Page 15 of Coming Home

When he started toward her, she held up a hand. “OK. OK. I’ll talk.”

He cocked one eyebrow upward and fold his arms across his bare chest.

“The Christmas after we met, I spent in the hospital with my brother. The next Christmas was spent in Houston fighting your cancer. But you still insisted on doing a big Christmas. You were practically dying, and you still dragged me to three or four parties. This year I was just hoping to have a nice quiet Christmas with you. That’s all.”

He stood in front of her now and cupped her cheek. “See, that wasn’t dumb at all. Should we not go to Solitaire?”

“What? No, of course we should go. I miss everyone there. Christmas isn’t until the Tuesday after the party, anyway.”

“I tell you what, we’ll head for Colorado as soon as we both finish with our parties on Thursday night and we’ll fly home on Sunday morning. I’ll take Monday and Tuesday off work and we’ll just stay home all day and enjoy each other.”

“That sounds perfect. Thank you.”

“I hope you don’t mind, I invited Tamara to join us for the flight to Colorado. She needs to get out of town for a few days while her… situation is being handled.

It was Emily’s turn to cock one eyebrow. “How are you handling it?”

David laughed. “No need to look so worried, lover. I didn’t hire a hit man or anything. Now get dressed, we’re going to go hunting for the perfect tree topper and then we’ll get dinner.”

8

“David, I liked the last three we bought. Do we really have to look for another one?” Emily whined as he gripped her hand and pulled her into another holiday store.

“Just humor me, my love. Do you know how many Christmas trees I missed out on?”

Emily giggled. “I caught the housekeeper setting another one up in your home office. That makes at least six that are in the house, and I know you’ve put up a dozen at your office.”

David gave her a sheepish grin. “What? I like Christmas. But this one is special. It’s our tree. I want the topper to be perfect and you didn’t seem very enthused about any of the ones we already have.”

David had a feeling Emily would never be as enthused about Christmas as was but he still planned to spoil her and encourage as much Christmas spirit as possible.

“One more and then we’re going to eat. I was promised dinner.”

David gave her hand a squeeze as they approached an aisle of Christmas tree decorations.

“You don’t seem to be a fan of traditional angels or stars. What would make you happy?” he asked as he picked up an orb shaped tree topper that sparkled in the light with silver and white gems.

“That one’s OK. Seems a little too disco ball, but I like the shape.”

He set the decoration back on the shelf and bent to pick up another that caught his eye.

“This one?” he asked with a grin.

When she smacked his arm and huffed David laughed and set the green Grinch one back.

“David. I’m not a Grinch, I’m just not as enthusiastic as you are about the holidays. There’s still a week until Christmas, I’ll get there.”

David wrapped an arm around her and kissed her temple. “I know. I’m just teasing you, baby. Let’s keep looking.”

They browsed the small boutique until Emily found a unique topper in the shape of a bunch of candy canes.

“Tristan couldn’t eat them, but he always wanted candy canes on the tree.”

David’s heart clenched as she spoke of her brother who had died just a few months after he met her.

“It’s perfect,” he said, taking the ornament from her. “Let’s go get dinner.”

They paid for the topper and David added it to the other three they had purchased. “We’ll take the others to Solitaire with us for their decorating party. Everyone is supposed to bring some decorations from home to contribute, anyway.”

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