Chapter Eight

 

 

Savannah slept in until nearly nine Saturday morning. She might have slept later, but Nessie and Nellie would have none of it. Between their need to go outside and being convinced they were starving to death, they were bound to get her out of bed one way or another.

Once the dogs were cared for, Savannah sat at the little kitchen table with a glass of orange juice and a Pop-Tart. It was rare to not be working at Sweet Hearts on a Saturday morning. That’s usually where she got her breakfast that day, so the Pop-Tart was a poor substitute. Still, it was better than nothing.

She let her mind wander over the events of the previous evening. Everything about it had been perfect. And that moment on the front porch when he brought her back? She sighed. She’d never wanted to kiss a guy—and not wanted to kiss a guy—so much at the same time in her life. When his lips had caressed her cheek, she’d been both relieved and disappointed.

It left her wondering whether he’d wanted to truly kiss her, too.

She popped the last bite of her breakfast in her mouth and groaned.

If someone had told her years ago that she’d one day wish Baxter Reid would kiss her, she never would’ve believed it. She wasn’t even sure she believed it now.

Savannah rolled her eyes at herself. It was probably just all the holiday cheer from last night. Baxter kissed her on the cheek because he thought he had to do something and wasn’t about to give her a proper kiss.

A decision she was fine with. She’d convinced herself of that for a whole five minutes until she found herself watching the clock and wondering when he’d get there to work on the back porch.

The quickening of her pulse told her just how much of a liar she was.

She spent some time on her laptop and tried to ignore the clock. She’d almost succeeded when there was a knock at the door. Half expecting it to be Mom, she opened it to find Baxter standing on the porch. It was the freshly cut pine tree he had balanced beside him that surprised her the most.

Her eyes widened. “What on earth?”

Baxter grinned. “I thought it was just plain sad that one of the biggest fans of Christmas I know is spending it in a house devoid of Christmas decorations.” He motioned to the tree with flair. “So I thought I’d remedy that. I brought a stand and decorations, too.”

He was every bit serious as he waited for her reaction with a dash of vulnerability. It was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her.

She held the screen door open wide and ushered him in. “By all means, let’s give this place some Christmas cheer.”

While Baxter brought in the tree stand and several boxes, Savannah found some Christmas music on her laptop and got it playing. Before long, they had the tree straightened. Baxter withdrew several strands of lights. “You strike me as a multi-color gal.” He plugged the first strand into the wall and yellow, blue, red, green, pink, and orange lights immediately came to life. “Am I wrong?”

Savannah shook her head. “No, you’re not wrong.” She reached out to finger some of the bulbs. They were already getting warm. “They’ve always been my favorite.”

“I thought that might be the case.” He winked and then wound the lights around the tree, which turned out to be taller and more full than she originally thought. It took two of the strands to cover the tree. When Baxter tucked the end into a branch, he stood back with satisfaction. “Yep, there we go. And we have an extra strand to put across the mantel or something if you want.”

“That’ll be great.”

He picked up another box and deposited it at her feet. “Here, you start on the decorations, and I’ll get this strand tacked up along the mantel for you.”

Savannah lifted the lid off the box and dug through a variety of Christmas ornaments. Many of them looked handmade. “Where did you get all of these?”

“My mom was always big into arts and crafts, and she was particularly inspired around Christmas. Most of those are ornaments I made at some point during my childhood. When I grew up and moved out, Mom and Dad gave them all to me. I can’t possibly fit them all on my own tree, so I thought I’d share.”

She tried to picture Baxter working on a pinecone reindeer or painting a wooden Santa ornament and just couldn’t quite do it. She hung both up on the tree along with several glittering stars and a small foil bell with a jingle bell in the center. The next thing she found had her fighting back the laughter. She finally held it up for Baxter to see. “Okay, explain this one.”

Baxter secured part of the lights before looking up. The moment he did, his ears grew red. He walked up to her and took the ornament. “Yeah, well. I was probably seven or eight. Mom wanted us to paint these wooden reindeer and then glue them to the platform. We then added snow and white glitter.”

Which had since fallen off, apparently. Savannah couldn’t contain her grin. “And these black beads underneath the reindeer?”

“Yeah. Well, even Santa’s reindeer have to poop sometime, right?”

Her laughter took over then.

He rubbed one of his ears that had only gotten more red as he joined her. “I don’t even know what to say. I think I did it just to get a rise out of Mom. But she kept it anyway.” He held the ornament in front of him with a shake of his head. “I forgot I still had it. Here, we’ll just toss it in the empty box for me to take back.”

“Oh, no, we won’t.” Savannah swiped the ornament from his hand. “It deserves a prominent spot on this tree, poop and all.” She hung it with a flourish. “There, see? It’ll make me think of you every time I see it.”

“Perfect,” he said, the word laced with sarcasm. “I’ll make a mental note to toss it when we take down the tree.”

“Don’t you dare.” She placed her hands on her hips. “One day, your little boy will do something similar, and you’ll wish you’d kept it to show him. Maybe making a reindeer poop in the snow will become a Reid family tradition.”

The look on his face slowly shifted to a more serious expression. It looked as though he were about to ask her something when he quickly diverted his attention back to the box. The smile on his face returned. “I’d better go through the rest of these and make sure nothing else embarrassing slipped through the cracks…”

 

~*~

 

Baxter didn’t know if Savannah would love his surprise the moment he thought of it the night before. Helping her decorate the living room and make it more Christmassy was a lot more fun than sanding and re-staining the back deck. Besides, he still had plenty of time to get that done before his grandparents returned.

He knew he’d enjoy decorating the tree, but he hadn’t expected the whole thing to feel so… domestic. He’d already been wondering what it would be like to decorate a house together one day. Their house.

Then she had to go and mention him having a son. And the first thing that went through his mind? That he would be “their son.” The thought had come from nowhere and made him realize just how quickly he was falling for Savannah. He’d liked her for as long as he could remember, but there’d always been a distance between them. Only lately had he understood how much of that was his responsibility.

Now she was opening up to him. Laughing with him. He loved every minute of it. He could easily see himself coming home to this every evening. The thought both terrified and intrigued him.

He quickly finished the lights across the mantel and then helped Savannah finish decorating the tree. He retrieved the last box. “Okay, so I was trying to think of a topper for the tree, and I didn’t have much luck until I found this.”

He pulled out an item wrapped in tissue paper. It was only partially unwrapped when he heard Savannah gasp.

“You actually kept that?”

He held the large golden star for her to see. “I did.”

It’d been one of the last Christmases he’d seen Savannah. He was thinking they were both fourteen. Grandma had wanted to do a gift exchange using a game. People drew numbers, got a gift that someone else brought, and could choose to keep it or exchange it for a different one.

He’d heard Savannah telling someone in the living room about how she’d found the star tree topper, repainted it, and then added some glitter to make it sparkle. The star was beautiful in its simplicity.

Savannah reached out and touched it. “You know, I was mortified when you traded your bag of Christmas M&Ms for that star. At the time, I thought you were the worst person to end up with it. I guess I just figured you went home and shot at it with your slingshot or something.”

“I thought about it.” He gave her a teasing wink. “Honestly, I thought you’d done a great job. My parents had just started talking about moving a couple of weeks before, and I decided I wanted to keep it to remember you by. Later they chose to wait until I’d graduated from high school.” He shrugged. “I bet you never would’ve guessed I was the sentimental type.”

“Not in a million years.”

“Of course, I wasn’t that way about everyone.” He gathered some hair that was framing her face and carefully tucked it behind one ear. “Only a particular girl that I kinda had a crush on back in the day.”

Her chin lifted, and she looked at him incredulously. “No way.”

“Obviously I wasn’t real good at showing it. Seeing as I somehow drove her to hate me.” He smiled at her and carefully placed the star on the top of the tree. “See, it looks perfect up there. Don’t you think?”

“It does look great.” She laid a hand on his arm, bringing his attention to her face. “I never hated you. Well, not really. I don’t hate you now.”

“I’m glad.” He covered her hand with his. It was weird how his heart rate had picked up like a racing train while his breathing had slowed. The way she was looking at him now was something he never wanted to forget.

“There’s one more thing I did in our youth that I should probably set right.” It was hard walking away from her long enough to go back to that box. He’d put this last thing in the bottom because he hadn’t been sure whether he’d take it out at all or not. “There was one Christmas where I was being a real jerk. I hung a piece of mistletoe above a doorframe. Do you remember that?”

Savannah’s cheeks immediately turned pink, and her eyes flashed. “I refused to walk under it, and so you pushed me until I did.”

Baxter winced. “Not one of my finest moments. I didn’t expect Joe to swoop in and kiss you.”

She stuck her tongue out and made a face. “Yeah, that was pretty awful. For the record, I wanted to smack you with something that day.”

“I would’ve deserved it.” He hesitated, his hand still on the item in the box. “I was an idiot, Savannah. Because I’d never been so jealous of anyone until that moment when Joe kissed you.”

Her mouth opened in surprise and closed again. Her eyes had widened as she stared at him, clearly unsure of what to say.

“So I thought it was only right to set the record straight.” He lifted a bunch of mistletoe out of the box and held it up in front of him. “I won’t push you to stand under it. And I checked the front door to make sure it was locked so Joe couldn’t come storming in.”

That last part had Savannah chuckling. She ran a hand down the side of her face before fiddling with the hem of her shirt. He liked that she seemed every bit as nervous as he felt right then.

He tied a small string to the mistletoe and hung it in the same doorway he had many years ago. “I don’t know if things would’ve been different between us if I’d been the one to kiss you back then. Maybe you would’ve hated me more.” He shrugged. “But I do know I was severely disappointed I didn’t kiss you that day.”

“I’d had no idea,” she said, just above a whisper.

Baxter held a hand out to her. “What do you say? Give this poor guy a chance to fix a past mistake?”

He waited, his heart hammering in his ears. When Savannah placed her hand in his, it took nearly everything he had to not whoop with joy. He guided them under the mistletoe together, cupped her cheek, and leaned in until his lips covered hers.

He’d had his fair share of kisses, but this was different. When she sighed and leaned into him, he put an arm around her and deepened their kiss. He wanted her to know he cared about her. That this was more than just a random kiss under the mistletoe. This was what he hoped was the start of something real between them.

When he broke the kiss, he placed another smaller one on her cheek and leaned back, his hand still threaded in her hair at the base of her neck. He gave her a small smile, enjoying the dazed look on her face.

A rustling sound drew both their attentions to the dogs, who were busy sticking their heads in that last box and rustling around in it. He and Savannah both laughed.

Baxter dropped his hand, their spell broken. “I’d better get that cleaned up. There are mistletoe leaves in there, and I don’t know if it’s okay for a dog to eat them.”

Together, he and Savannah put lids on the boxes and then he carried them back out to the car. When he reentered the house, he nodded approvingly at the way the tree and the lights above the mantel changed the entire feel of the room. “This looks a lot better now.”

Savannah reached out one hand and touched a bough on the tree. “It’s perfect. Thank you, Baxter.”

“You’re welcome.” He thought about kissing her again but knew if he did, he’d never get outside. “I’d better get out and work on the deck for a while. It’s cold today; you should stay in here and enjoy the lights and stay warm.” He reached out and touched her arm. “I’ll check in again when I finish.”

“Okay.”

He carried a mental image of her sweet smile with him as he went to retrieve his tools and supplies.