to hug him. After a surprised moment, he hugged her back.
“Merry Christmas. Did Santa find where you live, too?” Maddie asked.
“Why, yes. Yes, he did. And he left a present for you under my tree. He must have made a mistake, since our names both have an A and a D in them.”
He held several presents in his arms, two large gifts and a smaller one.
He handed the two bigger presents to Maddie.
“Are those for me?” she breathed.
“I believe they do have your name on it.”
She took them, eyes wide. “Mama, can I open them? Right now?”
“Of course.”
Aidan sat down on the sofa beside her, stirring the air with that luxurious, delicious scent of him. She tried to ignore it, ignore him, as together they watched Maddie handle the first clumsily wrapped package, trying to figure out what might be inside.
Had he wrapped it himself? Eliza wondered. She couldn’t imagine him going to that kind of trouble but she suspected he had. Most of the presents he had ordered for his family had been wrapped by his assistant in California or had been delivered pre-wrapped.
It seemed significant, somehow, that he had taken the time himself to wrap this one for her daughter.
The first gift was a doll she remembered Maddie admiring at the town festival. Her daughter shrieked with glee and hugged him.
“Now the other one,” he said.
“Is it another doll?” Maddie guessed. “Or maybe a game? Or a bunny?”
She continued to list about a dozen possibilities, growing increasingly more ridiculous as she went, and Aidan finally tugged at her braid gently. “Open it and find out, silly.”
“Okay.”
She ripped the packaging with care and a moment later unearthed a beautiful leather-bound art set that Eliza would have been envious to own, filled with charcoals and watercolors and crayons, along with several pads of sketch paper.
“You’re so good at art,” Aidan explained. “Every artist needs good tools.”
“I love it! I love, love, love it. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” She gave him a wildly exuberant hug and Aidan laughed a little as he returned it.
“You are very welcome, sweetheart.”
“Where’s my present for him, Mama? Can I give it to him now?”
Eliza forced a smile, feeling foolish about their gifts after he had given Maddie such an obviously expensive art set. The two gifts were curiously symbiotic, she had to admit. “Sure. It’s over behind the chair.”
Maddie found her present and the one Eliza had made and brought them over to him.
“I get two? Wow. Thank you.”
He opened the larger one first, Maddie’s gift, and exclaimed with delight over the elaborate picture she had colored of Snow Angel Cove, with the lake in the background and little horses—of course—grazing in the meadow. Eliza had matted and framed it and thought it actually was quite good, for a drawing done by a girl who wasn’t quite six.
“You did this? Seriously?”
Maddie nodded, clearly thrilled at his reaction. “It took me a whole half hour to do the barn.”
“I love it! It’s perfect. Do you know what? I’m going to take it back to California and hang it in my office, so I can always remember this Christmas with you.”
Eliza’s heart gave a little squeeze at the thought of him, years from now, looking at the picture and trying to remember the little girl who had once drawn it for him.
When he started to open the other one, she wished she could yank it away and tell him not to bother opening it but she couldn’t figure out a graceful way so she sat mutely while he tore away the wrappings to uncover the scarf she had clumsily knitted to match the hat his sister had made him.
“You made this?”
“Yes. I’m worse than Charlotte, as you can see.”
“No, I love it, especially because you made it. Thank you.”
He gave her a genuinely thrilled smile. Suddenly, foolishly, she had to fight the urge to burst into tears.
How on earth was she going to leave this place? Leave him?
“Can I draw something right now?” Maddie asked. “Bob wants his picture with a wreath around his neck.”
“I would love to see that picture,” Aidan said.
“Okay.” Doll in hand, she raced over to the small table in the corner, flipped open to a page in one of the sketchbooks and immediately went to work.
“That was very thoughtful of you,” Eliza said. “The perfect gifts for her.”
He was silent for a long moment and she watched his throat move as he swallowed. If she didn’t know better, she would suspect he was nervous.
“I have one for you, as well. Two actually. Here. Open this one first.”
It was wrapped just as the other one had been, with the addition of a lopsided bow. He held it out with a strange, expectant look on his face. Intensely aware of him watching her, she unwrapped the bow and then tore away the wrapping paper. It was a small white box, about the size of a cell phone.
When she opened it, she could only stare. It was a cell phone. His phone.
“You’re...giving me your phone?”
He made a face. “Well, no. Sorry—I need that part back. Your present is on the phone.”
He leaned over her and pushed a few buttons to unlock the device and then held out the screen to her. She didn’t know what she was supposed to be looking at.
“We can change the name and the icon and everything. This is just a prototype. I’ve still got quite a bit of work to do but the bones are there and they’re solid.”
She looked at the screen and then back at him, feeling stupid. “I don’t... I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
He pointed at the phone. “This is your app. Trent’s big idea. The productivity app he wanted to sell to Caine Tech.”
She stared at him as a little trickle of nerves started at the base of her spine and worked up. Something was happening here, something so big she couldn’t manage to wrap her mind around it. Trent’s app?
“But...he never did anything. It never went beyond the initial concept and, maybe, I don’t know, a few lines of code from his programmer friend.”
“Cory Dykstra. I know. I’ve been in touch with
