shoulder. “Does it bother you? The fire?”
So many things bothered him. Couples in love, children riding on their daddy’s shoulders, Christmas. But fire?
“No. What happened at Tracy and Drew’s house was a fluke, a short in a Christmas-tree bulb. The tree went up after they’d gone to bed. Their smoke detector had been too sensitive, going off every time they cooked something. Drew disconnected it. He meant to move it to a different location, but he never did.”
He wanted to stop, but the new feeling of not being alone wouldn’t let him. “One small choice,” he said, “seemingly insignificant, and all these lives changed. Forever. If only I could have gone back in there, things could have been so different.”
She was silent for so long, he thought she would say nothing. But finally she did.
“But what if the difference was that Tess had been left all alone in the world? What if she hadn’t had even you?”
This was a possibility he had never even considered. Not once. And maybe that was part of what happened when you weren’t alone anymore. The view became wider. Other possibilities edged into a rigid consciousness that had seen things only one way.
Ryder had imagined he could have pitted his will and his strength against the fire that night and saved them all. But Drew had possessed every bit as much strength and will as he had. And he had failed to save himself.
So, what if they had both failed, both died that night, Tracy struggling for life, Tess ultimately left alone? Left to complete strangers who would never understand that her eyes were the exact same shade of blue that her mother’s had been, that that faint cleft in her stubborn chin had come through four generations of Richardsons so far?
And might go on to the next.
Because Tess had survived. And so had he.
“Ryder,” she said quietly, “I know it was a terrible night, more terrible than anyone who has not gone through something like that could ever imagine. I know it is hard to see the miracle.”
“The miracle?” he said, stunned.
“You survived, and because of you, Tess survived. Because you saved her, your brother’s arrow goes forward into the future. Tess,” she said softly, “is the miracle. Tess is the reason it isn’t only a day of sorrow.”
He felt his throat close as he thought of that. It was as if a light pierced the darkness. This whole year had been so fraught with emotion and hardship, with traps and uphill battles, that he had become focused only on the bad things. They had overwhelmed his world and his thoughts so much that Ryder had not once stopped to contemplate the one good thing—Tess.
Tess, who had coaxed laughter out of him when he had thought he would never laugh again. Tess, who had made him go on when he would have given up long ago. If not for her.
His journey in the darkness had been threatened by the dawn ever since he had arrived here at the White Christmas Inn. The first ray of sunshine—full of hope, and celebration—touched him.
Tess had lived.
“Thank you,” he said gruffly to Emma, aware that if you ever allowed yourself to love a woman like her, she would constantly show you things from a different angle. Life could seem like a kinder and gentler place.
“You know what I would like to do?” she said, after a long time. “I would like to take down every single thing in this house that causes you pain. The trees, the mistletoe, the garlands, the wreaths. Everything.”
“You weren’t going to try and fix it, remember?” He could not help but be touched that she would give up her vision of Christmas to try and give him peace.
“Still…” she said.
He looked over at her to see if the mulish look was on her face, but all he could see was loveliness. The desire to kiss her again was strong, even though he’d sworn off it for the good of them both.
“No, Emma, I think it would be better for me—and Tess—if I tried to see the miracle. If I tried to see things differently. Before I go.”
There. The reminder that he was leaving this place. Before he fell in love with Emma.
But he could not deny that something had already happened. He was a different man from the one who had knocked on her door during a storm such a short time ago. He felt something he had not felt for almost a year.
Peace. Because he’d gotten things off his chest? Because he was determined to see things differently?
Or because of the way he was feeling about her?
“I’m leaving,” he said again. “As soon as I can.” For whose benefit was that tone of voice? Her? Or for him?
She did not protest or try to talk him out of it.
Emma just said, quietly, “Ryder, until you go, I won’t leave you alone with it.”
He knew she meant it, and he knew he was not going anywhere for a while, that he was still at the mercy of the roads. Despite the fact he knew he should fight it, he could not. Instead, he felt an intensified sense of peace, of being deeply relaxed, fill him, and then he slept like a man who had been in battle and who had finally found a safe place to lay down his head and his weapons. A man who didn’t know when the next battle would be, but who appreciated the respite he had been given.
He awoke the next morning to the arrival of the Fenshaws and Tess. Ryder felt deeply rested.
New, somehow, especially when he took Tess into his arms and she gave him a noisy kiss on his cheek.
“Ubba,” she said, and then sang, delighted, “Ubba, Ubba, Ubba,” clearly celebrating the miracle he had not completely recognized until now.
They had each other.
“Tess, Tess, Tess,” he said back, and swung her around until she squealed with laughter. His eyes met Emma’s and he felt connected to the whole world. And to her.
And despite the fact he was stranded, he surrendered to the experience, maybe even came to relish it.
Over the next few days Ryder would become aware that telling Emma his darkest secret had consequences he had not anticipated.
He felt lighter for one thing, as if by sharing he had let go of some need to carry it all by himself.
Now that Emma knew completely who he was, he felt understood in a way he had not expected. Accepted for who he was and where he was.
He found himself telling her his history in bits and pieces, about growing up with his brother, the mischief they had gotten into, the gag gifts at Christmas, the competitiveness over girls and sports, how they had helped each other through the deaths of their parents. It was as if he was recovering something he had lost in the fire: all that had been good was coming back to him.
And slowly, Emma opened up to him. Watching her become herself around him was like watching a rosebud open to the sun.
She
