His Holiday Gift Read Online Free Page B

reassuring her with mere words, I lifted my sweater and taking her still cold hand in mine, placed it over the place where my heart beat. “Feel that? That’s real baby. Do you feel how crazy it is? That’s because of you; to hell with it.”
    She’d been staring up at me while I spoke, her eyes bright with tears, her cheeks finally getting some color back and in that moment it was as though the years had melted away.
    I kissed her softly at first, just a brush of my lips across hers, but when she didn’t pull away but instead tightened her grip on my sweater with one hand and dug the nails of the other into my chest, I went back for more.
    I know it’s not possible, but then again nothing about this was supposed to be possible, but she tasted the same, like blueberry bubblegum and sunshine.
    How had I kept this all hidden all these years, even from myself? All the love that now beat in me for her, like it had never been interrupted.
    I had to let her up for air, but I kept my arms around her. “I’m gonna go finish making your snack, take it easy on me okay, no more tears, my heart can’t take it. I promise you that everything is going to be okay.”
    I squeezed her, kissed her hair and went back to what I was doing just as the teakettle whistled. I sat across from her after placing the plate with her sandwich in front of her and the piping hot cup of chocolate.
    She picked at the edges of her sandwich until I picked it up and held it for her. “Go ahead baby, eat.” I got her to eat a whole one before she complained that she was too full to eat the other two that I’d made.
    I wolfed one down before picking her up and heading back to the living room and the fire. Sitting on the couch, I kept her on my lap all nice and cozy.
    “Are you ready to tell me now, about why you’re here, what happened to you? Why weren’t you in that little town you told me about?”
    She lifted her head from my chest where she was listening to my heartbeat. “You went there?”
    “No, I hired someone to find you, but no one seemed to know anything about you or your family.” She bit her lip and tried to get off my lap, but I held on to her.
    “You’re not going anywhere.” She looked at me with such sadness in her eyes I thought for sure my heart would break.
    “I don’t know if I can tell you.”
    “Why?” what the hell had happened?
    “I remember your family, how posh they were. I didn’t get it when we were kids, how very different we were. Didn’t understand that last summer when my dad made such a big deal about catching us together.
    I didn’t understand all those things he said when he dragged me back home. It didn’t make sense to my innocent heart, that I couldn’t have you because we were so very different.
    It’s only when I grew up that I finally got it. Back then all I knew was what I felt when I was with you, and it didn’t matter what anyone said, I knew it was real.
    But none of that mattered to my dad. He said that your parents would never allow you to be with me, that all I could ever hope for was to be used by you.
    I didn’t understand any of it, and then it was too late and you were gone and…” She started to shake and it broke my heart.
    “I’m sorry, I couldn’t so anything baby, it was all my fault, if I hadn’t kissed you that day beside the stream.”
    “But you didn’t, I’m the one who kissed you.”
    “No baby, you have it all wrong, it was me, I remember.”
    “Well I think we’re both remembering the same thing, I know I was the one who kissed you, because I’ve spent all these years feeling guilty for what happened.”
    It’s strange that she should say that, because for the first few months after we’d been apart, I blamed myself. I do remember being the one to turn to her, holding her face and kissing her.
    Maybe she’d wanted my mouth on hers, but it was I who had done the deed. It didn’t matter now anyway, all that I cared about was where we were going from