Page 38 of Sweet Christmas Wish
Derek cupped her chin, lifting it toward him, and waited until she opened her eyes. “Lacy Preston, I meant what I said. You are the love of my life.”
Lacy melted into his arms, tipping her head back and reaching up with one hand to lower his lips to hers so that she could press the sweetest of kisses to his mouth. Derek’s heart flipped over in his chest at her gentle touch and he returned her soft kiss. When they finally broke apart, Derek couldn’t stop himself from grinning like a schoolboy with a crush. Lacy just had that kind of effect on him, and it was exactly why he knew he was making the right decision by proposing to her. When it came to a woman like Lacy Preston, forever was the only option.
The smell of the baking cookies filled the kitchen, all mouth-watering and cozy. Derek was looking forward to the cookies, but, as he looked out the kitchen window, he saw that the sun was on its path toward the horizon, giving him maybe an hour before it set. The cookies would have to wait.
“Babe, I’m going to have to run, but I’ll be back later to sample the cookies. Don’t eat them all, okay?”
Lacy, who had begun scooping out more cookies for the next tray to go in the oven, looked up at him with a question in her eyes. “Where are you going?”
“I just have some errands to run. Nothing too exciting.”
“Okay. I’ll try to save you at least one cookie.”
Derek laughed. “That recipe makes like two dozen cookies!”
Lacy reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “And like I said, I’ll do my best to make sure there’s still one cookie waiting for you.”
“Is this a ‘never get between a woman and her chocolate’ moment?”
“Oooh, he’s a fast learner,” Lacy teased, swatting him on the butt. “Now, get out of here before it gets dark.”
“One more kiss for the road?”
Lacy stepped toward him. “Derek Morse, you are incorrigible.”
“Guilty,” he replied with a grin, before Lacy wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him another sweet kiss.
A few moments later, Derek stepped away, reaching for his coat and gloves. He bundled them on just as the first batch of cookies came out of the oven, looking like absolute perfection. He complimented Lacy, then let himself out of the back door of the mansion. Rather than taking his truck, he decided to walk toward his destination to give himself more time to think and prepare—and he needed to think and prepare. Derek had taken Emma’s advice to heart, and he’d been carefully considering what steps he could take to make the proposal meaningful for Lacy. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about what he would say and how he would ask her, running through what felt like a thousand different options. And he’d picked out a ring already—a nerve wracking venture—that he hoped would be the perfect ring to show Lacy just how much he loved her.
Derek’s “errands” was actually just one stop, and it was an important step on the road to marrying Lacy. Since Lacy didn’t have any living relatives to ask for a blessing, Derek had decided to visit Nicholas’s gravesite and ask Nicholas instead. He knew the gesture was purely symbolic, but it felt right in his soul and he had hope that some way, somehow, Nicholas’s spirit would hear his words and give his blessing to the union.
After a few minutes of walking, Derek came to the stone wall that separated the cemetery from the stone church standing next to it. Pushing open the old iron gate, he stepped onto the cemetery path. Someone had kept it shoveled, making it easier to walk. The path was lit by a few lampposts, which cast a warm, reverent air over the scene. Derek slowed his steps instinctively, feeling that he was walking on sacred ground. A lone elderly woman bent beside a gravestone and laid down a bouquet of red roses. Derek nodded to her when they made eye contact, and she bent her head, a shimmer of tears in her tired eyes.
His heart aching for her, Derek made his way down the winding path, taking his time as he angled his steps toward Nicholas Spielman’s gravestone. How well he remembered the funeral—nearly the entire town had gathered to commemorate Nicholas’s life and mourn for his passing. The church had been full to the rafters, and there had still been townspeople who’d had to wait outside to pay their respects. It had done Derek’s heart good to see Nicholas honored in such a telling way, and he’d thought about Nicholas’s life of generosity and warmth as they had all proceeded to the cemetery for the burial.
Now, he walked the same path alone, but he didn’t mind. It gave him a chance to think about Nicholas’s life without any distractions. The man had been a surrogate grandfather to him—like he had for so many others—and Derek wondered for the first time if he had been trying to make up for the fact that he couldn’t be a grandfather to Lacy. The thought made his heart twist a little with pain for the both of them.
Derek came to a stop in front of Nicholas’s gravestone. Quietly, he reached out with his gloved hand and brushed off the snow that had accumulated on top before squatting down in front of the stone. He reached out and held onto the top of the stone for balance, suddenly wishing that he’d thought to bring flowers.
It’s okay,he told himself,Nicholas would understand.
His heart calmed, and he knew that Nicholas really would have understood. If Nicholas were still alive, the elderly man would have been nothing but warmth and kindness. There was no reason to be nervous.
“Nicholas, it’s been too long since we’ve talked,” he said softly, his heart still aching a bit, but now simply because he missed his surrogate grandfather so much. “I wish you were still here with me.”
Then, not minding the snow covering the ground, Derek lowered himself and sat cross-legged in front of the gravestone so that it felt like they were sitting together and just talking.
“You probably know this already, but I thought I’d tell you anyway—I’m going to ask your granddaughter to marry me, and I’d like your blessing.”
Derek paused, letting the words hang in the cold air for a moment. The gravestone was silent.
“I wish you could’ve met her when you were still alive, Nicholas,” he continued, then smiled crookedly. “She’s really special, Nick. Really, really special.” Derek shifted a little on the ground as the cold seeped into him, but he didn’t get up. “I know it was your dearest wish to get to know her, but I want you to know that she knows the truth now. She knows you didn’t abandon her, and she knows you never stopped loving her.”
Derek laughed softly then. “I wish you could see what she’s done to the mansion. It’s gorgeous now. I swear, she put her heart and soul into the renovations and she’s making you proud. She named it St. Nick’s Place after you, you know.”
Derek sat for a moment in silence, letting the quiet of the cemetery envelop them both. When he finally spoke again, he kept his voice low and intimate, just for the two of them.
“I know you wish you could’ve had time with her, but I promise you I'm going to look after her and take care of her. All I want is to make sure that she knows she’s loved. I promise to devote the rest of my life to making Lacy happy, to loving her truly and deeply.”
