Happily Ever Christmas

~Eleven~

Finally everyone had gone off to bed, including all the kids, if only after much convincing.

"Get him under the mistletoe!" My daughter whispered to me from halfway up the staircase and I had to chase her off to bed, threatening to take away all her presents if she said another word.

Because Steve had come in late, I would have to share the living room with him tonight. Luckily we had several nice couches, though I had dibs on the pullout bed.

"Since you're stuck down here with me, you have to help me fill stockings." I told Steve bracingly as I re-entered the living room.

He was standing by the window, gazing out at the dark street while on the phone. He glanced over his shoulder at me and smiled.

I blushed, for some reason feeling oddly embarrassed to have interrupted what could be an important call.

He said goodbye in a professional manner, however, it didn't seem like an intimate call, at least.

"I'll handle it. Yes. Thank you. See you at the office."

I was straightening up the living room, pretending not to eavesdrop.

"Business calls on Christmas Eve?" I couldn't help but comment when he had slid his iPhone away.

"In my line of work, the job never stops." He sighed. "Sorry, Emberly, what were you saying to me?"

I flushed all over again; I was just going to blame it on the alcohol because it couldn't possibly be a reaction to the way he said my name.

"I was saying that whoever gets stuck down in the living room, usually me, has the glorious obligation of filling the stockings and putting extra presents under the tree. I've nominated you to help me."

He chuckled and finished off his glass of cider. "Sounds good to me. Where do you stash the stuff?"

"In the garage. Come on." I led the way down the hallway past the laundry room to the locked storage room in the back of the garage.

It took a couple trips, rolling Jeremy's BMX bike down the hall, carrying the crates of holiday cheer, and lugging armloads of other random presents like toboggans, a set of skis, and tennis rackets.

My family was fairly sporty; everyone except for me. I preferred to stay in the kitchen making everyone pastries and hot cocoa while they were out hitting the slopes.

"You ski often?" Steve asked me.

I glanced over at him and smiled as he helped me slip items under the tree near the back. "The one time I went snowboarding I broke my leg."

We both chuckled a bit at my admittance.

"My world is the kitchen. I'm a baker." I explained to him, then sighed. "Or I was before I married Peter and had Olivia. I had dreams of opening my own pastry shop once, Emberly's Good Eats."

I wasn't sure why I was even telling him all this and I cut myself off.

I could feel him watching me and my corresponding flush warmed my neck and cheeks.

"That's a cute name. I would stop in religiously if you ever opened a patisserie. What's your specialty?"

I looked up at him in mild surprise. We were filling stockings now, with candies and little toys. No one had ever asked me that before. Peter had never even showed this much interest in all our years of marriage.

I bit my lip, looking away again. "Uhm, fudge maybe? I just love fudge and it can be tricky, but if you do it right then you can make literally any kind of flavor fudge imaginable. Jalapeño and cheddar cheese, bacon and maple, white chocolate-eggnog, pumpkin spice, BBQ sauce..."

This made him laugh. "I do love me some good fudge. I don't know about jalapeño and white cheddar, though."

I laughed and we moved on to sorting the basket of little wrapped gifts from parents to their kids that we were to put into the appropriate stocking.

"Ever done this before?" I asked him.

"A time or two." He smirked, seeming amused, as though he had an inside joke with himself about it. I studied his perfect profile furtively. God, his nose was enviably straight. I had that classic snubbed nose thing going on and I had definitely passed it down to my children.

"What about you?" I asked him next, referencing our earlier conversation. "You ski often?"

"I used to. Played football in school, then I got into rock climbing and hang gliding and that sort of thing later in life, but now it just feels like I don't have half the time I used to; to spend doing things I'd like, just for myself, you know? You must know what that's like, as a mother."

"Oh yes." I nodded and smiled ruefully. "Your work seems to mean a lot to you."

"It does. It means everything. But I don't want it to be that way forever; I'm looking forward to retirement."

I laughed. "You're a little young to retire, aren't you?"

"I'm older than I look."

"Alright, last one!" I announced, popping a candy cane into the final stocking hanging from the mantle.

"Is this you as a girl?"

I turned to see the picture he was indicating on the mantelpiece.

I sighed and rubbed my hands absently up and down my hips. "Uhm, yes. Oh my gosh, embarrassing prom photo, please look away and forget what you have seen!"

He gave me a smile, but he continued to study the old picture of me. "Your hair is naturally the color of your son's, isn't it? A light ginger?" He turned back to me and I was a bit startled when he captured a lock of my hair and rolled it experimentally between his fingertips. "You dye it auburn, don't you?"

I gulped nervously. "Yeah." I admitted.

"I think your natural hair is gorgeous and should be celebrated. Redheads are the rarest color of hair on earth, you know."

I turned away from him then, feeling uncomfortable. Peter had never been a big fan of my red hair. Dying it auburn had been in part to please him; as a shield against all of society who looked at redheads as being different, even evil or crazy. But I suppose it wasn't exactly a great message to send to my ginger-haired son.

Maybe it was time to let my natural ginger hair shine forth.

*~*~*~*

Steve went to go change into his pajamas in the bathroom and I was left alone in the room for a moment.

I stared at his suitcase. He had left it open and atop a neat stack of button-up shirts was his passport, wallet, and phone charger.

I bit my lip, conflicted.

But then I caved to curiosity. I had the right to snoop in the interest of protecting my children, after all.

So I snatched up the passport and flipped it open to his profile page.

A thumbprint picture of him stared up at me, not quite smiling, and his black hair and facial hair was longer and scruffier than it was now.

My eyes dropped to his name beneath the photo and then widened. I sucked in a breath with a painful sense of shock.

His name wasn't Steve Coleman, as it turned out.

It was Nick Light.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dun dun dunnnn!!!!

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HRH