River framed my face, shaking his head before he kissed me hard and promising. Both of our faces were bent in agony, like that kiss killed us as much as it brought back every ounce of life we’d been missing.
“I thought I lost you again,” he said, his words shaky and strained.
I clung to him tighter. “Oh, baby. You never lost me at all.”
He shook his head, like he still couldn’t believe I was there in his arms, before he met me with another long, deep kiss. Then, he was helping me strip out of my coat, my scarf, my hat and gloves and boots. He took me in his arms as soon as I was rid of my outerwear, and then he pulled me into his lap on the couch, surrounding me with his arms, his kisses, his love.
For a long while, we sat there just like that, holding each other and kissing and crying and not saying a single word. My heart surged with relief. My soul cried out in victory at finally being found. Every molecule of who I was came to life with that man by my side.
“Maybe you can have both,” River said softly, when my cheeks were rosy and flushed from kissing.
“Both?”
“Me, and adventure.”
I smiled, tapping his chest with my palm. “You are my adventure, silly. Weren’t you listening?”
His eyes gleamed in the firelight as they searched mine. “Let’s go, Eliza.”
“Go?” I frowned.
“Let’s do one more year out in the big wide world,” he said. “But this time, we do it together.”
My lips parted. “I… what are you saying?”
“One year. One year of going, doing, seeing. One year of exploring together. Then, we can decide what we want, where we want to settle — if we want to settle at all.” He shook his head. “When you left, I let you go. I chose to stay here with my father, and I don’t…” River swallowed. “I don’t know that I regret that choice, because I loved those last months I had with my father. With my mother.”
I squeezed him where I held him, letting him know I was there.
“But I lost you in the process. And now that I have you again, now that I know you were always mine just as I was always yours… I don’t want to make another mistake. So, let’s go. Let’s see it all before we make a decision about what happens next.”
My heart swelled. “You really mean it?”
“Yeah,” River said on a nod. “Yeah, I really do. I want you, Eliza,” he whispered, sliding his hand back over my cheek, fingers tangling in my hair. “And I want you to have your adventure, too.”
I leaned into his palm, closing my eyes on a long breath before I kissed his warm skin, thinking over the life we’d already lived together, all the things we’d been through. “I think I’ve already had it.”
But River shook his head, pulling me closer and whispering his own declaration over my lips before he kissed them, long and sweet.
“I think it’s only just begun.”
Moose hopped up onto the couch, practically right on top of us until we wiggled to make room for him, too. I laughed, kissing his head and rubbing behind his ears.
Then, River reached behind me, where the Christmas Blanket was hanging over the back of the couch. He smiled at me as he unfolded it, spreading it across the three of us, and then he took me and Moose both into his arms, holding us there by the fire.
When he gave me that blanket, he made a promise — that he would never stop fighting for us.
I knew as I held him in front of that fire, as he ran his hands through my hair and kissed my forehead softly, that his promise was true.
And that I would never stop fighting for us, either.
My heart fluttered, a smile spreading on my lips as I wrapped us up tighter in the blanket that brought me back to who I’d always been. I wished I’d never lost sight of that girl in the first place, but perhaps it made it sweeter now, knowing she was always there all along, knowing that River knew that, too, and that he believed I’d come back to him, just as I believed he’d never leave me, no matter how far away I went.
“Merry Christmas, baby,” River whispered.
And I smiled, and held him closer, and thanked God for blizzards. “Merry Christmas.”