Page 54 of The Christmas Lodge
Before she could even ask, Derek smiled at her. “Can I help? I’m sure you still have a mountain of work to get the party ready.”
Lacy was touched and she squeezed his hand gratefully. “A million times, yes! I can use all the help I can get. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“Nicholas would be grateful to you for making sure his legacy lives on.”
Derek reached out and cupped her cheek with his free hand and she relished the feel of it.
“That’s probably true,” he admitted, “but I’m not doing it for him. I’m doing it for you.”
Lacy’s heart thumped hard at his simple words and she suddenly found that she couldn’t hold herself back any longer. Reaching for him, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, pouring all that was in her heart into a kiss.
* * *
Derek climbed out from beneath the bathroom sink and finished tightening the last bolt as Lacy watched. “Okay, go ahead and try turning the water on,” he said.
Lacy turned the knob and, to her relief, water gushed from the faucet. “It works!”
“Huzzah,” Derek joked.
Lacy grinned at him as he wiped his hands on a towel hanging from his belt loop. True to his word, Derek had spent the last several days helping her prepare for the party. They had worked through her massive to-do list, hanging wreaths and garlands, picking up load after load of red poinsettias, fixing the gas line for the enormous sitting room fireplace, and hanging what felt like a million twinkle lights. And then, of course, there had been the deep cleaning, talking to vendors, shoveling snow and, today, fixing the plumbing in both of the upstairs bathrooms to make sure they were usable for all of the guests.
To her surprise, far from feeling like work, the days had sped by as the two had completed the tasks side by side, joking and talking the entire time. And, she had found, all of the drive she usually poured into her investment work back in St. Louis had found a beautiful home in preparing for the party with Derek. She had always liked to keep busy and accomplish goals, and those needs had been beautifully fulfilled through restoring the mansion. It had come as something of a surprise to her, especially since she had been so loth to come to Snowy Pine Ridge in the first place. The mansion’s restoration had felt like a burden, but through the process of working on it, she had discovered that she didn’t need the bustle of the big city to feel like she had a sense of purpose.
A knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts. “That’s probably Mr. Winston,” Derek said. “I’ll go talk to him.”
Lacy nodded gratefully. Mr. Winston, an elderly man from town, had approached them to offer his services as a Santa for the children during the party. He would take pictures and let the children tell him what they wanted for Christmas. And he wasn’t the only one—various folks from town had stopped by, offering to serve as vendors for the food or as musicians to provide live music. She had been overwhelmed by such generosity as it had been the last thing she’d expected. Something like that, she had known all too well, would have been highly unlikely back home.
She left the bathroom, walking to the top of the stairs and waving down at Mr. Winston. She paused for a moment before descending the steps, watching Derek chat with the elderly man, her heart swelling. She realized with a jolt that she had spent so much of her life striving and working, all in search of something to fill the void within her. Now, as she watched Derek, her heart swelled and she had the sudden feeling that she just may have found exactly what she’d been looking for all along. The realization took her breath away, and she had to grab the banister for support. As she started walking down the steps, her mind swirled with one simple question: did she have the courage to hold onto what she had found?
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Derek paused outside Lacy’s door at the inn, taking a moment to straighten his tie and to pull in a deep breath. Tonight was the night of the Christmas party, the night that he and Lacy had worked countless hours to bring to fruition, and it was all coming to a head within the next two hours. He hoped that everything would run smoothly for Lacy—he knew how much this party meant to her, especially now that she understood the truth about who Nicholas Spielman really had been. Taking in one last deep breath, he knocked on her door.
A moment later, Lacy answered and, as she did so, absolutely stole the breath from his body. She wore an emerald green velvet gown that brought out the startling green of her eyes, her hair loosely curled over her shoulders. She was, in a word, stunning. It was all he could do to keep his jaw from dropping open at the sight of her.
“Do I look that bad?” she teased, pulling on her coat.
“N-no, it’s not—”
He broke off in some confusion, inwardly screaming at himself to gain control of his stammering tongue. Every part of him ached to beg her to stay in Snowy Pine Ridge, to ask her not to leave again, but he knew that was selfish.
Besides, tonight was about Lacy and honoring Nicholas’s legacy, not about his wishes. He refused to make it about himself, so he simply took a breath and said, “Wow. You look gorgeous.”
Lacy’s cheeks flushed a little at his praise, but in usual Lacy manner, she brushed off her embarrassment with a joke.
“Stoppp,” she said in an exaggerated drawl. “You’re just saying that because it’s true.”
Derek laughed aloud at that and stepped forward to pull her into his arms. “You’re a rogue and a scoundrel, Lacy Preston,” he murmured, lowering his head to drop a kiss to her lips.
“Guilty as charged,” she agreed cheerfully, before reaching up to bend his neck back down so she could kiss him one last time. “Come on, we’ve got a party to host.”
“At your service, madam.” Derek gave her a playful bow, extending his arm for her to take.
With a soft chuckle, Lacy tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and they walked down the steps to the foyer and then out into the cold night. He opened the door of the truck and lifted her into it, tucking her dress carefully around her feet before hurrying around to the driver’s side and starting the engine. They listened to Christmas music as they drove, holding hands and enjoying the quiet of the drive. Nicholas’s mansion appeared in the distance, glittering and twinkling with all of the twinkle lights lit up. Derek sucked in a breath at the sight of it.
“This is amazing. It looks like a dream, and we haven’t even gotten inside yet.”
