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A date.A future date. With Jesse. Even if it was a year from now, I wasn’t going to forget. Guess my next Christmas was already planned.

The ride to wherever this final activity was wentby quickly, and before I knew it, we were back at the skating rink. “Didn’t we do this activity yesterday?”

However,the area was different. Food trucks were in abundance around the edges of the rink and at the far side, a small bonfire was lit. But what caught my eye most of all was the giant tree in the centre of the field.

“It’s the tree lighting ceremony tonight.”

“Let me guess?Younever miss it.” I kept my tone playful. No doubt, based on everything else I’d learned about Jesse, he’d be all over this activity.

“Not once.” He tipped his head to the side, the pom-pom from his Santa hat rubbing against his cheek. “Come on, let’s check it out, but I’m hungry, you?”

“Yeah.” In fact,my stomach rumbled at the thought. “Anything you’d recommend?”

Slowly, hechecked out the five food trucks. “Do you like spicy food?”

My eyes widened. “Absolutely.”

“Then I suggestMexilente.” He said it with a straight face, but I didn’t hold back my giggle.

Nudging each other like we were old friends, we bumped our way overto the food truck and placed a tomato-free order.

Dinnerover, which we both gobbled down without many words spoken, we ambled through the growing crowd. People congregated around the main part of the field where the tree stood as electricians fiddled with a plethora of black cables.

“Do they bring in a tree each year, like Rockefeller Center?”

His brows pinched together. “You don’t remember the tree yesterday?”

The undecorated,plain-Jane tree had not captured my attention the way the charming man beside me did. Jesse was proving to be unlike any guy I’d ever met, which is horribly cliché, but true.

In high school,I’d started dating Charlie because he gave me the time of day and was interested. But after all those years together, I had finally washed my hands of him. It was time to move on.

“Hey, Jesse?” A ball of nervous energy gathered in the pit of my stomach, and I shoved my hands deep into my pockets.

“Yeah?”

Opening up to another human being had always been a weak spot of mine, and although I’dshared more with Jesse in the past two days than I had with many people, it still unnerved me. I was grateful for his attentiveness and warmth of spirit, and I needed to tell him, but I didn’t know how.

“What’s on your mind?” He stopped in front of me and brushed away a strand of hair.

I tore my gaze away to the tree twenty feet behind him. We were close enough to see the strings of lights and thousands of golden feet of garland. Somewhere off in the distance, likely on the other side of the tree, carollers sang out.

“Oh look.” I tilted my head back as giant snowflakes danced to the ground. “It’s so pretty.”

“Yes, it is.” But he wasn’twatching the falling flakes, he was locked onto me.

A warmth spreadthrough my core and radiated out to the tips of my fingers. It had been a long time since I’d seen an expression filled with so much desire. His dark eyes searched right into my soul, and the best part was, it didn’t frighten me.

Around us, voices broke through, chanting out a countdown. As the ‘one’ faded into the background, the tree lit, washed in pinpoints of golden lights, reflecting off the strands of garland and tinsel. A giant star at the top danced as the colours faded from white to gold to silver and back again.

“Oh wow.” The sight took my breath away, and I returned my focus back to Jesse. “It’s breathtaking. Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for today. I’ve really enjoyed myself.”

I searched his dark eyes and allowed my gaze to float lower over his nose, across his whiskery cheeks andchin until it settled on his perfect pair of kissable-looking lips. My whole body was on fire and if I didn’t make a move soon, I was bound to implode.

“Thank you for being a part of this. I’ve never had anyone to share it with.”

Right, because his ex-wife wasn’t into it. The gifts, sure, but the magic of it all? No interest. And really, until a couple of days ago, I had never really experienced the magic of the holiday either. It had been trying to find the perfect gift, ignore the noise, and pretty much treat it as any other day.

However, I wasstarting to understand the holiday. The fascination with it. The time of year where people gave more of themselves than they ever expected back, if they even expected anything back. People like Jesse, who didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and yet delivered toys to underprivileged children and handed out his own money to help a starving mother. Jesse, the guy who didn’t need to spend money to have a blast and enjoy life whether it was skating or going tobogganing, and yet, who enjoyed the calm of the evening, listening to the waves from the back deck of his house. Guys like him were one in a million. Or rarer.


Tags: H.M. Shander Romance