Page 82 of A Very Naughty Christmas

“She’s a female, darlin’. She just needed a good man in her life.”

Dixie stopped dead in her retreating tracks and gaped at him. “I can’t believe you said that. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteen fifties. You sound like your grandmother.”

“I’m here. You’re happy. Was she wrong?”

She smacked her forehead as he chuckled. He also motioned toward the hallway.

“You need to hurry, baby. Dinner is at eight.”

Her head twisted to the clock. It was nearly six-thirty and they had yet to tackle the mountain.

“Great heavenly day,” she cried as she bolted for the bathroom.

* * *

An hour later, Dixie entered the brightly lit Goodwin mansion for the first time, and did so clutching tightly to Kyle’s steady arm. Their hostess was waiting with her arm curled around a beautiful blue-eyed, sandy-haired, middle-aged woman, who could only be Caroline Prescott, her daughter and Kyle’s mother. Behind the two was a tall, handsome, fifty-something man, judging by the silver threads in his hair, who was an older version of Kyle, except for his mother’s coloring. His strong, fit physique was much like his son’s, and boded well for what Dixie could expect Kyle to look like twenty years in the future. Not bad, not bad at all.

Surrounding his parents and the happily beaming family matriarch was a crowd of new faces all smiling in greeting, many looking out at her with what had to be a dominant gene trait in this striking bunch—primrose blue eyes.

Offering a tentative smile as Kyle guided her forward, Dixie clasped Emmaline’s outstretched hands and leaned down to brush her cheek with her own.

“Welcome to our home, my dear, dear friend,” the old woman whispered earnestly. “I hope this is the first of many shared Christmases to come.”

Unable to speak with the lump of emotion in her throat, she nodded, blinking rapidly to keep from weeping like a leaky sieve.

“Don’t start that now,” Emmaline warned, her hand coming up to pat Dixie’s face affectionately. “Or you’ll have to repair your makeup again.” The woman winked knowingly, having placed an emphasis on the last word.

Dixie inhaled sharply. The sly old bird never ceased to amaze her.

“Nana, behave,” Kyle scolded gently, his voice low as he also bent, but instead of abrushing her cheek, he kissed it lightly. “If you embarrass her, I’ll have to repeat the magic I worked to keep her from bailing on us in the first place.”

“My Dixie has a warm heart, not cold feet. I won’t believe it.”

Her face flushed. “Unfortunately, it’s true. My toes were like ice cubes until Kyle thawed them out, among other things,” she admitted baldly.

Miss Emmaline’s tinkling laugh was one of pure joy. “Ah, now there’s the sassy young woman who captivated this old woman’s heart. You remind me of me at your age, dear. I’ve told you that. And my grandson here is the spitting image of my Harvey.” She nodded behind Dixie, who turned and saw the portrait of a redhead standing beside Kyle.

Her jaw dropped. It was as if he had posed for it last week.

Upon closer inspection, she noticed the subtle differences. The young man’s hair was a shade darker with more of a wave, the hairstyle something from a time long past, as was his vintage suit and thin tie. When she focused on the pretty young woman with the quintessential forties up-do, the stunning blue of her eyes was unmistakable. She realized it was Emmaline and her husband, Harvey, with the bride in a pretty white tea dress, glimmering with delicate beading. It was clearly their wedding day, perhaps an evening ceremony.

They stood in the wide doorway to a room with a roaring fire and a huge Christmas tree, and above them hung a glistening mistletoe ball that appeared to be showering the couple in a shimmering, mystical aura. It could have been a trick of the light, or a special technique the artist had used, yet to Dixie, the magic was tangible, as was the love between the two of them.

She turned to remark on that very fact, except Miss Emmaline had already gone inside the front parlor on her daughter and son-in-law’s arms, the rest of the family following. And until that moment, she hadn’t noticed that the doorway through which they’d entered was the same as in the portrait and that a very similar mistletoe ball dangled overhead.

“She knew all along this moment would come,” she breathed as she glanced up at the tall, handsome man beside her.

“It appears so.”

Her eyes shifted to the portrait, then back to the mistletoe. She moved closer. “It’s uncanny, the similarities.”

“I’ve been in this house thousands of times, and passed my grandparents’ image nearly as often, yet I never really saw it until now.” With his gaze fixed upon it, a soft expression that she could only describe as awe appeared on his face.

“I always knew she was special, Kyle, but this…”

“She has that way about her.”

“For me, she’s been more like family than most of my own. I love her to death.”

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