Together for Christmas (45 page)

Beginning with the Christmas stuff,
Casey decided. Because he could plan all the rest—all the words and the gestures and the romance—while he was stocking up on multicolored lights and ornaments and eggnog. This would be the biggest troubleshooting campaign of his entire life. He had to get it right.
He had to
.

Gearing up to get started, Casey looked decisively at his dejected-looking cast-off Christmas tree. He didn’t know what had possessed him to buy it. Except he’d felt that doing so was the kind of thing Kristen would have done. He’d felt it was the kind of gesture that would have made her proud of him.

But now, actually studying that wretched tree through semiobjective eyes, Casey wasn’t so sure. “Starting with . . . this.”

“You need a bigger tree,” Shane said with certainty. “Women are all about size and grandeur and making a big impression. But with
that
thing, you won’t even make a dent.”

Hell
. Shane was probably right, Casey realized.

He stared at his friend through panicked eyes.

But then, from somewhere beyond him in the courtyard, Casey heard a familiar voice. “I wouldn’t say that,” Kristen said. Her footsteps came nearer. “That tree just needs a few decorations.”

Casey turned, and she was there, looking bedraggled and nervous and beautiful, wearing jeans and boots and a god-awful spangled, eyeball-searing Christmas sweater and holding a carry-on bag and looking exactly like everything he’d ever wanted.

Just like that, a sense of calm certainty came over him.

Because all he really needed was Kristen, Casey realized in that moment—and she’d come there to be with him. She’d come there . . . for him. No one had ever done that before.

“I like your tree,” she said, striding nearer.

Through expert eyes, Kristen looked at its scraggly branches. Then she raised her gaze to Casey’s face. Even as he—dimly—registered Shane Maresca offering a salute to them both and then scampering away, Casey felt his heart fill almost to overflowing. He couldn’t believe Kristen was really there.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he said.

“I can’t believe you’re voluntarily holding a Christmas tree,” she countered, smiling at him. “You look good.”

“You look
great
.” Shaking, Casey stepped nearer. He thumped his tree along the courtyard beside him. What else could he do?

“I look ridiculous.” Kristen frowned down at her holiday-themed sweater. “I was looking for a little liquid courage on the plane, so I asked for a few drinks, but then I spilled them, and then I smelled like a holiday office party gone horribly wrong, and I couldn’t come here like
that,
so I ducked into a gift shop to find something else, and . . . Well, this was the best I could do.”

She spread her arms, showing him the appliqued ornaments, puffy paint, glitter, and actual jingle bells on her sweater.

“I was planning to turn it inside out, but all the stuff on the outside was too scratchy,” Kristen said. “So here I am, the archetypal
non
-glamorous,
non
-fabulous, everyday regular gal.”

“Here you are.” Feeling a goofy smile edge onto his face, Casey stepped even nearer. He thumped his Charlie-Brown tree those additional few feet. “Right where you belong. With me.”

“I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” Kristen confessed, “given all the mean things I said to you.” She hauled in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Casey. I’m
so
sorry. I didn’t know—”

“No,
I’m
sorry,” Casey told her, feeling his heart hammering with need and urgency and what felt like unrestrained
love
. In the single bravest act of his life, he stepped all the way to where Kristen stood. He looked at her. He nodded. “I’m sorry I hurt you, and I’m sorry I left you, and I’m sorry I didn’t stand my ground and tell you how I really felt. Because—”

“You don’t have to,” Kristen interrupted, shaking her head as tears sprang to her eyes. “You don’t have to say or do any of that, Casey. You don’t, because I—”

Because I don’t feel the same way about you,
Casey imagined her saying for one terrifying instant.
And I wanted to come here and tell you so in person.
But then he just forged onward.

“I do,” he insisted. “I do need to tell you. Because I love you, Kristen. I really do.” His voice felt rough, the words unfamiliar but unabashedly right. “I love your smile and your walk and your talent with a mason jar. I love your generosity and your spirit. I love your laugh and your courage, and the way you can’t help singing along to all the Christmas carols—”

“You noticed that?” She blushed prettily. “Whoops.”

“I even love your mania for Christmas!” Casey went on, feeling—as he continued talking and she didn’t stop him—that maybe this was going to work out after all. “Because of
you,
I faced down my inner Scrooge—”

“It looks like you won.” Kristen nodded at his tree.

“—and because of you, I kicked his sorry ass to the curb,” Casey continued joyfully, “and because of you, I might actually have a chance at the kind of Christmas I’ve always wanted—”

“Oh, it’s
happening,
” Kristen assured him. She came almost close enough to step on his toes. Sweetly and softly, she kissed him. “Because I love you, too, Casey. I love you, and I want you, and I don’t know how I ever got along without you, because when you’re not there, the tinsel loses its sparkle and all the lights look dim, and I can’t
wait
to give you a real Christmas. Because I can promise you, it’s going to blow your mind.”

“Will it include you?”

She nodded, gazing happily at him.

“Then that’s all I need,” Casey said, knowing it was true. “Because I love you with every single breath I take, Kristen. I really do. I know it sounds cheesy, and I wish I’d had time to prepare, because this could have been
so
much more impressive—”

“It’s
perfect
already.” Kristen kissed him again, leaving him yearning for more. More more more. “I love you the same way, Casey! I love your laugh and your determination and your talent for bringing people together. I love your sexy bod and your intelligence and your strength, and I love the way you disco—”

“You saw that?” Casey blanched. “Uh-oh.”

“—and I admire you, too,” Kristen went on, her eyes still sparkling at him. She sniffled. “Because some people would break after all you’ve been through. But you’ve managed to take what happened to you—to take what life handed you—and use it to become a man who makes a difference. You’re a man who
helps
everyone, Casey, whether you want to admit it or not—”

“Well, I’ve heard I hypnotize people,” he joked.

“—and that
matters
. It matters more than you know, to more people than you know.” Kristen drew in another deep breath, then nodded. “It matters to me.”

“
You
matter to me,” Casey swore. “I’m sorry I didn’t say so before. I wanted to. I did! But I—”

“No more apologies.” With another kiss, Kristen cut him off. “You’re home now, Casey. Home with me. As long as we’re together, you’ll never have to wonder if you’re getting what you want for Christmas,” Kristen told him. “Because I’m going to dedicate myself to making sure you get it, every single year.”

“I always did want a big family,” Casey said, only half joking, even as he grinned at her. “Do you think everyone at the diner would let me hang around a while? Because I think I could wrangle another assignment in Kismet, and I know I didn’t know them for long, but somehow I feel as though Gareth and Avery and Walden and Talia are just like family to me. Just like you are.”

“They’re all waiting in Kismet for you,” Kristen assured him with a smile, “just in case you want a turn with the Galaxy Diner Santa hat. You never did try it. Which reminds me . . .” Briefly turning away, she rummaged through her carry-on bag. She emerged with something small and plastic. She handed it to him. “I think you forgot this. But I know that it’s yours.”

When Casey looked at his hand, his RESERVED sign was there.

Inexplicably, the sight of it made him feel like bawling.

“You’ll be in my heart forever,” Kristen told him solemnly. “But just in case you forget that . . . Well, just look at that sign and remember. We want you, Casey. It’ll take more than a supersunny Christmas and a cross-country flight to scare me away.”

Uncertainly, Casey brandished his substandard-but-lovable Christmas tree. “How about this thing? Does this scare you?”

Kristen peered at it. “Not a chance. Like I said, all it needs are a few decorations. Speaking of which . . .”

She delved in her bag again. A heartbeat later, she pulled out a tangled string of holiday lights. She grinned at him.

“I brought these for that palm tree you mentioned,” Kristen said. “I’m pretty sure you promised to decorate it for me?”

“Anything you want. I’ll make it happen,” Casey vowed.

“Anything? Hmm.
That’s
interesting.” With authority, Kristen took away his Christmas tree. It was so skimpy that she could easily carry it to the nearest raised flower bed in the courtyard. She leaned the tree securely against the stone edging. “Will you give me . . . garland?”

Passionately, Casey nodded. As far as he was concerned, Kristen could just go on challenging him—go on going toe-to-toe with him and keeping him real—for as long as she cared to.

“Whatever you want,” he said. “You’ve got it.”

“Okay. Will you give me . . . gingerbread and Christmas carols?”

“Every day and every night,” Casey promised. “Until you’re sick of ginger and can’t face another chorus of fa-la-las.”

“Sweet!” Looking cheered, Kristen came back to him. With utter conviction and total sexiness, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Will you give me . . .
you?
Because that’s all
I
want for Christmas.”

“Done and done.” Freed now of his pine-needle-dropping burden, Casey swept her up in his arms. She whooped as he hoisted her a bit higher, then headed toward his apartment.

“Where are you going?” Kristen asked, twisting around to look at his spindly fir tree. “Your tree’s back there. We’re going to need that to celebrate Christmas properly.”

“Oh, I promise you we’ll celebrate Christmas properly,” Casey said with a meaningful look. He walked a little faster. “When it comes to Christmas, you might be the expert. But when it comes to ‘celebrating’”—here, he stopped to kiss her again—“I know all there is to know about doing it up right. And as soon as we get inside, I’m going to show you.”

As he began striding onward again, Kristen gave him an impish look. “Will this celebration involve Christmas things?”

“Yes,” Casey said with certainty. “It will involve me, and you, and love—and
that
is the most Christmassy thing of all.”

Then he put Kristen down, opened his door, and took her inside, knowing that even if he needed from now until next Christmas to do it, he intended to prove that to her.

Because while it might be true that for most people, Christmas was commercialized and codified, overloaded and overdone, shrunk and stretched and started in September, for him and Kristen, Christmas was something
real
. It was something right and necessary and amazing.

Because somehow, unexpectedly, he and Kristen had found Christmas in Kismet and L.A and everyplace in between, Casey realized as he smiled and kissed her again. Thanks to the woman in his arms, he knew that all you really needed to feel the magic of Christmas was someone else to feel it with you.

For him, that was Kristen—today, tomorrow, and forever.

“Ohmigod!” she cried, looking in amazement inside his apartment. “You must have a hundred paper snowflakes in here!”

Oh yeah
. He’d forgotten about that, Casey realized. He’d been trying to feel closer to Kristen. He’d been folding and scissoring and folding and scissoring, trying to get it right. He’d hung all the lopsided, crumpled snowflakes he’d created all through his apartment, feeling a little better whenever he’d looked at them, knowing no one else would ever see them.

Now though, his secret was out.

“Aw.” Kristen looked at him with her face alight. Casey had never glimpsed so much tenderness and love in anyone’s eyes before. Only Kristen’s. With a saucy smile, she jumped in his arms again. “You are
so
getting lucky right now.”

“Too late,” Casey informed her. “I got lucky the minute you turned up today. The minute you smiled at me.”

Then he swung shut his apartment door, lost himself in another kiss . . . and got down to letting Kristen know exactly how much he cared about her—using words and deeds and whatever else it took to assure her that she was his and he was hers, for this Christmas to come and every single Christmas after that.

Chapter 26

Kismet, Michigan
Christmas Eve

“All right,” Kristen announced as she emerged from her diner’s kitchen on Christmas Eve. Carrying an enormous, mul-tiserving version of her latest top-secret, personalized creation, she caught Casey’s eye as she crossed the room. “Now you’re
really
getting inducted into the Galaxy Diner family.”

Seated in his usual reserved corner booth, surrounded by Walden, Avery, Talia, and Gareth, Casey smiled. It turned out that the Santa hat they all shared looked
really
good on him.

He rubbed his palms together. “Awesome. I can’t wait.”

Proudly, Kristen set down her dish. In size and composition, it most closely resembled a traditional British trifle, which would have ordinarily been composed of layers of cake cubes and fruit and pastry cream and whipped cream. But this, despite its proportions and appearance, was different.

“Wow!” Casey eyed it with trepidation. “That’s, um . . . really
big
. I was expecting a pie-in-a-jar.” He cupped his hands, approximating the typical dimensions of her most famous dessert. “I hope I’m not supposed to eat all of that all by myself.”