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I blow a kiss to Libby across the bar and catch the wink that Mabel gives me as I lead us out the door.

We barely make it outside before his mouth is on mine again, making us stumble across the parking lot. Then we’re at my minivan—parked in a quiet corner of the parking lot—and I smile.

“That was amazing,” he says, grazing my jaw with his knuckles before giving me a light kiss.

“Veda told me to let you love me,” I tell him.

He laughs, something flashing in his eyes, and says, “Of course she did.”

Looking at him is like the first night we met, except not. I’m not a nervous Pam Beesly, I’m an unguarded Birdie. He’s not a stranger in a bar, he’s the man I fell in love with.

I kiss him again, hoping it feels like one hundred love notes to him, because it certainly does to me.

“You bring me out here to make out in the freezing cold?” he asks, smiling against my skin as he peppers a trail of kisses across my jaw.

“Actually,” I say, pulling the back door of the minivan open. “I brought blankets and a heater that plugs into the dash this time,” I announce proudly.

He looks inside. All the back seats have been stowed and there are blankets—and pillows—covering the floor. A little heater glows a faint red between the front seats.

He laughs, scrubbing a hand across his handsome face. “You trying to take advantage of me, Pam Beesly?”

“Mabel says phenomenal makeup sex is part of every good story,” I tell him, biting my lip.

“Well, if Mabel says so...” he says, fingers flexing to my hips, smile never leaving his lips.

“And according to my little black book of data,” I begin, voice low, my final stokes to the flames already burning, “we don’t even need a condom tonight.”

His response to this is a needy growl against my skin followed by his mouth moving to my…earlobe.

Then, like we were never even never us at all, he pulls me into the blanket-filled minivan and closes the door.

Fifty-two

“Daddy! It’s snowing!” Lucy’shigh-pitched voice cuts through the quiet morning. “And Santa came!”

“Mom!” Huck shouts. “Mom, it’s Christmas!”

I force my eyes open as Bo groans next to me.

Head on my pillow, I smile at him. “Merry Christmas.”

He kisses me on the forehead to the tune of another shrill, “C’mon, Daddy! It’s snowing!” that pulls us both out of bed.

For the first time since I was a kid, Christmas is actual magic. The lights shine brighter and the songs sound sweeter because of the people I have around me.

Staring out the window of Bo’s cabin, everything around us is bright white.

Huck in lizard-covered pajamas, and Lucy in her reindeer nightgown, run outside screaming with George Strait.

“Mom, it’s snowing!” Huck yells. And like it does every time, the title makes a million flowers bloom beneath my ribs. Becauseno, I didn’t grow Huck in my body or nurse him from my breasts, but he’s mine just the same.

I step onto the porch next to Bo and he drapes a blanket around my shoulders as we watch the pajama-clad kids run and scream. “In case they didn’t mention it in your adoption papers, every Christmas for the next decade of your life will include sleep deprivation,” he says with a sleepy smile, sipping his coffee.

I snort out a laugh. “They forgot to mention it, but I think it’s worth it.”

When I lean against him, I notice the slightest tinge of a headache forming and rub my temples.

“You okay?” he asks.