Even though mother and babies were healthy, Stavros had been doubtful they’d be allowed to leave the hospital just twelve hours after delivery. But Holly had been adamant. The instant she’d gotten her doctor’s slightly bemused approval, she’d insisted on coming home.
That was his wife, he thought, shaking his head in admiration. Determined their family would be happy, and letting nothing stand in her way.
“Wait
,” Holly called as Eleni and Colton and Freddie started up the steps of their brownstone. “I can help—”
Now it was Stavros’s turn to be adamant. “No, Holly. Be careful!”
“Wait,” she cried after her children, pushing herself up from the seat before he saw her flinch and grimace with pain.
Setting his jaw, he lifted her from the SUV in his powerful arms, cradling her against his chest.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Taking care of you.”
“It’s not necessary—”
“It is,” he said firmly. “You look after everyone else. My job—” he looked down at her tenderly “—is looking after you.”
And he carried her up the stoop, into their five-story brownstone.
The hardwood floors creaked, gleaming warmly as the fire crackled in the hundred-year-old fireplace. Holly had decorated the house for Christmas with her family’s homemade decorations. They hadn’t expected the babies to arrive early. They weren’t due until January. Although when, he thought ruefully, did any Minoses let other people’s expectations stand in their way?
When Holly had gone into labor yesterday, she’d stared at the three stockings on the fireplace with their embroidered names, and cried, “The twins can’t be born before Christmas. I haven’t made them stockings!”
Now, as Stavros carried his wife past the five stockings hanging on the fireplace, he smiled with pride when he heard her gasp.
“Nicolas... Stella—you got them Christmas stockings!” Holly looked up at him in shock. “Their names are even embroidered!”
His smile widened to a grin. “Merry Christmas, agape mou.”
“But—” She looked at him helplessly. “How? You were with me at the hospital the whole time!”
Stavros looked down at her. “I have my ways.”
“Santa? Elves?”
Lifting a dark eyebrow, he said loftily, “Call it a Christmas miracle.”
She gave him a slow-rising grin. “Oh, was it now?”
“What else could it be?” He gently lowered her to her feet, then looked down at her seriously. “But not as much a miracle as this.”
And putting his arms around her, he lowered his head to give his wife a tender kiss, full of love and magic, of sugarplums and sparkling stars.
After a lifetime of being frozen, it had taken a fatal diagnosis to make Stavros open his heart the tiniest crack. In that moment, Holly had gotten inside him, warming his soul with her golden light.
Once, he’d been grimly ready to die. In an unexpected miracle, he hadn’t.
But Holly was the one who’d truly brought him to life.
He’d been wrong about love all along, Stavros realized in amazement. Love hadn’t conquered him. It had saved him. It had set him free to live a dream greater than any he’d ever imagined. His children. His home. His wife. Especially his wife.
Being loved by Holly was the greatest Christmas miracle of all.
* * *