Page 47 of Sweet Christmas Comeback
At first, it was so faint she thought she was imagining it, a phantom sound from a memory of a starlit sleigh ride.
“Four!”
It was a clear, bright ringing. A cascade of metallic notes cutting through the noise of the crowd.
“Three!”
It was getting louder. Closer. The rhythmic, unmistakable sound of sleigh bells.
Jade’s head snapped up.
Heads in the crowd were turning. A murmur rippled through the square, starting at the edges and moving inward. People were stepping aside, their faces shifting from confusion to surprise to outright delight. A path was opening up, a natural aisle forming in the sea of bundled bodies.
And through that aisle, like something out of a Christmas card come to life, came not one sleigh, but two.
“Two!” the mayor shouted, completely oblivious to the drama unfolding behind him.
Leading the procession was Leo’s main sleigh, pulled by Comet and Vixen, their heads held high, their breath pluming in the cold air. They were decked out in their full, magnificentregalia—gleaming leather harnesses and strings of polished brass bells that caught the light like captured stars.
Behind them came a second, smaller sleigh pulled by Dasher and Maple, with Brice at the reins. His presence was a surprise, but Jade barely registered it. Her entire focus was on the man driving the lead sleigh.
Leo wasn’t in his usual work jacket and worn jeans. He was wearing a heavy, dark wool coat that made his shoulders look even broader, and he moved with a quiet, focused gravity that commanded the space around him. His face was set, his jaw tight with determination, but his eyes—his eyes were fixed on one point in the entire, crowded square.
They were fixed on her.
The world seemed to go into slow motion. He guided the reindeer toward her, the sleigh gliding smoothly over the packed snow, the bells their only soundtrack. He didn’t look at the mayor. He didn’t look at the gaping onlookers. He drove straight through the heart of the town’s biggest celebration as if it were just an obstacle between him and her.
He stopped the sleigh just a few feet from her table. The sudden silence in their little pocket of the world was absolute. Everyone was holding their breath.
Jade couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, a frantic, terrified, hopeful drumbeat.
He secured the reins and stepped down from the sleigh, walking the last few steps until he was standing right in front of her, the folding table the only thing between them. The scent of cold air, pine, and him filled her senses. He looked down at her, and the cold, angry facade he had worn in their last encounter was gone. In its place was a raw, aching vulnerability that mirrored her own.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low and rough, meant only for her. The sound vibrated right through her, shaking loose all the ice and despair. “I was a coward. And a jerk.”
She opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what—but no words came out.
“I should never have let you think you were in this alone,” he continued, his gaze intense, unwavering. He was confessing, not explaining. “I should have been here from the beginning.”
A single hot tear she hadn’t even realized was forming escaped and slid down her cheek. That was it. That was all she had needed to hear. It wasn’t a solution to her problems. It wasn’t a business plan. But it was everything.
“One!” the mayor roared from the stage.
At that exact instant, the world erupted. The massive Christmas tree in the center of the square exploded in a blinding, brilliant cascade of light—thousands of white, red, and gold bulbs illuminating the falling snow, the astonished faces of the crowd, and the tears on Jade’s cheeks.
A collective gasp was followed by a massive, joyful cheer.
But Jade barely heard it.
Because in the same instant the tree lit up, Leo reached across the table, his hands framing her face, his thumbs gently wiping away her tears. He leaned in, closing the last bit of distance between them. And he kissed her.
It wasn’t a tentative, questioning kiss like the one they had almost shared in the sleigh. This was a kiss of absolute certainty. It was a declaration. It was staking a claim. It was warm and firm and tasted faintly of peppermint and apologies and the impossible, breathtaking promise of coming home.
Her hands came up to grip the front of his coat, holding on as if her life depended on it. The flimsy folding table between them might as well have been a universe away. The crowd, the cocoa, the failing festival—it all faded into a blurry, brilliant backdrop.
The town’s cheer, which had started for the tree, seamlessly shifted its focus. It swelled and grew, becoming a roar of approval, punctuated by whistles and laughter. They weren’t cheering for a tree anymore. They were cheering for them.
Jade finally broke the kiss, gasping for air, her forehead resting against his. She was laughing and crying at the same time, a messy, glorious, beautiful disaster. The lights of the tree danced in his eyes, and she saw her own reflection there, no longer a failure, no longer alone.
