Page 39 of The Christmas Reunion

The line between Noah’s brows softened, and he reached up and placed a hand on Mindy’s arm, giving it a soft squeeze.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “That… that means a lot, Min.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he turned and led her back toward the staircase and down to the first floor.

Mindy followed after him, finding Gus playing with a ball of paper in the living room. She laughed at the pup, picking him up and cradling him to her chest as Noah chuckled. And all the while, she could still feel a tingling warmth in her arm from where Noah had touched her.

* * *

Valerie reached forward, pulling open the door to the ice rink with a huff of effort before stepping into the space. Her gaze instantly landed on Shelley, who was skating happily in the center of the ice rink.

She waved at her friend as she passed, making her way toward where Rudolph stood behind the concession counter, taking inventory of the snacks. She must have made some kind of noise as she approached, because the white-haired older man turned to face her, and a grin lit up his face.

“Hey there, kid,” he said, his gruff voice filled with affection as he looked at her.

He was still mostly the grouchy old man whom she’d met when she’d come to Snowy Pine Ridge over a year ago. But there was no denying that he’d softened toward her, and to everyone in general, since Valerie’s appearance in his life.

She thought for a split second about how much time Rudolph spent alone. She knew that he was busy with the rink, and she was also certain that if she even hinted at fixing him up with someone, he would immediately shut her down. But she couldn’t stifle the desire to see him happy and content, with a special lady to spend his free time with.

Valerie filed that thought away for later, reminding herself that fixing her surrogate father up was not why she’d come to the rink today.

“Hi, Rudolph. I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said, leaning her elbows on the counter.

“You don’t have to give me a whole preamble,” he grunted good-naturedly, and Valerie chuckled. “Get on with it.”

“Fine,” she said, giving him a slight roll of her eyes, which made him grin. “I’ll get on with it. I came to ask you to walk me down the aisle.”

Rudolph’s hand stopped moving on the clipboard he’d been writing on, his whole body going rigid as he turned to face her. She stared at his deeply lined face, noticing the way his blue eyes gleamed as studied her.

“You… what?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

“I want you to walk me down the aisle,” Valerie repeated, saying each word slowly and deliberately as Rudolph’s smile grew. “If you’re willing. You’re the closest thing to a father I have, and it would mean so much to me.”

Instead of speaking right away, he set his clipboard down on the counter and walked around to the other side of it. He extended his arms out to her and pulled her into an almost bone-crushing hug.

“It would be an honor,” he said, his gruff voice cracking as he spoke.

She could feel his shoulders shaking as he embraced her, and she squeezed him back. Rudolph might be an old curmudgeon, but when he loved, he loved hard. And she was so incredibly thankful to have him in her life.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You’ve already made my wedding day just a little bit better. I can’t wait.”

They stepped out of each other’s embrace and spent several minutes talking about a few details of the rapidly approaching wedding day. Once they’d hammered out a few plans and she had filled the older man in on what they had decided on so far, she left Rudolph to get back to work, striding out of the rink with a wave goodbye to Shelley.

As she stepped back outside into the cold, bright day, Valerie smiled widely.

In just a few short weeks, she would be Mrs. Clark Mitchell. She couldn’t wait.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

Mindy waved goodbye as her final customer of the day made his way out the door. She paused and watched him walk away, noting that the tree in front of the bakery was bending pretty badly in the wind. There wasn’t a snowstorm expected that day, but it had gotten a bit windy again, strong gusts blowing things about.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, shooting off a text to Noah. She let him know that she was starting to close everything up and then would be on her way so that they could go forward with their plans for that night. She smiled when he texted her back immediately, telling her he was looking forward to it.

It would be an understatement to say that Mindy had been skeptical when Noah had first shown up in Snowy Pine Ridge. But after spending so much time with him over the past days, she honestly felt like this holiday season was shaping up to be one of her favorites yet.

She didn’t want to analyze too closely why that might be, because she knew that eventually, she would come to the conclusion that it had a lot to do with Noah. But she couldn’t deny the fact that she was ridiculously, deliriously happy.

Mindy was walking through the empty bakery, humming lightly to herself as she stacked the chairs on top of the tables for the evening, when a resounding crash from up at the front of the shop made her jump.

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