Wrapped Up In Christmas

But she wouldn’t use it. He’d left. Even if she called, it would change nothing.

“Did you tell him what you told me, that if he’d stayed in Pine Hill that you could have fallen for him?”

“What would be the point in telling him that? He was always leaving.”

“I want to see you happy, Sarah. If he makes you happy, then you need to be with him.”

Had her father not been paying attention? Bodie had never meant to stay. He’d come to say thank you, had stayed to help her, and then he was gone.

“I am happy,” she assured her father. She was. She had her father and the Butterflies, her friends and church, and Hamilton House. “I don’t need Bodie to be happy or for anything else.”

She didn’t. Hamilton House would open tomorrow, on Christmas Day, and she’d begin a new adventure.

Just as Bodie had begun a new adventure.

But friends did wish each other Merry Christmas and later that night as she lay in her childhood bed, she sent a text.

She really did hope Bodie had a Merry Christmas.

“I shouldn’t be here. Not on Christmas Eve,” Bodie complained to his best friend as they chilled in Lukas’s living room. Kelly had gone to the nursery to feed Lucy and put her down to bed just a few minutes after Bodie had arrived.

He’d come straight from the airport and was exhausted.

“You really think Kelly would let you go to a hotel room after your flight came in this evening?”

“You didn’t have to tell her when I’d be back.”

“Because she didn’t know when I was scheduled to return?” Lukas challenged, then gestured to the dog lying across Bodie’s lap. “Besides, somebody missed you. Never seen him just sit and stare at the door the way he has the past two weeks.”

Harry had practically tackled him when he’d walked into Lukas’s place. No one had ever missed him the way the dog apparently had.

Bodie stroked his hand along Harry’s spine. Harry lifted his head, gave Bodie’s cheek one appreciative lick, then settled back down.

“Thanks for watching him while I was away.” Closing his eyes, Bodie leaned his head back against the recliner.

He had missed Harry. Missed a lot of things.

But the mission had been good.

An extraction of a well-connected Middle Eastern family who’d gotten trapped behind enemy lines as political winds had shifted. Bodie and his team had gone in, gotten the family out, and moved them to a safe location.

They’d run into resistance, which had tested Body’s readiness, but he’d had no difficulties doing what needed to be done.

Afterwards, flushed with success, he had felt alive, whole.

And yet, he’d also felt as if something were missing.

Someone.

“You planning to stick around until the new year?”

Opening his eyes, he met his friend’s gaze and shook his head. “Figured I’d head out in the morning for Texas.” That way Lukas and Kelly could spend Christmas morning together without his intrusion.

“You’re welcome to stay until January when you go to D.C.”

“For my glorified babysitting job?”

Lukas laughed. “Sorry. Most of our jobs aren’t like the one you just pulled off.”