But I felt my body clamp up tight and I pulled back from his embrace. “Don’t,” I hissed. “Please don’t pity me.”
He shook his head, sitting up taller, and reached for my hands. “Avery, I don’t pity you. I’m inaweof you. There is a big, big difference.” He accentuated the point by squeezing my knuckles. “I was sitting here complaining aboutmyupbringing like an asshole—”
I pressed my finger to his mouth, shushing him. “Don’t. I appreciate you acknowledging that, but this isn’t a contest. You’re allowed to feel your feelings and have your complaints about childhood, too.”
He smiled against my finger and caught my hand in his, pressing a kiss to my knuckle. “Even if my complaints are about a little rich boy whose parents loved Christmas too much?”
A laugh bubbled out of my mouth and I nodded. “Yes… even then.”
“You’re pretty incredible, you know that?”
My insides turned gooey, and I swallowed hard and did my best to lighten the mood with a smile. “Prettyincredible? I’d say I’m just plain incredible. Maybe even spectacular.”
“You are incredibly spectacular, Avery Pinkerton.” His grin widened. “I didn’t thinkanyonecould convince me of the magic of Christmas… but you just might.”
“Then I guess my work here is done.” I hopped off the bed, pretending to grab my clothes to get dressed to leave.
“Don’t you dare.” He lunged at me, laughing, and grabbed my hips, pulling me back into bed with him. My laugh pierced the air as his fingers dug into my ribs, tickling me and rolling his body on top of mine.
Chest to chest, stomach to stomach, I felt his erection grow, pressing between my legs. With a gasp, my laughter morphed into panting as he kissed me deeply again.
The magic of Christmas. As much as I loved this holiday, I couldn’t ignore the fact that something had been missing in my holiday for all these years. And here with Chris in my arms, it wasn’t the Grinch’s heart that grew three sizes....
It was mine.
Andthatwas terrifying.
