Page 59 of One Golden Ring
“Does this mean we’re really staying for Christmas?” she asks.
There’s so much hope in her eyes, but that’s not up to me. We both look to her dad.
“We’ll see,” Derek says, but there is a glint in his eyes like he wants to say more.
“Cool,” J.B. says, spotting some of the ornaments we didn’t manage to get put up. “Are these for the tree too?”
“If you can find space for them, sure,” Derek tells her.
“And we saved the final touch for you to put on top,” I add, grabbing the angel from the bag to show her.
“She looks like you, Darcy,” J.B. says immediately.
“Really?” I ask.
I don’t see it. Except the brown hair of course. But dark hair is pretty common—J.B. has it and so does her dad.
But she doesn’t have anything else to say about it—she’s already hanging little bells all over the tree, humming “Deck the Halls” to herself.
Derek is watching her, looking so pleased. My heart breaks for him that he’s going to have to send her back to school after this. But at least for now he’s really happy.
“Tea?” he asks, catching my eye.
I nod and we head over to the little kitchenette to fix it.
It doesn’t hit me until he’s pouring the steaming water into our mugs that Derek Lockwood is fixingmea beverage for once.
“I could get used to this,” I tease him.
He turns and his eyes are on mine again, and I feel so much emotion surging between us I think I won’t be able to take another breath.
“Me too,” he says simply.
“I’m ready to do the angel,” J.B. sings out.
“Your dad should help you,” I tell her. “And I’ll take a picture for your great-grandpa.”
“No way,” she says. “We need a selfie of all three of us. We can stand on chairs.”
She’s already moving dining room chairs over to the tree and Derek jogs over to help her, a smile on his face. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile as much in the past three years as I have since we got to Angel Mountain.
I carefully unpack the angel from her display box.Her halo has a slot for a light, so if we tuck one of the tree lights in it she’ll glow.
We all climb up and I take a picture with my phone when J.B. places the angel on the top of the tree.
“My turn,” she says, grabbing my phone. “Get closer.”
I lean in.
“Closer, I said,” she tells me, laughing.
Derek wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me near, and J.B. leans back so that her head is between ours.
She takes about a million selfies, until we’re all laughing, and then hands me back my phone.
Now that the tree is finished, it really does look amazing. We all straighten up the living room together, flattening the cardboard boxes from the ornaments and gathering up the teacups, and then it’s time for bed.
“Good night,” Derek tells me quietly as I follow J.B. into our shared room.
