Kitty woke and stretched. It was Christmas Eve, and the bright sun, missing for the past few days, streamed inside the bedroom window.

The day before Christmas held so much promise. The glitter of the holiday was just within reach, but the surprises hadn’t yet been laid bare. Except this year, there was no tree. No presents.

No Logan beside her. His side of the bed was cold, meaning he’d slipped out without her noticing.

She curled on her side and hugged his pillow to her. Replayed the night before. Remembering falling all the way in love with him. Damn it. The last thing she had expected was to get her heart broken before the New Year.

“Don’t you dare cry, Katherine Jane Dobbs,” she scolded. “Don’t you dare. You knew what you were in for when you launched yourself into his arms that first night. Get up, pull on your big girl thong, and face the day. It’s Christmas Eve, for fuck’s sake.”

Buoyed by her own advice, she bounced out of bed and took a quick, hot bath, her mind working furiously to understand.

To cope.

She could have sworn she felt love from him the night before. For that matter, from their first, fairly innocent kiss, all the way to him spooning her last night, she’d only ever felt love in his touch.

But she had no illusion that he recognized it. No doubt he was outside somewhere, beating a path to her car, praying for snowplows to speed her on her way, now that the snow had stopped and the sun shone.

Water drained out of the tub and as she dried off, she realized she had just until the snowplows arrived to figure out what the hell to do with her love for him. There was more between them than sex.

She got to her suitcase and hesitated. Dress down? Or dress as she had originally planned for today?

Fuck it. She loved Christmas. Her white, v-neck sweater with the candy canes. Santa hat, perched on her head. Jeans, and her Christmas tree socks. After a moment of hesitation, she clasped the necklace he’d made her around her neck, fingered the sparkles. Perfect. He could play Grinch all he wanted, but she?

She was going to celebrate if it killed them both.

The rest of the cabin was warm, but empty. The fire had burned low, and the coffee pot had little left in it. Considering it was barely eight in the morning, she figured he’d woken up way before dawn to chug that much.

On a hunch, she went to the mudroom and opened the back door.

The path was clear between the two buildings. She could hear the plop of wet snow falling from the trees. Smoke rose lazily from the workshop chimney, and she grinned. He was there. She closed the door and went back through the mudroom.

The kitchen was spotless, which told her he hadn’t made himself anything to eat. So, breakfast and coffee, because she was starving.

Bacon, scrambled eggs. Spinach and some crusty sourdough bread. She checked the clock on the stove, realized he should be here any minute to eat, if he held to the schedule they’d kept so far.

Kitty assembled the breakfast sandwiches and poured herself a cup of coffee. Sat down at the island. Twenty minutes passed, and he didn’t show, so she shrugged and ate.

She wrapped his up in plastic wrap and left it on the counter. He could eat when he came in. She’d get to some cleaning today, stay out of his hair. Maybe he had a change to Mrs. H’s necklace, or something?

Whatever.

Jingle bells, jingle bells…Kitty sang Christmas songs while she cleaned the bathroom, changed the sheets on the bed and stuffed the dirty ones in the wash. After all, if she were leaving today, he’d want clean sheets.

If she were leaving today…pain wrapped a fist around her heart and squeezed. Dashing through the snow…on a hunch, she went to the front door and opened it, shivered at the blast of frigid air.

To her relief, the snow came up to her chest, higher than a couple of days ago. Her car was buried out there in the driveway. Most likely, she wasn’t going anywhere today, after all. If he’d been in that much of a hurry to get rid of her, he’d have the front porch cleared, wouldn’t he? Not only that, but the snowplow wouldn’t get up here for at least a few days.

Cabin fever descended on her, and she craved a walk. Restless, she went into her room, changed into her silk long johns, and donned her candy cane sweater again. In the mudroom, she put on her snowsuit, added her earmuffs and her Santa hat. On the back porch, she picked up the short snow shovel, and went back through the house to the front door.

“The only way out is through, right?” Taking the shovel, she started at the top and pushed it away from the door. The snow was lighter than she’d expected, and when she had the snow below her waist, she pushed her way out onto the porch, shutting the front door behind her.

The utter quiet of the morning soothed her. Bit by bit, she shoveled snow off the porch over the edge and straight down, until she managed to clear three square feet in front of the door. The stairs were also piled high, so she scraped at each stair, moving snow off until she could see it clearly, before attacking the next stair.

Look at her, beach bunny that she was, shoveling snow. Sad and pleased with herself, she leaned on the shovel for a moment and blinked back tears. In the brief time she’d been in Sherwood Creek, she’d come to love the town, love the seasons here. The camaraderie.

Her apartment worked as a temporary space. But now, after staying in Logan’s cabin, she knew what she wanted. What kind of life she wanted. If she couldn’t have it with Logan, well. She’d just find a cabin of her own, and keep looking for the right guy.

Kitty plopped down on the top step and lifted her face to the sunshine. She loved the ocean, loved the beach. But her heart was here, in the mountains. She scanned the view in front of her, and wondered just how deep the snow really was.

Setting the shovel aside, Kitty eased off the porch steps and, her heart racing, took her first deliberate step into a snow bank. How far could she go?

Logan stared at what he’d been driven to create in the depths of the night. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and gave it a final polish.

Hearing words of love out of her mouth, after she’d been shouting it with her body, had coalesced into a shimmering sort of panicky happiness inside his chest. He’d lain there with her for a few hours. Maybe he got some sleep.

But at three in the morning, he knew what he had to do. He’d left her side with reluctance, dressed, and made a pot of coffee.

In the workshop, he had checked the materials on hand. Drafted, and deleted, several design possibilities, until his favorite hymn came to mind. He dug into his safe; found the dainty silver holly leaves from a rejected project. Two small rubies and a larger diamond…insetting them into the silver took some fiddly work, but he loved the result.

He hummed. The holly and the ivy / when they are both full grown / of all the trees that are in the wood / the holly wears the crown.

Logan stretched and shrugged back into his snowsuit. It was time she learned the truth. If, after that, she hadn’t run screaming away from him, then maybe he could give her the gift he’d made.

He opened the workshop door and blinked in the bright sun. The path to the house had melted clean. The air was still cold, and little warmth came from the sun, but it looked like this storm had gone for good.

The plows should be through in a few days. Eagerness added a zip to his step. He needed to talk to Kitty. Tell her everything she should have known long before this. If he hadn’t been a coward, if he had stepped into her warmth a year ago, rather than run from it, their life would be so different now.

He reached the house and stomped inside, noted her snowsuit didn’t hang in the mudroom. He didn’t bother to take his off, and instead hurried to their room, afraid she’d already started packing.

But no. Her stuff was right where it always was, neatly arranged in her suitcase. As if she didn’t want to take up more space in his life than she already had.

His heart ached. She deserved better than a guy like him. But he loved her, and he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. He swung back out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where he found the egg sandwich. Fresh coffee scent filled the air.

Damn it, where was she?

On impulse, he strode to the living room, glanced out the picture window showing the driveway.

There, out in the middle of the otherwise untouched circular drive, lay a figure in a bright red snow suit and a Santa hat.

Dread filled him.

A roar burst out of his throat. He wrenched the front door open and raced down the slippery steps and followed her path through the deep snow to her, his roar preceding him.

He fell to his knees. “Kitty. Kitty, damn it. Wake up. Kitty!”

Her eyes flew open, startled, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “Kitty, tell me you’re okay. Please God, tell me you’re okay.” His voice broke on the last word, and she sat up, pulled him into her arms.

“Baby. I’m fine. Shh. I’m fine, my love. I’m fine.” She crooned to him, rocked him as the tears poured out of him. They sat there in the weak sunshine, in the middle of the snow, and held each other.

Logan sniffed and wiped the tears from his face. Kitty kissed him, wrinkled her nose.

“Salty.”

“Come on. Let’s get warmed up. I’ve got some things to say. It may take some time,” he warned as they got to their feet.

Kitty smiled, and the love in her eyes cracked the last of the ice around his heart. “I’ve got lots of time to listen.”

He waited until they took a quick hot shower and dressed. She wore her candy cane sweater, his necklace, jeans, and her Santa hat.

He dug out the only slightly Christmassy sweater he owned, a deep forest green. By the time he joined her in the living room, she had made cocoa and added more wood to the fire.

She curled up in the corner of the couch, her mug of cocoa in her hand, her curiosity clear. She patted the couch next to her.

“Please, sit.”

He took the opposite corner of the couch. Though he was fairly sure of her at this point, he needed the distance.

“Christmas Eve.” Logan shook his head. “Four years ago, Sela, my fiancée, committed suicide.” At Kitty’s startled gasp, he looked into his mug of cocoa. “She sent me out to get her prescription sunglasses. They were ready, but she’d forgot them. She…hadn’t been well.”

When he didn’t say anything more, Kitty shifted on the couch. “So how did the two of you know each other?”

“We grew up next door to each other. She was always my best friend’s irritating little sister, you know? Until one year I went back home to Ohio at Christmas, and there she was. Blonde, beautiful, enchanting. A little wicked, a little melancholy. It was so difficult to resist her, that in the end, I didn’t. We were engaged by Valentine’s Day. She moved out to be with me two months later.”

“Not the townhouse you have now. Right?”

“No. I owned a house on the mountain side of Sherwood Creek. The more expensive side, you know. She fell in love with it. We were madly in love, and with her moving in, it seemed like my life had finally turned a corner. Everything fit. Until it didn’t anymore.” He held her gaze, begged her to understand.

“She came to hate my passion. She never wore jewelry, you see. Said necklaces felt strangling, and bracelets felt too much like handcuffs. She wanted me to do something else, anything else. We argued about it a lot that first year.”

“Tell me.”

There was no judgment in her eyes. Just a simple understanding, and love. So much love.

Logan took a breath. “So, Christmas Eve. I’d always loved Christmas, but she hadn’t ever been much of a fan. She demanded I go get her sunglasses. As we’d been arguing over going to a friend’s house on Christmas Day, it seemed like getting out of the house and getting her glasses would give us a breather from each other. A good break.”

He shook his head. “I got back less than an hour later, and she was…she’d hung herself from the balcony overlooking the living room. Silk rope, bought online. Prior to that, she’d taken her anti-psychotic meds. All of them. And I didn’t even know she was on them.”

Kitty moved to his side and wiped his eyes with a tissue.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. This is stupid.”

“No, it’s not. You’re grieving. You have every right, baby.” She rubbed his back in slow circles, and he leaned into her warmth.

“I don’t remember much between that day and New Year’s Day. The police were in and out. Questions, scandal. But I had lived here for a decade by that time. The people here knew me, and they didn’t know Sela very well. From what I gathered later, not many people liked her. So once the coroner and the investigation all proved that she’d killed herself, not that I’d staged her death, everyone just stopped talking about it.”

“Oh baby. What a thing. What a thing to have happened.”

Her head on his shoulder gave him comfort. “Her parents didn’t blame me. They’d known she had mental issues, but no one ever told me. I sold the house. Bought the townhouse and the cabin, so I could get away from the memories. Wren was a great help to me during that time. But then she fell in love, got pregnant. And then you came into my life.”

“You saved me from a life of mediocrity, by hiring me.” She bumped his shoulder and he smiled.

“You were everything Sela wasn’t. Bright, happy. Kind, down to the bone. Your take on life was fresh and funny, and you were the most organized person I’d ever met in my life. Even if Wren hadn’t sung your praises, I’d have hired you for the hope I felt whenever I was in your presence.”

Kitty shifted away to kneel in front of him. “Logan, I get that we have a lot to talk about, and that I’m not going to know everything in the next five minutes about you and Sela that I will need to know going forward.”

“There’s a lot to tell,” he murmured. “I haven’t touched on my family.”

She took his hands and kissed them. “I know. And I’ll listen. But right now, my heart is hungry for you. I love you, with all my heart and soul. I want to lift you up and fix your billing system.”

He laughed, startled, and she grinned back at him.

“I want to be here for you. Make you sandwiches, and coffee. Wash your sheets and suck your cock. I have loved you since you kissed me under the mistletoe last year, but it wasn’t until these past few days that I realized just how deeply and irrevocably I am in love with you. I want forever with you. And maybe Christmas Eve is the wrong time to say it, but damn it, I’m through hiding. I love you. I want forever. And I’m going to hang around until you agree, damn the snowplows anyway.”

Logan sank to his knees in front of her. “Katherine Jane Dobbs, I love you. I’ve pretended not to love you for a year now, and I give up. I crave your warmth, intelligence, and pinup girl body. And you rock a Santa hat better than anyone I’ve ever met.”

She would have hugged him then, but he held up a hand.

“Wait.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out the small velvet bag. “This is whatever you want it to be.” He opened the bag and slid the ring he’d made on her left hand ring finger. “Engagement ring. Wedding ring. A ring to wear on a different hand. Up to you. Well? Do you like it?”

Kitty took a breath. “I’ve been looking at you.”

He smiled. “The ring, woman.”

They both looked down at it, and she gave a little gasp of delight.

“I had commissioned these holly leaves a few years ago for a project that ended up falling through. They were so small that I forgot I had them. But…holly leaves and berries seemed to be the perfect ring for my Christmas-loving girl. Does it please you?”

Tears stood in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around him, kissed him soundly. “You saved me.”

“Oh no, my beloved. You saved me from my own darkness. And for that, I will always be grateful.”

“Christmas Eve. And we’re, something.”

“Engaged, Kitty. We’re engaged.”

She smiled brilliantly. “Engaged. Yes. Therefore, we should celebrate.” She stood, stripped off her sweater, and the red bra she’d had on her first night there.

“There’s champagne in the fridge. Bring it to the bedroom, hm? Fresh, clean sheets. Champagne. And sex. Lots and lots of sex. Then dinner. How does that sound?”

He stood, swept her into his arms, crushing her to his chest. Took her mouth in a deep, and deeply satisfying, kiss.

“Perfect.”

“Race you!” Kitty darted away, her breasts bobbing.

Joy flooded him. Logan grinned and went to get the champagne.