generosity. Not to mention a not-bad giraffe impression.”
“He would have hated every minute of tonight, and especially the undignified giraffe impression. I didn’t realize it at first, but he never saw me, he saw what he wanted me to be. He saw that I didn’t use my fork correctly, and that I wore white slacks after Labor Day, but that I had the potential to be fixed.”
“Oh, Emma.”
“But at least he never refused to kiss me!” Unsatisfying as that experience had been—Peter’s kisses perfunctory and passionless—Ryder didn’t have to know!
“I’m going to tell you why I won’t kiss you. Not because I don’t want to—Lord knows I want to—but because there is a hole in me nothing can fill, Emma. Nothing, not even the sweetness of your kisses.”
He took a deep breath, shuddered, closed his eyes and after a very long time he spoke, his voice ragged.
“A year ago,” he said, “on Christmas day, my brother died in a fire. His wife Tracy was badly injured, she died three months ago.”
It was as if every ounce of beauty had drained from the night, and left only the cold.
“Tess’s mom and dad,” she breathed, shaken. “Oh, no.”
He held up a hand stopping her, stopping her sympathy from touching him.
But he didn’t stop her hand from resting on his chest. She could feel he had started to tremble and that made her want to weep.
“I was there. My brother, Drew, asked me to get Tess out. He was going back in for Tracy. Only, somehow, Tracy was already out, and he was in that inferno looking for her. I had gotten Tess out, and I tried to go back for him. Some neighbors held me. They wouldn’t let me go.”
The trembling had increased under her hand, she pressed harder against his heart.
“I wasn’t strong enough,” he said, his voice cracking. “I just wasn’t strong enough. If I could have shaken them off, I would have gotten him. Or I would have died trying. Either would have been better than what I live with now.”
She wanted to tell him how wrong he was, but she bit her lip and pressed her hand harder against the brokenness of his heart, knowing he needed to get this out. This absolute fury with himself, the lack of forgiveness, the sense of failure.
“I loved them,” he said softly, and she heard that love in the fierce note in his voice. “I loved my brother. He was like the other half of me. We did everything together. And I loved Tracy, the woman he had chosen to be his wife.
“I failed them.” The tremble from his heart had moved into his voice. “I failed the people I loved the most. And I failed myself. A long time ago I believed in myself. I believed I focused my physical strength and the strength of my will on what I wanted and it happened.
“Now I know that’s not true, it’s just a lie people tell themselves.”
She said nothing, keeping her hand on his heart, trying to absorb his pain, to take it from him.
But it was so tragically easy to see he could not let it go.
“It took everything I had when they died. Everything. I can’t love anybody anymore. Maybe never again. It tore the heart out of my body.”
She did not tell him she could feel his heart beating in his body, strong, just where it was supposed to be.
Finally, the trembling subsided, and she could feel his breath, deep and even. She spoke, softly.
“It took everything except Tess,” she said, a statement, not a question. Her heart seemed to swell with warmth when she thought of that, that he had found the strength to come out of his pain enough to get Tess.
“Yes, except Tess.”
“I’m so sorry, Ryder.” The words seemed fragile, too small for the enormity of his pain. And yet she felt deeply moved and honored that he had told her this, trusted her with it. And she saw so clearly what he could not see. His strength had not failed him at all, he was coming into his strength in ways he refused to recognize.
“Now that you understand,” he said, grim, distant, picking up the armor he had laid down in those exquisite moments of absolute trust in her, “I’ll take you back to Fenshaws’, and I’ll look after the inn.”
She knew that would be the easiest thing for him, and probably for her, too. He had told her he had nothing to give, and she knew she should believe him.
But it was Christmas.
And if there was one message about Christmas that rose above all the others, holy, it was that one.
The joy in it was not in receiving, but in giving.
That was true of Christmas and of love. He had trusted her with this, and she planned to be worthy of his trust.
And so she said, gently, “No, Ryder, I’m not going back to Fenshaws’.”
RYDER frowned at her. He could have sworn she understood. They could not follow the flames of attraction that were burning hot between them. He’d made it clear he had nothing to give her. Nothing.
“Why?” he demanded.
She looked at him and said softly, soothingly, “Because I’m not leaving you alone with this.”
Alone. The word hung in the air between them. His truth. He had been alone with this for 354 days.
“Understand me,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to talk. I know I cannot do or say anything to change the way you feel, to fix it, but I’m just not leaving you alone with it.”
Others had tried to come into his world. He had not allowed it. But no one else had made this promise—that they would not try to fix it, would not try to make him feel better. Just be there.
He wanted to say no to her. To drop her off at the Fenshaws’ despite her protests. But she had that mulish look on her face and would probably just walk back across the snow, through the moonlit night.
So that he would not be alone.
And suddenly Ryder realized the thought of not being alone with it, even for one night, eased something in him. He had nothing to give her. But she had something to give him, and he was not strong enough to refuse her gift.
He started the machine, felt her arms wrap around him, her cheek press into the back of his shoulder.
And felt something else, exquisite and warming.
Not alone.
That feeling was intensified an hour later as they lay in the same room, separated only by air and a few feet of space, the fire throwing its gentle golden light over them, crackling and hissing and spitting.
“That’s
