LITMIR.BIZ

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her it seemed not that it wasn’t, but that loving herself was the stepping stone she had been missing in being able to love another.

      “What are you doing here?” she asked. It felt as if she would give away the tiny bit of power she had left if she admitted how happy she was to see him.

      “I thought we could start again.” He took his glove off, held out his hand to her. “I’m Ryder Richardson, dumb jerk.”

      “How did you know I was here?” She didn’t take his hand.

      “Tim told me.”

      “I hope you aren’t here because you feel sorry for me,” she said stiffly.

      “Why would I be sorry for you?”

      “Come on, Ryder. Everybody knew she wasn’t coming, except me. Hopeless dreamer. Everybody knew I was trying to rewrite history with all of it. None of it, not even Christmas Day Dream, was ever about giving to those other people. It was always about me trying to repair something that can’t be repaired. You can’t rewrite the past. It’s done. You don’t get to do it over, no matter how hard you try. I have a new goal now. To love myself in spite of all of it.”

      It felt as if she had to be very brave to say that.

      “Ah.”

      “Why do you say it like that?”

      “Because I think you’ll find loving you is the easiest thing in the world. Speaking from experience.”

      For a moment she couldn’t believe he had said that, so he said it again, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

      “I love you, Emma.”

      When she looked in his eyes she saw it was true. He was offering her what she had never had. A shoulder to lean on. But more. Acceptance. Connection. Love.

      “You know,” he said softly, “right until the minute I came through those doors, I was convinced I had come back here for you. Now I can clearly see that’s not true.”

      “It’s not?”

      He shook his head. “I came back for myself, Emma.”

      “You did?”

      “I came back to save myself. I can’t change what happened, either. Changing myself into someone untouchable and bitter hasn’t changed what happened.”

      His voice grew unbelievably gentle. “Maybe it’s time for both of us to move forward. Instead of trying to fix what’s done, we need to build the future, not rebuild the past.”

      His voice was low. “Emma, I don’t want to be lonely anymore. Or bitter. Or closed. That’s no way to honor the gift of love my family always gave me. My mom and dad, my brother Drew, my sister-in-law Tracy. I need to be the man they expected me to be when they made up a will that gave me guardianship of Tess.

      “I need to be a man,” he said softly, “who can show a girl who has never had a good Christmas just what that feels like.”

      Her tears came then, and he reached out and caught them with his thumb.

      And Emma was amazed that she didn’t give one hoot what Christmas felt like. Nothing could hold a candle to the way she felt right now. Nothing.

      Not even the most perfect Christmas in the whole world.

      And maybe it was because she let go of it, that it finally, finally happened.

      Christmas became a dream.

      With Ryder right beside her, the next morning as the bus pulled up, they welcomed fifty-one guests to the inn.

      How shy and awkward those poorly dressed people looked as they got off the bus and looked toward the house.

      And how quickly that awkwardness melted away as the unofficial greeting “elves,” Tess, Sue and Peggy, rushed forward to meet the children and to shoo them toward the house that smelled of the turkey that had been in the oven since early this morning.

      Mona had a hilarious game set up, an ice breaker, that helped everyone meet each other and get to know their names. Then there was buffet breakfast laid out at the dining-room table.

      Soon they were all crowded into the great room, plates empty, coffee and cocoa mugs full, the laughter and warmth flowing easily, the children quivering with anticipation at what was under the tree.

      Tim handed out gifts until the room was awash with paper and shouts of glee and exhilaration. There were new snow boots and warm jackets, fuzzy pajamas, mittens and hats. There were toys for the young children—dolls and fire trucks—and electronics for the older ones, portable DVD players and personal stereos.

      “Not bad goodies for the techno-electro-free zone,” Ryder teased her.

      After the gifts, there were skating and sleigh rides, and then after naps for the younger ones, a dinner feast fit for kings.

      Then they gathered around the fire once again. Strangers just this morning, they were a family now. A family of babies and old people, teenagers and young moms and dads. Mona had more games, and it was nearly midnight as they all began to reboard the bus, the children clutching their favorite toys, packages being loaded into the cargo hold under the bus. There were hugs and expressions of gratitude and tears.

      Mona and Tim packed up the girls, and Tess was put to bed in a crib in the green room.

      Emma and Ryder were alone in front of the fire.

      “I’m exhausted,” she told him, stretching out her legs. “And exhilarated. It was better than anything I planned.”

      He touched her hair, ran his fingers through it.

      “You know the weird part?” she said, quietly, “it wasn’t really Holiday Happenings. And not even today, as beautiful as it was.”

      He nodded. “I know, Emma.”

      “You do?”

      “Yeah. It’s this, what we’re feeling right here, right now, isn’t it?”

      “That’s it exactly,” she said. “Exactly. When I stopped expecting the world, overlaying reality with my dreams, it was as if I could enjoy it for the very first time.”

      And that feeling didn’t go away because Christmas had, and neither did Ryder. He stayed.

      She woke up most mornings with a kink in her neck from falling asleep on him.

      And she woke up eager for the next day, to see what love brought.

      A touch of hands, a moment stolen to share a hot dog, an afternoon while the Fenshaws kept Tess.

      Ryder and Tess left on New Year’s Day.

      And that was when the romance began in earnest. He sent flowers. He e-mailed. They talked on the phone as late into the night as they had every day since Christmas.

      He came for the weekends, but more and more Emma went to the city, aware that she had missed the city and loved it. Sometimes they would take Tess with them as they explored little coffee shops and antique markets, other times they left her with Miss Markle while they went to the theatre, or out for a quiet grown-up dinner.

      The passion between them grew until it flared, white-hot. Every touch, every look, a promise.

      But it was Ryder who would never let the passion culminate.

      “Hey, I have to be an example for Tess. I don’t want her to think it’s okay to give in without committing.”

      For Emma’s birthday, in the spring, Ryder gave her an engagement ring, and asked her to marry him.

      In the summer, at White Pond Inn, they married, a quiet, small outdoor ceremony with the people they cared about most in the world. Tim, Sr., was there, and so was Tim, Jr., in his uniform. Mona and Sue and Peggy had on matching burgundy dresses.

      Tess, in a snow-white dress that

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