"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."
"Would Santa be able to find us there?" Eric asked, worried that a last-minute change of address might confuse the jolly old elf.
"Absolutely." She grinned at Cale. Her mother had told her that Val arrived the night before with all the presents for the boys that Cale had bought and mailed for Val to bring with her. "What do you say, Cale? A wonderful Christmas is waiting, just a mile down the mountain."
"Maybe for some. But me, I had my Christmas," he told her softly. "And it was wonderful. Every bit as wonderful as I dreamed it would be."
"Come home with me, Cale." She reached across the table to rub his face gently with the back of her hand. "Let me have it all this year. Let me share it all with you and the boys."