Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses: A feel good Christmas romance novel (27 page)

“I do have one more Christmas wish, but first, here’s your gift. It’s just something small.” He took the gift off his desk and placed it in her hand. Abbey sat down in the chair and unwrapped it as Nick leaned against the desk watching her, a smile on his face. She couldn’t help noticing how much he’d been smiling lately.

Abbey pulled the paper off. It was a picture frame. She turned it around and felt a flutter. The frame was unfussy, just a simple black one—she wondered if he’d thought of her apartment when he’d gotten it—and inside was the picture of Max on Santa’s lap.

Abbey stood up and gave him a kiss. She lingered there on his lips, wanting more, but he pulled back and set her down gently in the chair.

“It’s for your new office, if you plan to actually follow your dream and become a full-time interior designer,” he said. “It’s very small, but I know you’ll decorate it well.”

“What?” she asked in disbelief.

“It has two offices and a conference room. It’s downtown. Centrally located. I own the building so it’s rent free.” He smiled.

She threw her arms around him and gave him a kiss. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be happy to pay you rent…”

“We’ll work all that out,” he said. “Now, you surprised me with that amazing music book but it’s time for your second gift to me.” He pulled an envelope off his desk, and Abbey noticed how similar it looked to the one Max had with his Christmas wish in it. It was sealed just like Max’s. “In Max’s class, the sons and fathers were supposed to write wishes to each other and share them next year. I modified our assignment since I wasn’t Max’s father. I told Max, instead, to write what he wants most in this world, and then I’d do the same, and maybe they’d come true.”

Nick kneeled down in front of Abbey so that they were eye to eye. She waited, her heart pounding for what he had to say. He took the framed photo from her hands and set it behind him on the desk and then turned back to her.

“Would it make you happy if I kept this house in Richmond and stayed here some of the time?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, nearly breathless.

“Would it make you happy if I were here more than I was in New York?”

What was he doing? “Yes,” she said again.

“Would it make you happy to be… with me?”

She nodded.

“My last Christmas wish is in here.” He held up the envelope. “I want this for Christmas.” He handed her the envelope. “Open it.”

She tore it open.

The paper had black writing at the top that had been copied for every student and father. It said, “Dear ______,” and Max’s name was written in the blank. “My Christmas wish is…” and there were lines for writing wishes. In Nick’s handwriting, it said,
I wish I could make your mom happy
.

The words blurred on the page as she read them. She’d never had anyone try to make her happy before, and it was a wonderful feeling. She looked up at him, blinking to clear her vision.

“I tried very hard to carry on with my life after I met you,” he said. “And I just can’t. For the first time ever, I want something more than my work—you. When I’m with you, I feel like my career doesn’t matter, I want to see my family more… I kept holding on to my father’s business to save me from the grief of being completely without him, but when I’m with my family, I realized that I can actually honor his memory more because I can see all the people he loved right there with me. You’ve shown me what life can be like when I’m not alone. And it’s fantastic. I love being with you, doing things with Max, visiting my grandmother, seeing her smile. You’ve made me realize that I can have so many things that my father never had.

“Even buying the apartment in New York, I was having doubts, but I didn’t say anything because I’d never had to deal with feelings like this. I’m still going to work, but I’m going to try to balance the two. Before, with Sarah, it didn’t work because my heart wasn’t in it, but now it is. I find myself wanting that balance. I’ll keep the apartment in New York for when I have to run up there. You’re welcome to use the apartment for your interior design business as well. But we’ll go together.”

He took her hands and he guided her up. Then, he put his hands around her waist, leaned in, and kissed her like he’d never kissed her before. But, before she was ready, he stopped and looked at her, pushing a curl away from her face. “We have breakfast cooking and the whole family knows I’m staying. They’re very excited about it,” he smiled. “Let’s have breakfast and then I want to call your mom and your grandfather, and invite them over. I want to celebrate. You have made this the best Christmas ever.”

Abbey smiled. Just like the decorating, she’d done her job a little better than she’d expected.

“
N
ick
!” Abbey ran in with a delivery box.

Nick looked at her curiously, a loving grin on his face as he grabbed playfully at Max in an attempt to tousle his hair. Max, now almost ten, and getting lanky, wriggled out of his grasp, grinning deviously at him. He gave Nick a squeeze around the waist.

“I think it’s the audio of your music!”

With Abbey’s insistence, Nick had finally published his music. She ripped open the freight box and pulled out one of the audio boxes along with a stack of flyers with the same cover for promotional purposes. “The cover looks beautiful,” she said. It was a soft purple with music notes sketched in white across the front—she’d designed it. She handed it to Nick and plucked one of the promotional flyers from the package. “I’m stealing this for our memory book,” she said.

Nick turned the cover over in his hand, his face content and happy. “I like it,” he said. “What do you think?” He held it out for Max to inspect.

“Let’s play the piano!” Max said with excitement. Nick had been teaching him how to play piano in their free time. The two of them were nearly inseparable. Nick had cut back on the business to give himself more family time. He found that it was still lucrative enough to afford him the finer things in life, but he didn’t have to sink every waking moment into it. And now, he’d told Abbey, he didn’t want to spend every moment doing that. He had a family to care for.

“We’ll wake the baby,” Nick worried.

“No, we won’t,” Abbey said. “She sleeps through anything.”

Corinne Sinclair was born two years after she and Nick were married. The wedding had been a quiet ceremony on the grounds of their home, next to the James River. Susan had wanted to invite all of Richmond, but Nick and Abbey insisted they wanted family only. So, on a hot summer’s day, with a gauzy white sundress and a flower in her hair, Abbey had held a bouquet of red tulips wrapped in satin and said, “I do” to the man of her dreams. Max was the ring bearer-slash-best man. It was perfect.

“I’ll just go check to see if she’s still sleeping,” Abbey said and headed upstairs. They’d changed the room with the photograph to the nursery, and Abbey had painted it a glorious mint green with white trim. The crib was built as if it had been inspired by an enormous sleigh, all white with curly edges, and framed above it was the original version of Nick’s lullaby. She peeked in on Corinne. She was still covered in her blanket, her blonde curls, like her mother’s, haphazardly spread across her little pillow.

Corinne had just started to try to walk, but when Nick played his lullaby on the piano, Abbey would swear she was attempting to dance, her little patent leather shoes with soft soles tapping on the floor a few times before she’d fall on her lacy bottom, her dress flaring out around her.

Abbey stopped in to her home office to slip the flyer into her memory book. Her decorating business had become rather popular in Richmond, and, after her experience decorating Robin’s loft in New York, she was building quite a clientele. She still took care of Caroline, but it was much easier to do now that she was living with them full time. Abbey loved her as if she were her own grandmother.

There was one more person who had taken residence at the Sinclair home: Gramps. On his new medicine, his tremors were significantly decreased, and he required minimal support. He was so good, in fact, that Abbey and Nick were planning to redo Caroline’s cottage for him. He’d wanted his independence back for so long, and he was finally going to get it. Abbey’s mother was delighted to have her house to herself, although she’d said it was very quiet. With her ankle finally healed, she’d started a few small projects that she’d wanted to complete.

Caroline had actually suggested Gramps moving into her cottage. She’d said that she loved living with Nick, Abbey, and the children so much that she didn’t ever want to be alone again. Señor Freckles had been hanging out around the cottage a lot, probably to explore the grounds of the enormous house he now found himself living in.

As Abbey flipped the pages in her memory book, she smiled when she got to a certain one. It was the page where she’d saved Nick’s and Max’s Christmas wishes. Nick had wished that he could make her happy. And, a year later, Max had finally let them open his. It read simply,
I want a daddy
. And now he had one.

Abbey finally had her big family, her dream business, and more happiness than she could believe. Gramps still asked her, “How’s life treating you?” and now, she could tell him. Because life couldn’t get much better than this.

T
hank
you so much for reading
Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses
. I really hope that you found it to be a feel-good festive treat!

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Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses
, I'd
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Until next time, and Merry Christmas!

J
enny

P
S
. If you enjoyed this story, and would like a little more Christmas magic, do check out my other Christmas novels –
Coming Home for Christmas
and
A Christmas to Remember.

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