Page 172 of Reckless Hearts

And I feel like every cuddle, every bedtime story, every scraped knee kissed better, every spontaneous “I love you, Papa” has been another stitch mending the torn fabric of Marcus’s past.

We all take risks when we choose to love someone. That fact can never be changed.

But the rewards are always worth the risks.

I unwrap my present from my parents, which contains a ridiculously expensive set of waterproof binoculars. As I carefully fold the wrapping paper so it can be reused, the tattoo on my wrist catches my eye.

I never thought I’d be part of a couple with matching tattoos, but getting a fairy tern on my wrist to surprise Marcus on our wedding day seemed right. Even more than our wedding bands, our tattoos symbolize what we mean to each other.

After Marcus finishes distributing all the gifts, he comes and sits beside me on the couch.

“They really don’t make these suits very breathable. I’m so sweaty,” he says.

“Not the fun type of sweaty either,” I say in an undertone.

Marcus gives me a heated look. “Are you on my naughty or nice list this year?”

“Can I be on both?” I ask, and my husband chuckles before lacing his fingers through mine.

“Papa, Daddy, look what I got!” George says, holding up a circle with strings woven across it in a spiral pattern. Three long feathers are tied to the bottom, with tiny green beads threaded throughout the design.

“Oh wow, that’s so cool,” I say.

George examines it. “What is it?”

“It’s a dreamcatcher,” Saskia explains. “You put it in your window, and it catches all the bad dreams, letting only the good ones through. It’s supposed to help you sleep peacefully and have sweet dreams all night long.”

“I like that concept,” Marcus says, and I squeeze his hand.

After we’ve unwrappedthe presents, it’s time for Christmas lunch.

We move into the dining room, where the blessed relief of the air conditioning awaits us. It feels slightly ridiculous to serve warm ham and turkey when it’s scorching outside, but Christmas in New Zealand is always a weird result of trying to shoehorn ancient Northern Hemisphere traditions into a December where the temperatures are more suited to seafood and salad than stuffed turkeys and plum pudding.

One Christmas tradition my mother loves is Christmas crackers, so silver and gold crackers line the table, gleaming withthe promise of terrible jokes and tiny trinkets that will inevitably get lost before dessert is served.

“These cost five dollars each,” my mother announces as she hands one to my father to pull. “So please try to appreciate the jokes, no matter how awful they are.”

“No pressure,” Marcus says before offering me his cracker. “Care to do the honors, Dr. Kleggs?”

“I’ll never turn down the opportunity to pull your cracker,” I say in a low voice.

He laughs at me, and the pop of the cracker punctuates his laughter like an exclamation mark. Tiny silver stars cascade onto the tablecloth between us.

Marcus unwinds the rolled-up joke and reads it in the same voice he recently used for his role as Max inPrehistoric Pals, the animated movie that made him the hero of every child under the age of ten.

“What do you call a dinosaur that’s sleeping?”

“A dino-snore!” George says enthusiastically before I have a chance to reply.

We both turn to stare at him.

“Are we raising a bad joke genius?” I ask.

“It appears we are,” Marcus says.

George just shrugs. “It’s in my joke book Nana gave me for my birthday.”

Meanwhile, Joe and Saskia have pulled Saskia’s cracker.