For the first time in years, Cale slept like a baby. Waking to find Quinn curled up next to him had brought him to tears, proving that the wonders of the night had not been a dream after all. He kissed her shoulders to awaken her just as the sun rose through the trees to spread the first early arms of light into the cabin, and she rolled into his open arms, urging him to love her into the new day. He had needed no encouragement.
"Cale." She spoke into his chest, where her head had fallen, her neck being too languid, refusing to hold up its weight.
"What, sweetheart?" he whispered into the cloud of auburn curls that rested just below his chin.
"I think we should get up." She tried to stir, as if to be the one to make the first move, but found she could not. Her bones, it would appear, had been stolen while she slept, making it difficult for her to rise.
"Why?"
"Because your sons will be up soon," she said. "We should not be lying here, wrapped in little more than each other."
"Ummm," Cale replied. "I take it that means you agree."
Forcing her body into action, she sat up and searched for her shirt and sweatpants amidst the rumpled blankets, which at some point had made their way from the sofa onto the floor. Finding her shirt, she pulled it over her head, then realizing he was watching her, asked, "What?"
"I can't believe you're here with me. After all these years of loving you, of missing you, I can't believe you're really here."
"Twelve years too late..." she said wryly.
"Better late than never," he told her. "It's a miracle."
"A Christmas miracle." She smiled.
"Not many people get the second chance that we've been given, Quinn," he said softly.
"Do you really think it could be the same?" Her fingertips played with the dark hairs on his chest.
"No," he told her. "Better. It will be much better."
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"What we should have done before"--he drew her down to kiss her mouth--"only this time, we don't need your parents' permission."
"'You want to elope?"
"Actually, I think maybe we could plan on something a little more elaborate than the sitting room of the local justice of the peace." He ran his hands slowly up and down her arms. "Maybe something with all the Hollisters in attendance."
Quinn let that sink in for a moment before asking, "You still want to marry me?"
"I never stopped wanting to marry you. Not for a day. I never loved anyone but you, Quinn. I don't want to lose you again."
She smiled and cradled his head against her chest "I never loved anyone but you, either. I thought I would die when--"
A crash from the back of the cabin jolted them both.
"Guess we'd better get moving," she sighed.
"Want to toss a coin to see who makes breakfast today?" he asked as he pulled on his sweatpants and stood up.
"Ah, would that be a choice between my perfect pancakes and your 'gloppy' eggs?"
"She's not back seventy-two hours and already she's making'fun of my cooking."
"Shall we ask your sons which they would prefer?" Quinn batted her eyelashes innocently.
"You do breakfast. I'll"--he paused as a second crash followed the first--"just see what the boys are doing."
"Quinn, why'd you sleep on the floor?" Evan stood by the kitchen door and pointed to the tangle of forgotten blankets in front of the fireplace.
Without turning around, Quinn replied from in front of the stove, "It was warmer by the fire."
"Good save," Cale murmured, reaching around her to grab a slice of buttered toast off the plate.
"What does that mean?" Eric plopped himself into one of the wooden chairs. " 'Good save'?"
"It means eat your breakfast." Cale buttered the pancakes on first one, then the other of his sons' plates.
"It looks like it's cleared up a lot." Quinn looked out the window and squinted, the sun playing off the snow nearly blinding her. "But the report on the radio warned of another storm."
"Gee, too bad," Cale deadpanned. "I guess you'll be stuck here for a while."
"I should call home." She looked at the clock. It was ten o'clock in the morning. "It's Christmas Eve, Cale. I have to be home for Christmas."
"I understand," he said without looking at her.
Quinn started to speak, then apparently thought better of it. She disappeared into the living room, and he could hear her voice, though he could not make out what she was saying. The thought of her leaving made his hands shake and his head pound, so fearful was he of losing her again. The hole he had carried around inside him for the past twelve years, the one that had only so recently begun to mend, began to open again. Stitch by painful stitch.
"My brother Trevor is going to drive up on the tractor," she told him happily as she sat at the table and sipped at her coffee.
"Is he going to take you away?" Evan asked.
"He's going to plow a road so that I can drive down the mountain to our ranch."
"You're going to leave?" Eric's bottom lip began to quiver unexpectedly.
"Well, actually, I thought I'd take you all with me." She looked into Cale's eyes. Under the table, her foot, soft in its wool sock, followed the length of his leg to his knee and back again. "Since there is another big storm coming. And since my mother is all prepared for the holiday." She turned to the boys and added, "And since your Aunt Val is already there with perhaps something special for her two favorite boys."