had no hope of ever understanding, like two people gone too soon, lost too young, could have a meaning if his heart opened to them?
Watching Emma, he was so achingly aware of what she was hoping would come off the next bus.
And while she waited for it to get off that bus, watched the main door, the place the passengers came through into the bus depot, love would do what love did. The unexpected, the unscheduled, love would slip in the side door.
Hadn’t it already? Hadn’t it come to her in the form of Tim and Mona, and Peggy and Sue?
Hadn’t it come to her on a stormy night nine days ago?
Ryder walked through the side door. A man in chains had entered her life nine days ago, but a free man went to join her now.
Emma watched the clock. One more bus at midnight. Chances were remote that her mother was going to be on it. There was no point sitting here, waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. She should really go back to Holiday Happenings, but she didn’t feel like it.
It felt like too much chaos and too much noise, and as if the whole world was made of people who cared about each other and had families, except her. Still, she had herself, and all day she had felt a growing appreciation of what that meant.
“Hi,” he slipped into the seat beside her.
Without even turning her head, she knew who it was, let his familiar scent fill her senses. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing him in, then opened them and looked at him. Her heart began to pound when she saw something in his face she had not ever seen before, not even that night they had skated on the pond.
There was some kind of openness in him, she could see tenderness in the darkness of those eyes.
But of course, she could imagine all kinds of things! She had imagined her mother really meant she was coming.
And she had imagined learning to love herself would be enough, though with him sitting beside 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
