Page 39 of Little Alibis & Sleigh Rides

And just like that, all the fear, doubt, every carefully built wall I’d tried and failed to put between me and my heart—it all shattered. I felt the tears spill over right as his mouth claimed mine, and I kissed him back like he was the only real thing left in the world.

It wasn’t soft. It was heat and teeth and all the words we hadn’t said crashing together between us. My body moved on instinct, fingers gripping his shirt, pulling him closer. I needed more, needed him. He tasted like rain and pines and something I couldn’t name but knew I’d never get enough of.

When he deepened the kiss, the world narrowed to the press of his lips, the roughness of his stubble scraping my skin with every slow, languid motion of his lips and tongue against mine, the sound of his breath mingling with mine. My knees nearly gave out. Everything inside me felt like it was unraveling.

When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine, and for a moment neither of us spoke. We just breathed the same air, our lips still trembling from everything that had just split open between us.

Lachlan broke the silence.

“I wanted to do this on Christmas and make it special, but then the fire happened and I wasn’t able to,” he started, pulling back a little and dropping to a knee in front of me.Oh my god, this couldn’t be happening.“But now, I don’t want you to ever think that anything I do with you is a game, Logan, because you are everything to me.” He pulled a box that looked like a little gift from his pocket and opened it, but my eyes never strayed from his face. “Logan Roark, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” The words tumbled out of me before I even knew I was saying them. I threw myself at him, tackling him in the clumsiest, most graceless way, and kissed whatever part of him I could reach: his smile, his cheek, the rough edge of his jaw, the warm skin of his neck. My tears were everywhere, mixing with my laughter, and I didn’t even care. “I love you, Lachlan,” I cried into the crook of his neck.

He caught me against his chest and held me so tightly, I could feel his heartbeat thundering against my ear. For a long moment, neither of us moved. The world could’ve fallen apart outside those walls and I wouldn’t have noticed. But slowly, our breathing began to steady.

We stumbled, clung, tripped over laughter and tears, and collapsed in a heap on the couch together. Every time I tried tostop touching him, my hand found its way back—to his chest, his jaw, his hair. It felt like if I let go, he might disappear, like he was some fever dream I’d wake from if I blinked.

“I have another surprise,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes at him, still tangled in his lap. Tony jumped up on the couch with us, his tail wagging like he couldn’t contain his excitement either.

“We said no surprises,” I warned, though there was no real bite in my voice. My heart was already too full. He was the greatest gift I ever could have gotten. But Lachlan just chuckled, that deep, rumbling sound that always made me melt, and reached toward the side table by the couch.

He opened the drawer, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I asked, suspicious but smiling.

“Open it,” he said with that infuriatingly calm confidence that always did things to me. But everything this man did, did things to me.

Inside was a small packet of papers, and they were official looking. My name jumped out first, then his, and then the wordsHalf Ownership of Evergreen Haven Christmas Tree Farm.

My breath caught. “What? Lachlan . . . when did you do this?”

He leaned back, watching me with that same steady gaze that had undone me a thousand times before. “Before the festival. After spending time with you, meeting your parents, I knew I never wanted to live another day without you. So I made you half owner of the farm. Without you, this place wouldn’t have survived.”

Tears blurred the page until the words swam. My throat burned as I tried to speak. “Lachlan, you didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” he said simply, as if it were the easiest truth in the world. “And it would happen regardless now that you’ll be my wife.”

The way he saidmy wife—rough, possessive, reverent all at once—made something inside me snap. My heart, my restraint, whatever fragile control I had left. I straddled him, my fingers gripping his shirt like I could somehow pull him closer, and kissed him again and again and again. Each one felt like a promise, a prayer, a desperate confirmation that this was real.

He was mine.

“I love you,” I whispered against his lips.

He smiled that small, dangerous, heart-breaking smile and whispered back, “I love you, Logan.”