They were talking like strangers and it was his fault, Jake told himself silently. He’d spent so much damn time keeping her out, that now she wasn’t even trying to get in anymore.
But screw that, it couldn’t be too late.
“Luke and I decorated it,” he said and grinned as his son patted his cheek.
“Nice job. Jake...”
“I went out this morning to get the tree.” He glanced at it now, saw its beauty, and wondered why he had avoided this season and the miracle of it for so long. Shifting his gaze back to her, he said, “I cut myself off from a lot of things over the years and it took you and Luke to remind me of all I’ve been missing.”
“Why, Jake?” Her gaze locked with his. “Can you tell me why you stopped celebrating Christmas?”
He hitched Luke a little higher, smoothed one hand over the baby’s soft hair and took a breath. It wouldn’t be easy, but he was through holding back. It was time to take a chance. He told her about that long-ago Christmas Eve on a battlefield and as he did, he relived it himself. The smells, the sounds, the awful silence when the attack was over and his friends lay broken in the sand.
When he looked at her again, he saw tears shining in her eyes, and had to force words past the knot in his throat. “When those guys died, I think something in me did, too.”
“Oh Jake, I’m so sorry.”
He blew out a breath, looked at the tree, then looked to her again. “I used that night as an excuse to pull back. Just like I used Lisa to keep you at bay. Didn’t really see that clearly enough until today. But I see it now. I know what’s important. Who’s important.”
Walking toward her, he kept his gaze fixed on hers and kept a tight grip on their son, until Luke leaned out and reached for his mother. As Cassie folded Luke into her arms, Jake stared at the two of them for a long minute. “You two are everything to me, Cassie. You are everything to me.”
Shaking her head and blinking back tears, she said, “I can’t believe you went out in chest-high drifts of snow to get a Christmas tree.”
“Yeah, well,” he said with a quick grin and a shrug, “you wanted one and Luke deserves one. And me?” He shot a look at the tree over his shoulder and felt years of pain and loneliness and misery slide from him in the soft glow of way too many lights. Looking back at Cassie, he said, “I wanted this tree because this is our first Christmas together. As a family.”
“Oh, Jake...”
He reached out and pulled her and Luke into the center of his arms. “And I need you to know that I don’t want this to be our last Christmas together.” Bending his head, he kissed her gently, then dropped a kiss on Luke’s forehead.
“I want it all, Cassie,” he said, his gaze moving over her features like a caress. “I want kids and dogs and noise and chaos. I want that life we could build together. Marry me, Cassie. Marry me because I love you. Because I’m no damn good without you.”
She gasped in a breath and a solitary tear fell and tracked down her cheek.
“Marry me because we deserve to be happy. And we will be. I swear it to you.” He looked into fog-gray eyes and saw a future shining there that he never would have believed possible until he’d met her. “Marry me and I swear, every day will be Christmas.”
She laughed a little, choking on the tears clogging her throat. How was it possible, Cassie wondered, to be so sad and lonely one minute and have the world offered to you in the next?
Her gaze slid to the massive Christmas tree and she thought about him riding out in the aftermath of the storm just so she wouldn’t be disappointed. Just to make her happy. To prove he loved her.
Staring up into his eyes, Cassie knew this man would never walk away from his family. He would always be there for her. He would always come through—even if it meant pushing through eight feet of snow. He was a better man than her father had ever been, and she would never doubt him again.
“You haven’t said yes yet,” Jake told her, draping one arm around her shoulders and steering her toward their first Christmas tree. “So let me give you your present.”
“Present?” Cassie laughed. The man was full of surprises.
Scooping Luke into his arms, Jake handed Cassie a small hand-carved box from under the tree. When she opened it, her heart melted. Nestled inside was an antique ring. Gold with several tiny diamonds and one opal in the center, it was lovely. “Oh, Jake.”
“It was my grandmother’s,” he said, lifting the ring from its nest to slide onto her left ring finger.