“What is it with you and PDA?” Brynna asks, walking back into the room from the deck. Matt’s on the phone in the kitchen, in the middle of a heated discussion, eyes on Brynna.
I wonder if something’s going on there?
But then Bryn glances at Caleb and flushes pink when he catches her gaze and offers her a grin.
I’m so not getting mixed into that. No fucking way.
“I don’t mind PDA if I’m the one receiving it,” Jules responds casually. “I just don’t need to see my family doing it.”
“Prude,” Nat murmurs and kisses Sophie on the cheek.
“Don’t be a bitch, Nat.” Jules responds.
Natalie sticks her tongue out at her and everyone chuckles.
“How have you been feeling, Stacy?” my mom asks from the floor, where she’s coloring with the twins. “Isaac mentioned that you’d been having headaches.”
Stacy tenses in my arms, and I feel her inhale sharply.
What the fuck?
“Oh,” she nuzzles my chest with her cheek. “I’m fine. No headaches for a few days now.”
“Good.” Mom nods and goes back to the girls, but I’m not buying it. I grasp Stacy’s chin with my thumb and forefinger and tilt her head back to look at me. She looks a bit apprehensive and bites her delicious bottom lip.
“What?” she asks.
“You and I need to talk,” I mutter and kiss her again.
“Oh, we’ll talk,” she mutters under her breath.
Before I can pick her up and carry her out of the room to demand some answers, dinner is served by the catering crew that Luke hired. He decided, and I agreed, that cooking for this many people was too much to ask of any of our women. They should enjoy the holiday too, so from here on out, family gatherings will be catered.
Except barbeques in the summer because my dad would have a stroke if he didn’t man the grill himself.
And I can’t blame him.
Dinner brings more chaos of brothers ragging on each other and stealing each other’s food, kids spilling drinks, and women discussing shopping, spa treatments, movies and fashion. At least, that’s what our women discuss because the whole lot of them are girly girls, and honestly, I wouldn’t have them any other way.
Stacy smiles sweetly up at me as I pass her another roll. She likes to dip the bread in her gravy. Fuck, I’ll give her any damn thing she wants. I may not be Luke Williams wealthy, but my girls will never want for anything.
“Stacy, would you like a glass of wine?” Jules asks. “I brought your favorite.”
“Oh, um,” she pauses and wipes her mouth with her green napkin. “No, thanks. I’ll take some more hot cider, though.”
“No wine?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
Huh.
Finally, dinner is done, and everyone moves into the living area to exchange gifts and relax. My mom grabs Soph and settles into the rocker Stacy and I vacated earlier.
I’m so excited for this. I was going to wait to give Stace this gift tomorrow morning at home, for our first Christmas as a family, but I just can’t wait.
“Okay, so, I’m the oldest, so I get to give my gift first,” I announce to the room.
“Yeah, you better go first, old man, ‘cause in about ten minutes you’ll forget what holiday this is,” Will quips, earning a high-five from Caleb. I glare at them and pull a small box, wrapped in gold with a cream bow, out from under the tree and hand it to my wife.
“We didn’t bring this from home,” she says with a smile on her pretty lips as she looks down at it.
“Nope,” I respond. “Open it.”
She gently pulls the ribbon off the box, and begins to ever so fucking carefully pull the tape off the sides.
“For God’s sake, woman, just open it,” I growl at her, making her laugh. She knows I hate it when she does this.
“I like the paper,” she murmurs.
“I’ll buy you a whole roll of the shit, open the damn thing!” Will yells from across the room, stuffing more pumpkin pie in his mouth.
“Jesus, man, didn’t you just have two pieces of that?” Caleb asks him.
“Shut up. Christmas.” He mumbles from around the food.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” Mom yells at him, and Stacy and I laugh with each other.
Yep, it’s a Montgomery Christmas.
“Open it,” I whisper.
She pulls the paper off and frowns at the soft blue Tiffany box. “Tiffany?” she asks.
“He’s got good taste,” Natalie boasts.
“Yes, he does,” Stacy murmurs and opens the box. Inside is a platinum pendant and chain. The pendant is in the shape of a heart.
She pulls it out and smiles softly.
“Turn it over.”
“What is this?”
“What is it?” Samantha asks. The girls are all straining their necks to see.
“It’s Sophie’s fingerprint.”
Stacy’s hazel eyes meet mine as they fill with tears. “This is her fingerprint?”
“Oh, what a lovely gift,” Luke’s mom sighs.
“Yeah, I thought you’d like to always have a piece of her with you, even if she’s not with you.” I shrug, feeling kind of silly, but she gives me that wide, special smile and I know that she loves it.
“It’s wonderful! Thank you.”
“Here, Stace,” Nat hands Stacy a box wrapped in silver with a blue bow. It’s the size of a small shirt box.
“We didn’t bring this from home either.”
“No, we didn’t.” She fidgets, not looking me in the eye, and looks suddenly very nervous.
“Do I get to open it?” I ask dryly.
She glances nervously around the room. Brynna gives her a discreet thumbs up and Natalie smiles brightly at her, and now I’m dying to know what’s in this damn box.
“Maybe we should wait until we’re home.”
“Oh hell no!” Caleb and Luke yell out together. There are moans and boos, and she winces and looks back up at me, biting her lower lip.
“Hey,” I cup her face in my hands and smile down at this amazing woman that I’m lucky enough to call mine. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’ll love it.”
She swallows hard and whispers so low I can barely hear it, “I hope so.”
She hands me the box and, because I’m a smart ass, I start to slowly unwrap it the way she always does and she giggles.
“Unless you want to die, speed it up, brother,” Caleb growls.