Page 45 of Home For Christmas

His hand paused for a moment before a smile spread across his face. “Love you too.”

“We’re opening presents after dinner, right?” Jack asked.

Marla raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think there’s gifts?”

Jack looked between his uncles and dad, then back to Marla. “Daddy says there’s always gifts on Christmas Eve.”

Marla kept an impressively neutral expression for a long few seconds. When it was clear Jack and Carter were getting nervous, she finally broke a smile. “One gift. And Nana chooses.”

The brothers shared a knowing smile, and I could almost see Derek, Ty, and Jasper reflected in the kids around the table. I couldn’t imagine this family with only five members. Two tables and earsplitting noise levels were normal and expected. I couldn’t deny I was a little excited to see what the tree looked like in the morning.

With the promise of gifts, dinner finished quickly. That time when we offered to help, Marla happily accepted it, and within twenty minutes, we were sitting down near the tree. Harrison, Jasper, and I took the love seat farthest from the tree. The seat was big enough that we could have squeezed in, but instead, Harrison and I stretched out and I pulled Jasper down so he was draped across the two of us. He let out a little squeak of surprise but quickly settled into a comfortable position so that we could watch the excitement around us.

Meadow and Mason were already yawning and rubbing their eyes, still too young to hide being tired. Carter was trying but failing to hide his own exhaustion. Dinner had taken longer than I’d expected to be ready, and no amount of Christmas Eve excitement or knowing that Santa would be making a trip to the house soon was going to keep these kids awake much longer.

“It’s fun to watch them,” Jasper murmured as wrapping paper began flying.

“I swear it was just last year that Emma and Nate were like this, but it’s been over a decade now since we had chaos. And to be clear, it was never like this.” I gestured around the room.

Jasper looked around like he was taking the chaos in for the first time. “It was like this when we were little.”

Harrison snorted a laugh. “It really was. Between Derek and me, and Ty and Dec, it was chaos. There were a few years I remember you being in the fray too.” He squeezed Jasper’s calf playfully.

Jasper didn’t even try to deny it. “You guys made it hard to not get excited. It was contagious.”

The kids squealed with delight as Christmas pajamas and slippers fell out of wrapping paper. The pajamas looked almost identical except that the girls’ were red and the boys’ were green. Meadow and Mason had sleepers while the other kids had two-piece pajamas. As they cheered and hurried to try to get themselves dressed—comical with the younger ones—Marla knelt by the tree and returned with another large stack of gifts. That time she skipped the kids and headed directly toward us, handing a large box to each of us on the couch. Next, she went to Derek and Colt, then Ty and Declan and did the same thing.

I turned the gift over in my hands a few times, surprised to read my name on the package. Jasper and Harrison grinned like kids as they began tearing into their boxes. “I hadn’t expected my own gift,” I whispered.

Jasper looked at me in confusion. “I told you she gets us something every year.” He ran his finger along the seam of the wrap, separating the tape from the paper. “Of course she got you something.”

Harrison flipped over the box and tore the gift wrap off with a flourish. “I don’t know why I’m so excited—I know exactly what this is.” Despite his words, his body was practically vibrating.

Wrapping paper went flying from both sides of me. A quick look around and I found Derek, Ty, Colt, and Declan working gift wrap open as well, so I found a seam and began to work the wrapping open on my own gift.

“Ma!” Ty gasped but it was good-natured, and I looked up to see him holding a cotton nightshirt. It matched everyone else’s but was clearly made for a woman. While not sexy, it was just feminine enough that I knew I’d be seeing Ty prancing around in the snowflake pajamas for the next few days. His cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink. He was careful not to take the entire thing out of the box, but he’d lifted it high enough that most of us in the room knew what it was. Declan’s was the two-piece shirt and pants set that matched.

Derek started to laugh a belly laugh that had the entire room looking over at him. “Where on earth did you find these?” He proudly held up the footed pajamas that looked like Mason’s, but instead of reindeer, his had little elves dancing around on them, the same pattern as Colt’s.

Brice rolled his eyes playfully, and Marla brushed it off so casually it sounded innocent and logical. “You always complain that you’re cold. Being here in the snow, I knew these would help.”

Derek grinned widely. “Thanks, Mom.”

Brice huffed. “Wait, why do I not get any credit for this?”

Jasper let out an honest giggle at the question. “Can you seriously tell us you had a hand in this?”

Harrison and Jasper pulled their pajamas out of their boxes at the same time. The shirts had three snowmen on the front, and as I unfolded mine, I noticed that mine did as well. “Fitting. Thank you.”

Marla grinned. “You boys are going to look adorable in the morning!”

I looked over at my men. “We’re expected to wear these?” They looked like they would leave nothing to the imagination.

Harrison patted my arm. “Tight undies, hun, tight undies.”

Chapter 4

Jasper

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