Couples Christmas Quotes

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, with each other, whenever and however it happened.

Its easier to feel a little more spiritual with a couple of bucks in your pocket.

Most of the time when couples argue, it’s not really about the thing they’re fighting about; there’s a deeper reason why they’re arguing.

You've seen those pictures of couples kissing in front of a Christmas tree, or clasping hands on their wedding day, or holding a newborn baby between them-a snapshot of joy. But what do you really know about them? Just that at the second the shutter clicked, they loved each other. You have no idea what trials came before, or after. You don't know if one of them cheated, if they grew apart, if a divorce loomed on the horizon. You simply see that in one static moment, they were happy.

Glen had a disability more disfiguring than a burn and more terrifying than cancer. Glen had been born on the day after Christmas. "My parents just combine my birthday with Christmas, that's all," he explained. But we knew this was a lie. Glen's parents just wrapped a couple of his Christmas presents in birthday-themed wrapping paper, stuck some candles in a supermarket cake, and had a dinner of Christmas leftovers.

The usual treatment is psychotherapy.” “I know.” I didn’t explain that I was single. Therapy is for couples. So is Christmas. So is camping. So is beach camping.

We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Mauide would yell back, "Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they'll hear you the post office, I haven't heard you yet!" Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a lady's hand in marriage, but then again Uncle Jack was rather strange.

How I wish we could spend a couple of Christmas days together, for instance — I would also dearly like to have you in my studio once more. I, too, have been toiling quite hard recently, precisely because I was full of the Christmas feeling, and feeling isn’t enough, one must bring it into one’s work. So I’m now occupied with two large heads of an orphan man, with his white beard and old-fashioned, old top hat. This chap has the sort of old, lively face that one would wish for beside a cosy Christmas fire.

And how did you know about that?” Seven looked at his watch. Chase held up a hand. “Let me guess, in two minutes and thirty seconds, I was going to tell you Martin called.” “No.” “No?” “Six minutes and fifteen seconds. You had a couple of false starts. Then you were going to apologize because he wouldn’t help you by putting you in touch with his contacts in Washington.” “Something tells me you’re going to be no fun come Christmas.

Joy is deep satisfaction in the will of God, and this must be coupled with recognizing the reality that God’s will is everywhere and in everything. There is no place where we may go and be allowed to murmur or despair because God’s will is somehow “not there.

Darlene used to say it was a couple’s duty to keep their eyes open, their ears open, their hearts open and their mouths shut.

A mission-minded family will serve together. Look for needs in your community and brainstorm with your spouse about how you can partner together to meet those needs in a way that works for you. My husband is handy, and I love to cook. My casserole dish and his tool box work well together. Is there a single mom who could use some help with yard work? Is there an elderly couple who needs help hanging their Christmas lights? Look for creative ways you can serve side by side and connect with each other and your neighbors.

Honey, have you seen my measuring tape?” “I think it’s in that drawer in the kitchen with the scissors, matches, bobby pins, Scotch tape, nail clippers, barbecue tongs, garlic press, extra buttons, old birthday cards, soy sauce packets thick rubber bands, stack of Christmas napkins, stained take-out menus, old cell-phone chargers, instruction booklet for the VCR, some assorted nickels, an incomplete deck of cards, extra chain links for a watch, a half-finished pack of cough drops, a Scrabble piece I found while vacuuming, dead batteries we aren’t fully sure are dead yet, a couple screws in a tiny plastic bag left over from the bookshelf, that lock with the forgotten combination, a square of carefully folded aluminum foil, and expired pack of gum, a key to our old house, a toaster warranty card, phone numbers for unknown people, used birthday candles, novelty bottle openers, a barbecue lighter, and that one tiny little spoon.” “Thanks, honey.” AWESOME!

the most precious beings to her, and so is June. She likes to imagine a place, a safe place, where she can live one day with June and the children. June is older, wiser. She knows. She knows that two women cannot live together like a couple and be treated normally. This may occur in New York, perhaps, but not in Paris. Not in 1973. Certainly not in the kind of society the Rey family live in. She tries to explain this to Clarisse. She says they need to wait, to take their time, that things can happen quietly, slowly, with less difficulty. But Clarisse is younger and more impatient. She doesn’t want to wait. She doesn’t want to take her time.” The pain is setting in at last, like a familiar, dangerous friend you let in with apprehension. My chest feels constricted, too small to contain my lungs. I stop and take a couple of deep breaths. Angèle comes to stand behind me. Her warm body presses against mine. It gives me the strength to carry on. “That Christmas is a dreadful one for Clarisse. Never has she felt lonelier. She misses June desperately. June has her busy, active life in New York, her gallery, her society, her friends, her artists. Clarisse has only her children. She has no friends apart from Gaspard, the son of her mother-in-law’s maid. Can she trust him? What

Activities will include, pretending to help in the kitchen, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and saying you're so full you're gonna throw up and then waiting ten minutes and getting more pie. Once the sun has been down for a couple of hours the Christmas season is technically upon us, so it's time for the first Harry Potter marathon of the year. Starting with film number three, because obviously, and ending with film five when the filthy casuals are allowed to go home. The hardcores can sleep at my place and in the morning we'll finish six, seven, and seven but where stuff happens. Pumpkin pie for breakfast.

a couple of friends who looked like they had eaten their children for Christmas breakfast and then thrown the bones to their dogs.

Darlene used to say it was a couple’s duty to keep their eyes open, their ears open, their hearts open and their mouths shut.” He laughed robustly.

Easter is so profound. Christmas was an afterthought in the early Church, the birth not observed for a couple hundred years. But no one could help noticing the resurrection: Rumi said that spring was Christ, “martyred plants rising up from their shrouds.” Easter says that love is more powerful than death, bigger than the dark, bigger than cancer, bigger even than airport security lines.

I put the Sonicaid probe onto a mum’s abdomen in antenatal clinic and turn it on, waiting for the familiar SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH of baby’s heartbeat. Nothing. Bloody batteries. I flick the on/off switch a couple more times, then apologize to the patient. ‘Sorry, I think this one’s dead.’ As the mum’s face collapses like a bouncy castle at closing time, I urgently clarify: ‘The Sonicaid! The Sonicaid!

Who are they for? Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends: indeed, the larger share is intended for persons we've met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who've struck our fancy. Like President Roosevelt. Like the Reverend and Mrs. J. C. Lucey, Baptist missionaries to Borneo who lectured here last winter. Or the little knife grinder who comes through town twice a year. Or Abner Packer, the driver of the six o'clock bus from Mobile, who exchanges waves with us every day as he passes in a dust-cloud whoosh. Or the young Wistons, a California couple whose car one afternoon broke down outside the house and who spent a pleasant hour chatting with us on the porch (young Mr. Wiston snapped our picture, the only one we've ever had taken). Is it because my friend is shy with everyone except strangers that these strangers, and merest acquaintances, seem to us our truest friends? I think yes. Also, the scrapbooks we keep of thank-you's on White House stationery, time-to-time communications from California and Borneo, the knife grinder's penny post cards, make us feel connected to eventful worlds beyond the kitchen with its view of a sky that stops.

Dot, the truth is, we aren’t a couple.” Dot gasped, and brought her hand to her chest. “No!” “It’s true,” he continued. Will then reached across the table and took Lauren’s hand. “But if the stars align and things work out, the first time I kiss this woman is going to be because I want to—not because some tradition told me I had to.” Lauren froze in place, as if Will’s hand on hers shocked her body rigid. Dot let out a squeal. “Well, that was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard!

Where they are setting up the market, it used to be a place for torture,” Julien remarked, indicating the place in front of them. “Wow,” Ava said. “I know I said I wanted to ditch the romanticized idea of Paris with couples and hearts and flowers but I wasn’t thinking of touring all the places they once did waterboarding.

I am used to solitude and it is used to me. We understand each other, me and solitude. I don’t get annoyed when it keeps me awake at night with its echoing loneliness, and it’s always cool about me sometimes bringing friends home to chase it away for a while. Like a grumpy but dedicated couple, though, we always come back to each other at the end of the day.

I did not think I could stand a Christmas at my parents' house, with a plastic tree and no snow and the TV going constantly. It was not as if my parent were so anxious to have me, either. In recent years they had fallen in with a gabby, childless couple, older than they were, called the MacNatts. Mr MacNatt was an auto-parts salesman; Mrs MacNat was shaped like a pigeon and sold Avon.

Approaching Em’s cottage, especially at night, always enchanted him. It was like walking into those fairy tales he’d read by flashlight under his bedcovers, full of rose-covered cottages and small stone bridges, glowing hearths and content couples hand in hand. His relieved father had thought he was reading Playboy but instead he was doing something infinitely more pleasurable and dangerous. He was dreaming of the day he’d create this fairy-tale world for himself, and he’d succeeded, at least in part. He had himself become a fairy. And as he looked at Em’s cottage, its buttery light beaconing, he knew he’d walked right into the book he’d used to comfort himself when the world seemed cold and hard and unfair. Now he smiled and walked toward the house, carrying his Christmas Eve offering.

By May 16, a surge of newly installed floodlights lit up the east side like a Christmas tree. In one house tambourines were tied to every door and window. Hammers went under pillows. Nearly three thousand guns were sold in Sacramento County between January and May. Many people refused to sleep between one and four a.m. Some couples slept in shifts, one of them always stationed on the living room couch, a rifle pointed at the window.

I didn’t know much about God, ’cept that if you pissed Him off, He’d getcha one day. My momma knew God—she was raised a Methodist. In fact, her daddy was a Methodist preacher. Still, Momma said she wanted more from God, so for the past couple of years she’d been searching for more. I got to go with her on some of those searches. First, we tried the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were cool, till I learned they didn’t celebrate Christmas. God or no God, I wasn’t giving up Christmas! Then we tried the Muslims (or the “Black Muslims,” as Momma called them). I didn’t like them because when we got to their church (which they called a mosque), they made us change our clothes and put on some of their clothes: floor-length dresses and material to wrap our heads in so our hair wouldn’t show. And they searched us too, which pissed me off. But Momma seemed to understand; she said it was because white folks thought the Muslims were militant, so white folks was always messing with ’em—you know, harassing them, arresting them, threatening them. Momma said the Muslims had to be careful so that’s why they were searching folks. uring Momma’s God search, we tried a few other religions. I never really did care one way or the other. I never really seriously thought about God because, no matter what the religion, they all wanted you to be perfect. And I knew I was far from perfect. So I figured God wouldn’t wanna mess with me. I don’t know which religion Momma finally decided on. Maybe she realized she didn’t need a particular religion to know and love God or for God to know and love her. Whatever she decided, she also decided that she wasn’t going to choose for me. She wanted to wait until I was old enough and then let me decide my religion.

After Abby’s divorce, no matter how hard she tried to hold everything together, it all kept falling apart. Mary wouldn’t sleep and kept pulling out her hair and Abby couldn’t get her to stop, and in the middle of everything Gretchen showed up at her front door a couple weeks before Christmas and moved in. That didn’t fix everything, but now there were two of them, and Abby thought it was better to be miserable together than to be miserable alone.

At his own home, however, Goebbels found himself increasingly mired, not unhappily, in preparations for the holiday. He and his wife, Magda, had six children, all of whose names began with H: Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Holdine, Hedwig, and Heidrun, the last just a month and a half old. The couple also had an older son, Harald, from Magda’s previous marriage. The children were excited, as was Magda, “who thinks about nothing but Christmas,” Goebbels wrote.

Wrapped in a fur-lined cloak, Christina paced in the guard tower above the main gate of Roxburgh Castle. For two days she had maintained her vigil. … Awhile later, a guard entered with an armload of fuel. “Twill be dawn in a couple of hours, m’lady. Ye really ought to try to sleep.” “Nay, not when I could see my son any moment.” “They could be another day, mayhap two.” He placed a square of peat onto the coals. She held her hands out to the warmth. “What are two days out of three and ten years?

I once read the most widely understood word in the whole world is ‘OK’, followed by ‘Coke’, as in cola. I think they should do the survey again, this time checking for ‘Game Over’. Game Over is my favorite thing about playing video games. Actually, I should qualify that. It’s the split second before Game Over that’s my favorite thing. Streetfighter II - an oldie but goldie - with Leo controlling Ryu. Ryu’s his best character because he’s a good all-rounder - great defensive moves, pretty quick, and once he’s on an offensive roll, he’s unstoppable. Theo’s controlling Blanka. Blanka’s faster than Ryu, but he’s really only good on attack. The way to win with Blanka is to get in the other player’s face and just never let up. Flying kick, leg-sweep, spin attack, head-bite. Daze them into submission. Both players are down to the end of their energy bars. One more hit and they’re down, so they’re both being cagey. They’re hanging back at opposite ends of the screen, waiting for the other guy to make the first move. Leo takes the initiative. He sends off a fireball to force Theo into blocking, then jumps in with a flying kick to knock Blanka’s green head off. But as he’s moving through the air he hears a soft tapping. Theo’s tapping the punch button on his control pad. He’s charging up an electricity defense so when Ryu’s foot makes contact with Blanka’s head it’s going to be Ryu who gets KO’d with 10,000 volts charging through his system. This is the split second before Game Over. Leo’s heard the noise. He knows he’s fucked. He has time to blurt ‘I’m toast’ before Ryu is lit up and thrown backwards across the screen, flashing like a Christmas tree, a charred skeleton. Toast. The split second is the moment you comprehend you’re just about to die. Different people react to it in different ways. Some swear and rage. Some sigh or gasp. Some scream. I’ve heard a lot of screams over the twelve years I’ve been addicted to video games. I’m sure that this moment provides a rare insight into the way people react just before they really do die. The game taps into something pure and beyond affectations. As Leo hears the tapping he blurts, ‘I’m toast.’ He says it quickly, with resignation and understanding. If he were driving down the M1 and saw a car spinning into his path I think he’d in react the same way. Personally, I’m a rager. I fling my joypad across the floor, eyes clenched shut, head thrown back, a torrent of abuse pouring from my lips. A couple of years ago I had a game called Alien 3. It had a great feature. When you ran out of lives you’d get a photo-realistic picture of the Alien with saliva dripping from its jaws, and a digitized voice would bleat, ‘Game over, man!’ I really used to love that.

Every ward is full of doctors and nurses repeatedly honking a word into phone handsets in progressively posher voices. 'Theatre... thurta... thartaaaaah.' It's like an am-dam production of 'Gosford Park'. When you eventually manage to get switchboard's satanic robot to understand a word you've said, it's inevitably the wrong one. Today it would have been more efficient to get through to a radiologist with a couple of yoghurt pots and a length of string. 'Radiology.' 'Transferring you to Audiology. Or say: Cancel.' 'CANCEL!' 'Putting you through to the Cancer Ward.

At Christmas the only sign of the season at Levy's Lodge, the only barometer of Yuletide spirit was the appearance of his daughters, who descended upon him from college with demands for additional money coupled with threats to disavow his paternity forever if he continued to mistreat their mother. For Christmas, Mrs. Levy always compiled not a gift list but rather a list of the injustices and brutalities she had suffered since August. The girls got this list in their stockings. The only gift Mrs. Levy asked of the girls was that they attack their father. Mrs. Levy loved Christmas.

Old couples began to pair off and spin each other around, and the younger ones lined the walls, clapping and stomping their feet and swishing their drinks. In that little pub, on that little stage by the windows, Kevin was a life force, a star. With the aid of an instrument, he could spend four hours in a new country and fit in better than Maggie could after four months. He sang about drunk tanks and love and Christmas hopes, but in the spaces between the words of the song and in the cold shadows of his closed eyes rested all the things that he allowed to escape from himself only on the stage. Watching him, Maggie thought of their conversation earlier that day--how he had quit the band, quit his music, hadn't picked up a guitar in months. She could see the way he picked gingerly at the strings on his uncalloused fingers. His voice wasn't beautiful, but it had always contained a kind of arresting truth. Now too, Maggie detected a new quality--a desperation that had not been there before. Looking around the table at her family, she knew that Nanny Eli heard it, too. Her grandmother was leaning forward, holding her cigarette aloft while the ash grew longer and longer, and she was not listening to her son like the rest of them were but watching him, the movements of his long, skeletal fingers, the closed bruises of his eyes.

We see the old women again. A laugh that is a little too forced and shrill jazz music have made them start. One of them whispers, worried: “Perhaps ... we should go and see ...” “The youngsters don’t like it when we are obviously watching them, and besides, what can we do? It’s us, the adults, with our suspicions who put evil thoughts in their minds.” The other lady (hesitant): “All the same, my dear, we’re meant to be chaperoning them.” We see the ballroom where about twenty couples are holding each other tightly and dancing a sensual tango in the semidarkness. Nadine, the young lady of the house, wearing very modern clothes, notices her mother and her aunt coming over to them, and tells everyone in a playful whisper: “Yikes! The cops are here!

Comparing marriage to football is no insult. I come from the South where football is sacred. I would never belittle marriage by saying it is like soccer, bowling, or playing bridge, never. Those images would never work, only football is passionate enough to be compared to marriage. In other sports, players walk onto the field, in football they run onto the field, in high school ripping through some paper, in college (for those who are fortunate enough) they touch the rock and run down the hill onto the field in the middle of the band. In other sports, fans cheer, in football they scream. In other sports, players ‘high five’, in football they chest, smash shoulder pads, and pat your rear. Football is a passionate sport, and marriage is about passion. In football, two teams send players onto the field to determine which athletes will win and which will lose, in marriage two families send their representatives forward to see which family will survive and which family will be lost into oblivion with their traditions, patterns, and values lost and forgotten. Preparing for this struggle for survival, the bride and groom are each set up. Each has been led to believe that their family’s patterns are all ‘normal,’ and anyone who differs is dense, naïve, or stupid because, no matter what the issue, the way their family has always done it is the ‘right’ way. For the premarital bride and groom in their twenties, as soon as they say, “I do,” these ‘right’ ways of doing things are about to collide like two three hundred and fifty pound linemen at the hiking of the ball. From “I do” forward, if not before, every decision, every action, every goal will be like the line of scrimmage. Where will the family patterns collide? In the kitchen. Here the new couple will be faced with the difficult decision of “Where do the cereal bowls go?” Likely, one family’s is high, and the others is low. Where will they go now? In the bathroom. The bathroom is a battleground unmatched in the potential conflicts. Will the toilet paper roll over the top or underneath? Will the acceptable residing position for the lid be up or down? And, of course, what about the toothpaste? Squeeze it from the middle or the end? But the skirmishes don’t stop in the rooms of the house, they are not only locational they are seasonal. The classic battles come home for the holidays. Thanksgiving. Which family will they spend the noon meal with and which family, if close enough, will have to wait until the nighttime meal, or just dessert if at all? Christmas. Whose home will they visit first, if at all? How much money will they spend on gifts for his family? for hers? Then comes for many couples an even bigger challenge – children of their own! At the wedding, many couples take two candles and light just one often extinguishing their candle as a sign of devotion. The image is Biblical. The Bible is quoted a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. What few prepare them for is the upcoming struggle, the conflict over the unanswered question: the two shall become one, but which one? Two families, two patterns, two ways of doing things, which family’s patterns will survive to play another day, in another generation, and which will be lost forever? Let the games begin.

He walked right past me.” Sophie turned before the harpsichord, skirts swishing, and paced back to Val’s side. “He barely looked at me, Valentine. Am I not even worth a glance?” She veered off and marched over to the great harp. “Maggie offered to poison his drink. What has the blessed punch bowl got that I haven’t got? What is that?” “Your cloak. Some fresh air will settle you down, Soph.” “I don’t want to settle down !” He held her gaze, thinking his wife would be proud of him. Only a brave—or perhaps very foolish man—tried to console a woman with a heart in the process of breaking. “I rather think you do want to settle down, preferably with Sindal and a brace of offspring.” Her head came up, and Valentine was grateful he’d be leaving in a couple days. Much more of this drama, and he’d be swearing off family holidays for the next decade. “I

Well,that all worked out nicely," Edward said from my hand. "Yup." I sat down and propped the postcard upright against my books. "Thanks." "Whatever for?" "Being real,I guess. I'm pretty sure this paper about your life will get me into NYU.Which,when you think about it, is a pretty great gift from a guy I've never met who's been dead for a hundred years." Edward smiled. It was nice to see. "My pleasure,darling girl. I must say, I like this spark of confidence in you." "About time,huh?" "Yes,well.Have you forgiven the Bainbridge boy?" "For...?" "For hiding you." "He wasn't.I was hiding me." I gave Edward a look before he could gloat. "Yeah,yeah. You've always been very wise. But this isn't really about my forgiving Alex,is it?" He had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I suppose not. So?" "So.I think you were a good guy, Edward. I think you probably would have told everyone exactly how you felt about Marina of you could have.If she hadn't been married, maybe, or if you'd lived longer. I think maybe all the pictures of you did of her were your public delcaration. Whaddya think? Can I write that? Is it the truth?" "Oh,Ella." His face was sad again, just the way he'd cast it in bronze. But it was kinda bittersweet now, not as heartbroken. "I would give my right arm to be able to answer that for you.You know I would." "You don't have a right arm,Mr. Willing. Left,either." I picked up the card again. "Fuhgeddaboudit," I said to it. "I got this one covered." I tucked my Ravaged Man inside Collected Works. It would be there if I wanted it.Who knows. Maybe Edward Willing will come back into fashion someday,and maybe I'll fall for him all over again. In the meantime, I had another guy to deal with.I sat down in front of my computer.It took me thirty seconds to write the e-mail to Alex. Then it took a couple of hours-some staring, some pacing,an endless rehearsal dinner at Ralph's, and a TiVo'd Christmas special produced by Simon Cowell and Nigel Lythgoe with Nonna and popcorn-for me to hit Send.

She wasn’t sure when she realized that she wasn’t alone. She’d heard a louder murmur from the crowd outside, but she hadn’t connected it with the door opening. She looked over her shoulder and saw Tate standing against the back wall. He was wearing one of those Armani suits that looked so splendid on his lithe build, and he had his trenchcoat over one arm. He was leaning back, glaring at the ceremony. Something was different about him, but Cecily couldn’t think what. It wasn’t the vivid bruise high up on his cheek where Matt had hit him. But it was something…Then it dawned on her. His hair was cut short, like her own. He glared at her. Cecily wasn’t going to cower in her seat and let him think she was afraid to face him. Mindful of the solemnity of the occasion, she got up and joined Tate by the door. “So you actually came. Bruises and all,” she whispered with a faintly mocking smile, eyeing the very prominent green-and-yellow patch on his jaw that Matt Holden had put there. He looked down at her from turbulent black eyes. He didn’t reply for a minute while he studied her, taking in the differences in her appearance, too. His eyes narrowed on her short hair. She thought his eyelids flinched, but it might have been the light. His eyes went back to the ceremony. He didn’t say another word. He didn’t really need to. He’d cut his hair. In his culture-the one that part of him still belonged to-cutting the hair was a sign of grief. She could feel the way it was hurting him to know that the people he loved most in the world had lied to him. She wanted to tell him that the pain would ease day by day, that it was better to know the truth than go through life living a lie. She wanted to tell him that having a foot in two cultures wasn’t the end of the world. But he stood there like a painted stone statue, his jaw so tense that the muscles in it were noticeable. He refused to acknowledge her presence at all. “Congratulations on your engagement, by the way,” she said without a trace of bitterness in her tone. “I’m very happy for you.” His eyes met hers evenly. “That isn’t what you told the press,” he said in a cold undertone. “I’m amazed that you’d go to such lengths to get back at me.” “What lengths?” she asked. “Planting that story in the tabloids,” he returned. “I could hate you for that.” The teenage sex slave story, she guessed. She glared back at him. “And I could hate you, for believing I would do something so underhanded,” she returned. He scowled down at her. The anger he felt was almost tangible. She’d sold him out in every way possible and now she’d embarrassed him publicly, again, first by confessing to the media that she’d been his teenage lover-a load of bull if ever there was one. Then she’d compounded it by adding that he was marrying Audrey at Christmas. He wondered how she could be so vindictive. Audrey was sticking to him like glue and she’d told everyone about the wedding. Not that many people hadn’t read it already in the papers. He felt sick all over. He wouldn’t have Audrey at any price. Not that he was about to confess that to Cecily now, after she’d sold him out. He started to speak, but he thought better of it, and turned his angry eyes back toward the couple at the altar. After a minute, Cecily turned and went back to her seat. She didn’t look at him again.

Ranulf searched for something to distract him from what she was doing. Only one topic came to mind.Their kiss. "About this morning.Your memory is faulty." Concentrating,Bronwyn was just about to sever the final stitch. "How so?" she murmured. "I believe you kissed me." His nearness coupled with the unexpected reminder of their embrace caused her hand to quiver just as she sliced the last stitch, giving him a small scrape. "Ow! You did that on purpose!" Bronwyn jumped back. She was no longer nestled between his legs, but neither was she out of his reach. "I did no such thing. Besides,it is a small sratch, so stop disgracing yourself by acting so cowardly," she scolded, waving the sharp blade around as if it was another appendage. "Cowardly?" Ranulf bellowed, as he jerked the knife out of her hand. "You, angel, should be thanking me for being damn near to a saint! You have to be one of the most difficult women I have ever met." Bronwyn's chin popped up angrily, her deep blue eyes flashing. "I'm not difficult. You're the one yelling." She turned, grabbed his tunic, and threw it at him. "I'm done.You can get dressed now.

When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some pleasant home until the birth of their second child. Frequently elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until they were buried years later. Visitors presented no problem, for houses were large, servants numerous and the feeding of several extra mouths a minor matter in that land of plenty. All ages and sexes went visiting, honeymooners, young mothers showing of new babies, convalescents, the bereaved, girls whose parents were anxious to remove them from the dangers of unwise matches, girls who had reached the danger age without becoming engaged and who, it was hoped, would make suitable matches under the guidance of relatives in other places. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.

house with a great view. You’ll see that at the party tonight. Wish Char would be here for that, too, but we’ll all be together soon.” At least, Kate thought, Jack Lockwood, alias former father, would not be here tonight, so she could enjoy herself. Not only was she curious to see Grant Mason, but she also couldn’t wait to examine the Adena burial site she’d found on an old map in the university archives when she was back in the States at Christmas. The so-called Mason Mound was about twenty yards behind Grant’s house, and she was much more eager to see it than him. * * * The caterers Grant had hired from the upscale Lake Azure area had taken over the kitchen, and he didn’t want to disturb the setup for the buffet or the bar at the far end of the living room. So he sat in his favorite chair looking out over the back forest view through his massive picture window. The guests for the party he was throwing for his best friend, Gabe, and his fiancée, Tess, would be here soon—eighteen people, a nice number for mixing and chatting. He’d laid in champagne for toasts to the happy couple. Gabe and Grant had been best friends since elementary school, when a teacher had seated them in alphabetical order by first names. Grant had been the first to marry. Lacey had been his high-school sweetheart, head of the cheerleaders, prom queen to his king. How unoriginal—and what a disaster.

freeze, so she opted for pants with a thick, nubbly sweater that added substance to her frame. As always, her necklace was in place, and she donned a lovely bright cashmere scarf to keep her neck warm. When she stepped back to appraise herself in the mirror, she felt she looked almost as good as she had before chemotherapy started. Collecting her purse, she took a couple more pills—the pain wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but no reason to risk it—and called an Uber. Pulling up to the gallery a few minutes after closing time, she saw Mark through the window, discussing one of her photographs with a couple in their fifties. Mark offered the slightest of waves when Maggie stepped inside and hurried to her office. On her desk was a small stack of mail; she was quickly sorting through it when Mark suddenly tapped on her open door. “Hey, sorry. I thought they’d make a decision before you arrived, but they had a lot of questions.” “And?” “They bought two of your prints.” Amazing, she thought. Early in the life of the gallery, weeks could go by without the sale of even a single print of hers. And while the sales did increase with the growth of her career, the real renown came with her Cancer Videos. Fame did indeed change everything, even if the fame was for a reason she wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Mark walked into the office before suddenly pulling up short. “Wow,” he said. “You look fantastic.” “I’m trying.” “How do you feel?” “I’ve been more tired than usual, so I’ve been sleeping a lot.” “Are you sure you’re still up for this?” She could see the worry in his expression. “It’s Luanne’s gift, so I have to go. And besides, it’ll help me get into the Christmas spirit.

office into a sauna. She dropped her purse and keys on the credenza right inside the door and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. The electricity had already gone out. The only light in the house came from the glowing embers of scrub oak and mesquite logs in the fireplace. She held her hands out to warm them, and the rest of the rush from the drive down the slick, winding roads bottomed out, leaving her tired and sleepy. She rubbed her eyes and vowed she would not cry. Didn’t Grand remember that the day she came home from the gallery showings was special? Sage had never cut down a Christmas tree all by herself. She and Grand always went out into the canyon and hauled a nice big cedar back to the house the day after the showing. Then they carried boxes of ornaments and lights from the bunkhouse and decorated the tree, popped the tops on a couple of beers, and sat in the rocking chairs and watched the lights flicker on and off. She went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, but it was pitch-black inside. She fumbled around and there wasn’t even a beer in there. She finally located a gallon jar of milk and carried it to the cabinet, poured a glass full, and downed it without coming up for air. It took some fancy maneuvering to get the jar back inside the refrigerator, but she managed and flipped the light switch as she was leaving. “Dammit! Bloody dammit!” she said a second time using the British accent from the man who’d paid top dollar for one of her paintings. One good thing about the blizzard was if that crazy cowboy who thought he was buying the Rockin’ C could see this weather, he’d change his mind in a hurry. As soon as she and Grand got done talking, she’d personally send him an email telling him that the deal had fallen through. But he’d have to wait until they got electricity back to even get that much. Sage had lived in the house all of her twenty-six years and

Eleanor reached over and stroked his foreman. "Was I fair?" Henry whispered. She nodded. "Very. Besides, I think our Ranulf gave you the justification for some of the changes you have been considering.Perhaps a court of law is needed." "He did.And besides it was all highly entertaining.I had to bite my tongue when Craven started all that nonsense about Ranulf trying to kill him with an arrow." "So you knew from the beginning..." Eleanor murmured in partial disbelief and admiration. "That Ranulf was up to something? The man would never let anyone-even me-insult his honor without response. It was hard to wait until the oaf finished everything Ranulf needed him to say...and come to think of it...it was very convenient for Lady Bronwyn to be in disguise. How is it that you did not inform me earlier of what was to happen?" "I did not know," Eleanor rejoined quickly. "I met with his wife, who never owned to her true identity...but I liked her and suspected she would enjoy the night much better as one of my ladies-in-waiting.It is a great honor,you know." "And the idea of coming in masquerade?" "Well,it has been dull lately." "And you never knew who she was.Never thought to tell me you suspected Lady Bronwyn was not whom she professed to be." "I only knew for sure that I liked her and that she was Laon's daughter. And as for the masquerade, I did it for you, my king." "Me?" "Mmm-hmmm," Eleanor purred against his ear. "I know how very much you like to be entertained." "And that it was.Quite diverting. Never thought to see the day where Ranulf would be at ease in a crowd-or so demonstrative," Henry said, pointing at the joined couple. "He's in love,my king.Just like I am. Perhaps someday I'll do something about your men and their rough-mannered ways. Maybe I will convene my own court-the court of love." "I think that babe in your womb has made you soft in the head," Henry teased. "Maybe," Eleanor sighed as she sat back in her chair with a smile that spoke of a mind whirling with ideas.

Owen couldn’t believe his luck. Candice Mayfair was the beautiful white wolf he’d seen that day so long ago. Not that she looked like a wolf right now. He only knew she was the wolf, unequivocally, because he recognized her scent. After the initial shock of seeing an unfamiliar and intriguing Arctic she-wolf, he’d gone after her. The whole pack had gone on a run that night, but they knew to stay far away from any campsite. He and the other guys had swum across the river to explore a bit. Cameron and his mate had stayed on the other side with the kids. He’d even swum back across the river to find her and discovered her scent had led right to one of the tents. Since she had moved into the tent, he knew she had to be one of their shifter kind. He’d even hung around the next day, waiting to catch a glimpse of her, but there were several women, and he had no idea which one had been her. Two blonds, a couple of brunettes, and a red-haired woman—none of whom looked like the picture he had of Clara Hart, though. Being a white wolf in summer had made it difficult to blend in, so he’d had to keep well out of sight. Candice Mayfair was definitely the author of the books on the website, though she didn’t look like the photo her uncle had of her, if she was Clara Hart. She had the same compelling eyes, different color, but they got his attention, grabbed hold, and wouldn’t let go. He carried her to her couch and set her down, staying close, his hand still on her arm until she seemed to regain her equilibrium. “The wolf pup was yours,” she accused, jerking her arm away from him. “Wolf pup?” “Yeah, wolf pup. Don’t pretend you don’t know about your own wolf pup.” Then all the pieces began to fall into place. Campers. Campfire. Food. Corey, the wolf pup she had to be referring to, hadn’t just found the food like they’d thought. Candice must not have been a wolf until that night. “You fed him? Corey? His mom wondered why he smelled of beef jerky that night. We thought he’d found some at the campsite. Don’t tell me…he bit you.

One night, Kevin and I were at a pool hall where we saw a guy playing pool by himself; this guy looked like a hustler. He asked me if I wanted to play for twenty dollars. “I’ll tell you what,” I told him. “You can play my buddy Kevin. If you win two out of three games, I’ll give you twenty dollars. If he wins, you have to leave with us and go to a Bible study.” The guy looked at me like I was nuts. He walked around the pool table a few times, pondering my offer. I took a twenty-dollar bill out and placed it on the table. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.” What he didn’t know was that Kevin is quite the player and that I don’t make bets with eternal consequences on the line unless I know we’re going to win! Of course, my buddy Kevin beat him. In fact, Kevin broke and ran the table in two straight games. The other guy never even took a shot! To my surprise, the guy followed through on his bet, although he didn’t seem too happy about it. As we walked to my truck to leave, he threw a full can of beer across the road and declared he was ready for a change in his life anyway. I thought that was a powerful statement since he didn’t even know what we were going to share with him. He knew how we rolled, despite our presence in such a rugged place. We studied the Bible with him for several hours and baptized him the same night. What I didn’t know was that the guy was sentenced to prison for an earlier crime the very next day! I wouldn’t see him again until he showed up unannounced with his Bible in hand at my house on Christmas Day a couple of years later. “Hey, I just got out of jail,” he told me. “Did they let you out or did you escape?” I asked him. “I was released,” he said. He then tearfully thanked me for sharing with him and let me know that was the best thing that could have happened to him before the two years of prison. Obviously, neither one of us believed our encounter had been an accident. He came to our church a couple of times over the next few months, and I continued to study with him. After a while, though, he quit coming around and I lost track of him.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great. A few days later, she asked me if I’d asked her dad for his blessing. I was not familiar with this custom or tradition, which led to a pretty heated argument about people who are raised in a barn or down on a riverbank. She finally convinced me that it was a formality that was a prerequisite for our marriage, so I decided to go along with it. I arrived one night at her dad’s house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she’d had. He answered quite politely by saying no. “I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years,” he said. I wasn’t prepared for that response. I didn’t handle it well. I don’t remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, “Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture.” I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” That didn’t go over very well. I informed him that I’d treated his daughter with respect and he still wouldn’t budge. I then told him we were going to get married with him or without him, and I left in a huff. Over the next few days, I did a lot of soul-searching and Missy did a lot of crying. I finally decided that it was time for me to become a man. Genesis 2:24 says: “For this reason [creation of a woman] a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” God is the architect of marriage, and I’d decided that my family would have God as its foundation. It was time for me to leave and cleave, as they say. My dad told me once that my mom would cuddle us when we were in his nest, but there would be a day when it would be his job to kick me out. He didn’t have to kick me out, nor did he have to ask me, “Who’s a man?” Through prayer and patience, Missy’s parents eventually came around, and we were more than ready to make our own nest.

I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago. Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before. “What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded. Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise. “You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.” “I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.” I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was. I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy. “Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.” “I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said. I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together. “Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift. Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore. “Are you crying?” he asked. “No,” I said, my lip quivering. “Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to. “I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.” We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely.

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

happily coupled up with his therapist, Penny, and living in New Haven again.  Matt shrugged and Penny laughed along with them. “All I know is I’d been doing some yard work and cleaning

Dayne is married to Katy, 39. The couple has three children: Sophie, 6; Egan, 4; and Blaise, 2.

Willy looks between Randy and me for a few seconds. “Holy candy canes. You two could almost pass for brothers.” I lean against the bar. “Not quite. I'm a couple of inches shorter, and I don't have the muscle your reindeer has.” “It's the long black hair.” He points at Randy. “I have a thing for long black hair. Hot damn, two hotties like you in Santa's Village at the same time? The elves wouldn't get any work done. They'd be too busy staring and jerk-” “Enough, elf,” Randy stops him.

Why isn’t the door locked? You should be more careful!” He winced at the sight of Kellan hugging his knees to his chest and staring at him with wide eyes. His voice must have come out louder than he’d intended. “Is it because of the dragons? I didn’t think a lock could keep out any witches.” Vic rubbed his forehead. Why did I ever tell him that? Then again, it wasn’t as if he could avoid them if he stayed in town. Vic’s chest tightened. He has to stay. “I already explained that you have nothing to fear from our dragons and witches. We’re all good folk here.” “I know, I’m sorry. But Finn used to tell me horrible stories about them. After mom and dad died, he said if I didn’t do everything he told me to do, he’d cut off my ears and sell me to the witches.” Vic crossed his arms as he ground his teeth. He took a couple deep breaths before responding. No need to scare him any more than I already have

was unlikely to be able to rendezvous with her childhood friends. But we’ll arrange something, Andy told himself contentedly, burrowing his head into the pillow. Yes, something can be arranged. It would be too ridiculous to break up what was a good friendship just for the sake of one’s pride. Soon, he slept. Despite her intentions to write to Andy, it had been some considerable while before Cassie actually did so. For one thing she was extremely busy and for another she had been put forward as possible officer material, which meant courses and examinations, although in the end she had withdrawn her application, giving as her reason a desire to remain with her flight as acting corporal. After finally writing to Andy, Cassie had waited for a response and was disappointed when after a couple of weeks no letter had arrived. Her station was not far from his and she was easily able to

At Hawke’s questioning look, I said, “Seth and I are looking into becoming foster parents for a couple of kids who don’t have anyone.” Hawke

Parsons stood on the edge of the dock at Camp KooKoRomo. She’d left her fishing gear—borrowed as an excuse to check out the lake—near the tall grass. If she jumped into the water and pretended to drown, would the counselors send her home? Camp will be good for you, Kat. You’re too young to be stuck on the farm with a couple of old fogies. So instead of being with her grandparents, whom she loved, or visiting

Mon Dieu, that’s good hot chocolate. What’s in it?’ ‘The secret is to put a couple of cinnamon sticks in with the milk as you heat it. It adds that certain je ne sais quoi.

The couple walked arm in arm down Avenue Road past the Prince of Wales pub and the Royal Arsenal Co-op before heading down Manor Road into Alexandra Road, where Ruby had lived since the first years of her marriage to her late husband, Eddie. Getting close to number thirteen, they spotted Sergeant Jackson leaving his home and crossing the road towards them

Walter Bridge, husband to India and father to three, is a successful lawyer in a Kansas suburb. The daily dramas of his life only serve to illuminate his prejudice, self doubts and narrow outlook - his Christmas gifts to the family are stock certificates, which he immediately takes back to manage on their behalf - yet he is also kind and charitable, loving his wife while never able to tell her so. In Mr Bridge, Evan S. Connell gives us a moving, satirical and poetic portrayal of a man who cannot escape his limitations, and a couple growing old together but unable, ultimately, to connect.

here when she decorated the tree. Though she felt sad at the loss of Emily, she would never be able to look at Sara again without thinking about choking her. But she would deal with that another time. She hadn’t really given much thought to the future as far as a relationship with Emily went. She would be eighteen in a couple of years. Kate would never turn the child away. She loved her like a daughter. She’d been so consumed with the trial that she hadn’t really given any thought to Emily. She would like to send her something for Christmas, but it wasn’t time this year. Maybe next year. Kate opened the first box. Extra careful of the fragile ornaments, she unwrapped the tissue paper around each and every one. She’d glued macaroni to a paper plate to make a wreath. Must have been first grade; the green paint she’d used was all but gone.

Oh, the temptation to snuggle against him! Plenty of other couples these days showed their feelings in public in a way that would have been unthinkable before the war, but Mabel, although she was happy to show affection, had never quite shaken off the influence of Mumsy and her etiquette book, much as she had been tempted. Nobody was better acquainted with the rules of social behaviour than Esme Bradshaw. It came from being new money and the determination not to make any blunders

She says there's been a few drops of snow in Yorkshire so the BBC are calling it a White Christmas. I say that's like calling me a vegetarian because I eat peas twice a week.

You guys are like a couple out of a grumpy-sunshine romance novel. You’re the sunshine one, while Julian is the grumpy one. He’s always moody and broody, but you just take him as he is.

across the bench seat and tugged at the hem of her dress. “Give me a couple minutes with her?” “Did you just refer to my vagina as her? “Them?

By the stars, Darius, who shit in your cornflakes this morning? It’s Christmas day – the one day of the year when we steal a little bit of mortal madness and celebrate the winter solstice with gross consumerism, coupled with an indecent amount of pressure, to show love to people who we may or may not secretly think are pieces of shit just because we share blood with them. It’s special,

and they’re a big crowd. My brother has a friend he says would like to take me to a movie, although I suspect my brother might have paid this guy.” “Nah,” Patrick said. “Who wouldn’t want to take you out? Are you ready for that—to go out, I mean?” “Not yet,” she said in a very quiet breath. “It hasn’t been very long....” Just a couple of months, Patrick thought. “And I was with Jake for a long time,” Marie added. Six years. Patrick knew exactly how long it had been. They’d dated for two years and then four years ago Patrick was their best man. Two years ago

Vasana is determinism that feels like free will. I’m reminded of my friend Jean, whom I’ve known for almost twenty years. Jean considers himself very spiritual and went so far in the early nineties as to walk way from his job with a newspaper in Denver to live in an ashram in western Massachusetts. But he found the atmosphere choking. “They’re all crypto Hindus,” he complained. “They don’t do anything but pray and chant and meditate.” So Jean decided to move on with his life. He’s fallen in love with a couple of women but has never married. He doesn’t like the notion of settling down and tends to move to a new state every four years or so. (He once told me that he counted up and discovered that he’s lived in forty different houses since he was born.) One day Jean called me with a story. He was on a date with a woman who had taken a sudden interest in Sufism, and while they were driving home, she told Jean that according to her Sufi teacher, everyone has a prevailing characteristic. “You mean the thing that is most prominent about them, like being extroverted or introverted?” he asked. “No, not prominent,” she said. “Your prevailing characteristic is hidden. You act on it without seeing that you’re acting on it.” The minute he heard this, Jean became excited. “I looked out the car window, and it hit me,” he said. “I sit on the fence. I am only comfortable if I can have both sides of a situation without committing to either.” All at once a great many pieces fell into place. Jean could see why he went into an ashram but didn’t feel like he was one of the group. He saw why he fell in love with women but always saw their faults. Much more came to light. Jean complains about his family yet never misses a Christmas with them. He considers himself an expert on every subject he’s studied—there have been many—but he doesn’t earn his living pursuing any of them. He is indeed an inveterate fence-sitter. And as his date suggested, Jean had no idea that his Vasana, for that’s what we’re talking about, made him enter into one situation after another without ever falling off the fence. “Just think,” he said with obvious surprise, “the thing that’s the most me is the thing I never saw.” If unconscious tendencies kept working in the dark, they wouldn’t be a problem. The genetic software in a penguin or wildebeest guides it to act without any knowledge that it is behaving much like every other penguin or wildebeest. But human beings, unique among all living creatures, want to break down Vasana. It’s not good enough to be a pawn who thinks he’s a king. We crave the assurance of absolute freedom and its result—a totally open future. Is this reasonable? Is it even possible? In his classic text, the Yoga Sutras, the sage Patanjali informs us that there are three types of Vasana. The kind that drives pleasant behavior he calls white Vasana; the kind that drives unpleasant behavior he calls dark Vasana; the kind that mixes the two he calls mixed Vasana. I would say Jean had mixed Vasana—he liked fence-sitting but he missed the reward of lasting love for another person, a driving aspiration, or a shared vision that would bond him with a community. He displayed the positives and negatives of someone who must keep every option open. The goal of the spiritual aspirant is to wear down Vasana so that clarity can be achieved. In clarity you know that you are not a puppet—you have released yourself from the unconscious drives that once fooled you into thinking that you were acting spontaneously.

Reaching for his water glass, Jack rubbed his thumb over the film of condensation on the outside. Then he shot me a level glance as if taking up a challenge. “My turn,” he said. I smiled, having fun. “You’re going to guess my perfect day? That’s too easy. All it would involve is earplugs, blackout shades, and twelve hours of sleep.” He ignored that. “It’s a nice fall day—” “There’s no fall in Texas.” I reached for a cube of bread with little shreds of basil embedded in it. “You’re on vacation. There’s fall.” “Am I by myself or with Dane?” I asked, dipping a corner of the bread into a tiny dish of olive oil. “You’re with a guy. But not Dane.” “Dane doesn’t get to be part of my perfect day?” Jack shook his head slowly, watching me. “New guy.” Taking a bite of the dense, delicious bread, I decided to humor him. “Where are New Guy and I vacationing?” “New England. New Hampshire, probably.” Intrigued, I considered the idea. “I’ve never been that far north.” “You’re staying in an old hotel with verandas and chandeliers and gardens.” “That sounds nice,” I admitted. “You and the guy go driving through the mountains to see the color of the leaves, and you find a little town where there’s a crafts festival. You stop and buy a couple of dusty used books, a pile of handmade Christmas ornaments, and a bottle of genuine maple syrup. You go back to the hotel and take a nap with the windows open.” “Does he like naps?” “Not usually. But he makes an exception for you.” “I like this guy. So what happens when we wake up?” “You get dressed for drinks and dinner, and you go down to the restaurant. At the table next to yours, there’s an old couple who looks like they’ve been married at least fifty years. You and the guy take turns guessing the secret of a long marriage. He says it’s lots of great sex. You say it’s being with someone who can make you laugh every day. He says he can do both.” I couldn’t help smiling. “Pretty sure of himself, isn’t he?” “Yeah, but you like that about him. After dinner, the two of you dance to live orchestra music.” “He knows how to dance?” Jack nodded. “His mother made him take lessons when he was in grade school.” I forced myself to take another bite of bread, chewing casually. But inside I felt stricken, filled with unexpected yearning. And I realized the problem: no one I knew would have come up with that day for me. This is a man, I thought, who could break my heart.

Some songs from the era prove this, like a couple of little-known verses of Yankee Doodle: Two and two may go to Bed, Two and Two together; And if there is not room enough, Lie one a top o’to’ther Christmas is a coming Boys, We’ll go to Mother Chase’s And there we’ll get a sugar dram [i.e., rum] Sweetened with Melasses [molasses]. Heigh Ho for our Cape Cod, Heigh ho Nantasket, Do not let the Boston wags Feel your Oyster Basket.9 Yes, “Oyster Basket” means exactly what you think it means.

I've just written out the death certificate,' the doctor said cheerfully. 'Natural causes of course. She was eighty-eight. I think it was the Beaujolais Nouveau, I warned her not to drink it after Christmas but she was always stubborn. I'll send the undertakers around later. But they won't be able to fit her for at least a couple of days. She'll be all right there as long as it doesn't get too hot.

This is going to be the best display in the whole city! . . . Give me another string.” Coleman handed it up. “But why do we have to go through all this work if we’re just going to take it all down in a couple weeks?” “Because that’s the true meaning of Christmas. Running up the December electric bill.” Serge draped another strand over a palm frond.

It took five minutes for the barkeep to come around. He was an old salt—tall and thin. So grizzled he looked like he’d been here back when Ponce de León first showed up. Letty ordered a vodka martini. While he shook it, she eavesdropped on a conversation between an older couple seated beside her. They sounded midwestern. The man was talking about someone named John, and how much he wished John had been with them today. They had gone snorkeling in the Dry Tortugas. The woman chastised her husband for getting roasted in the sun, but he expertly steered the conversation away from himself. They talked about other places they’d been together. Their top three bottles of wine. Their top three sunsets. How much they were looking forward to a return trip to Italy. How much they were looking forward to Christmas next week with their children and grandchildren. These people had seen the world. They had loved and laughed and lived.

I’d attend church meetings on Sunday and hang out with my Christian friends. I’d go to a Bible study on Tuesday night and hang out with my Christian friends — again. Then, I’d go out Friday night and hang out—once again—with my Christian friends. This new world of Churchland was sort of like a retreat into some sort of cozy Christian cocoon. We did good things for other people sometimes, like an annual trip to Mexico to build homes for needy families. A couple of times each year, we helped out at the local homeless shelter, serving meals and cleaning and painting the facility. We were also involved in getting help for local families each Christmas, providing meals and gifts for the parents to give to their children. But after we had finished these projects, we headed back to the suburbs to hang out with our Christian friends again. It happened so subtly, but the more I was immersed in Churchland, the more disconnected I felt from the world around me.

I’m going to go see if I can get you some medicine. There’s an old doc in Virgin River—he might have some stuff on hand for cold and flu. It’ll take me almost a half hour to get there, the same coming back.” “Virgin River,” she said dreamily, eyes closed. “Ian, they have the most beautiful Christmas tree… You should see it…” “Yeah, right. I’ll be an hour or so. The fire should more than last, but will you try to keep the blanket on? Till I get back?” “I’m just too warm for it…” “You won’t be in a half hour, when that aspirin kicks in and drops your temperature. Can you just do this for me?” Her eyes fluttered open. “I bet you’re really pissed at me right now, huh? I just wanted to find you, not make so much trouble for you.” He brushed that wild red hair off her brow where a couple of curly red tendrils stuck to the dampness on her face. “I’m not pissed anymore, Marcie,” he said softly. “When you’re all over this flu, I’ll give you what for. How’s that?” “Whatever. You can howl at me with that big, mean animal roar if you want to. I have a feeling you like doing that.” He grinned in spite of himself. “I do,” he said. “I do like it.” Then he stood and said, “Stay covered and I’ll get back as soon as I can.” *

I took Marcie to see the truck parade,” he said. “You ever see that truck parade?” “Couple of times. Mel and my sister took the baby over, but I had a full house tonight. That damn tree—been bringing ’em in from miles away. I’m expecting the wise men to pop in here any second.” “It’s

One afternoon she rolled over on the couch, opened her eyes and saw him naked as he stood at the sink. She blinked a couple of times, taking in his lean, muscular back complete with ponytail that hung down right between his shoulder blades, his long legs and tight butt before she realized he was bathing. He was rubbing a soapy cloth under one arm, then around his neck. With a shriek of embarrassment, she rolled over and faced the back of the couch. He never said a word, but she heard his deep chuckle; it rumbled in her mind for hours.

How’s that beer?” Jack asked, dishtowel in hand, eyeing the nearly empty glass. “I’m good,” Ian said. “Just let me know,” he said, turning away. “Ah,” Ian said, getting his attention but not exactly calling him back. Jack turned, lifted an eyebrow. Silent. “She tell you to leave me alone?” A small huff of laughter escaped Jack. “Pal, the first thing you learn when you open a bar—talk if they talk, shut up if they don’t.” Ian tilted his head. Maybe he could stand this place once in a while. “She tried to explain me to the librarian in Eureka as an idiot savant.” Jack smiled and Ian felt an odd sensation—it was a funny story; he liked sharing a funny story. He used to make the guys laugh when he wasn’t making them work. “She tell you she was looking for me?” “She did.” For some reason unclear even to him, Ian did something he hadn’t done since finding himself in these mountains—he pushed on it a little bit. “She tell you anything about me?” “Couple of things.” “Like?” “Like, you and me—we were in Fallujah about the same time.” “Should’ve known. You have that jarhead look about you. Just so you’re clear—I don’t talk about that time.” Jack smiled lazily. “Just so you’re clear, neither do I.” *

I might need an escort to the loo. I’m a little drunk.” It broke through his sadness, changing his mood yet again. “You think?” he asked, smiling. “Well, I don’t exactly have your height and girth. And I’m a small drinker—couple of beers or wines or fruity things. Truth is, I’m worried about standing up….” He laughed at her. “No one held you down and poured it down your neck.” “It’s awful reading letters you’ve written. All the bad sentences, terrible spelling, stupid remarks… I bet when you go to hell, they just read every letter you ever wrote out loud.

His hair and beard were dramatically sheared, clipped short and neatly trimmed. He had grocery sacks in his arms. He tried not to, but it was obvious, he was smiling. “Ian!” “It’s me. You expecting someone else?” She looked up at him and forgot everything. “What have you done?” He walked straight to the table and put down his sacks. “I have more stuff to get, so sit tight.” And he left the cabin again. When he returned with a couple of boxes stacked high on top of each other, she was sitting in the same place. He put those on the table, as well. Then he finally turned toward her, letting her look him over. She stood and took slow steps toward him and her hand rose to touch his cheek. Where there had been a good five or six inches of bushy beard was now less than a half inch of brownish-red beard, combed into place, soft as down. Even his neck was shaved. “Where is my wilderness lunatic?” He

The reality was, he had this cabin and about a couple thousand dollars that would have to last all winter. There was no hidden bank account, no benefit checks, no retirement. He could put the property up for sale, but there probably wouldn’t be a buyer, maybe for years. He didn’t have things to sell or barter. He could beg her to stay, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to even build her an indoor bathroom. He’d let himself get down to practically nothing, enjoying the deprivation on some screwed-up level. Then Marcie showed up and suddenly he felt like a rich man. Just

You’re right about the food,” he said with a hum and a napkin to his lips and beard. “Hmm,” she agreed, letting her eyes fall closed as she enjoyed mashed potatoes so creamy and wonderful, they were like ambrosia. Ian finished quickly, sitting back and giving his belly a satisfied rub. Marcie just gave up, pushing her plate toward Ian. “I’m done. Go ahead. Help yourself.” His eyes widened. “You sure?” “Wait,” she said suddenly. She dipped her fork into the mashed potatoes and lifted it to his lips. “Try this.” He lifted his brows, then let her put the fork into his mouth. He savored it. Then he said, “I think you got better potatoes.” And he smiled. “Help yourself, Ian. I’m going to explode if I eat any more,” she said. “Maybe a bite,” he said, dipping his fork a couple of times before he, too, had to admit defeat.

Have you been crying?” She glanced away. “I’m sorry. I had one of those days.” He put his thumb and forefinger on her chin and pulled her eyes back to his. “What’s up?” he asked softly. “Need to talk about it?” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I know you don’t want to—” “It’s okay. What made you cry? Homesick? Lonesome?” She took a deep breath. “It was a year ago today. Snuck up on me, I guess.” “Ah,” he said. He put his big arms around her. “That would make some tears, I guess. I’m sorry, Marcie. I’m sure it still hurts sometimes.” “That’s just it—it doesn’t exactly hurt. It’s just that I feel so useless.” She leaned against him. “Sometimes I feel all alone. I have lots of people in my life and can still feel so alone without Bobby.” She laughed softly. “And God knows, he wasn’t much company.” He tightened his embrace. “I think I understand.” Yeah, she thought, he might. Here was a guy who was around people regularly, yet completely unconnected to them. She pulled away and asked, “Why did you do this?” “I thought I could clean up a little and take you somewhere.” “Wait. You didn’t think I needed you to do this for me, did you? Because of Erin?” He laughed, and she could actually see the emotion on his face, given the absence of wild beard. “Actually, if you’d asked me to, I probably wouldn’t have. You really think you can match me for stubborn? Probably not. I kept the beard because of the scar,” he said, leaning his left cheek toward her. “That, and maybe a bit of attitude of who cares?” She gently fingered the beard apart to reveal a barely noticeable scar. “It’s hardly there at all. Ian, it’s only a thin line. You don’t have to cover it. You’re not disfigured.” She smiled at him. “You’re handsome.” “Memories from the scar, probably. Anyway, tonight is the truckers’ Christmas parade. A bunch of eighteen-wheelers in the area dress up their rigs and parade down the freeway. I see it every year—fantastic. You think you’re up to it? With it being that anniversary?” “Maybe it’s a good idea,” she said. “Getting out, changing the mood.” “We’ll eat out and—” “What’s all this?” she asked, looking at the bags and boxes. “Snow’s forecast. It’s just what you do up here. Be ready. But this time I got some different things, in case you’re sick of stew. And I never do this—but you’re a girl, so I bought some fresh greens. And fresh eggs. Just enough to last a couple of days. No fridge; and they’ll freeze if we leave ’em in the shed.” “Ian, what about the bathroom? What will we do about the bathroom if there’s a heavy snow?” He laughed at her. “No problem. We’ll tromp out there fine—but I’ll shovel a path. And I’ll plow out to the road, but it’s slow going and if the snow keeps coming, it’s going to be even slower.” “Wow. Is it safe to leave tonight? For the parade? Will we get back in?” “We don’t have blizzards, Marcie. Snow falls slow, but steady. Now, I’m thinking bath day. How about you?” She put her hands on her hips and looked up at him with a glare. “All right, be very careful here. I’ve had my bath. And a hair wash. I’m wearing makeup, Ian. Jesus. You wanna try to clean me up?” His eyes grew large for a moment. Then he said. “Bath day for me, I meant. I knew. You look great.” His thumb ran along her cheek under one eye. “Just a couple of tear marks, but you can take care of that. Let me put this stuff away and get my water ready. You have something to read? Or are you looking for the thrill of your life?” “I have something to read,” she said. And, she thought, at the end of the day, they all turn out to be just men. *

Not long after he nodded off, he felt something and opened his eyes. She was beside him on the floor by the stove, wrapped in her sleeping bag, red hair all crazy from sleep. “I got cold, even with the sleeping bag,” she said. “I’ll feed the fire,” Ian replied, sitting up and slipping a couple of logs into the stove. Then he lay back down, giving her room on the pallet beside him and, pulling her close, said, “Come here, little girl. Let me get you warm.” “Hmm. That’s what I need.” “And what I need,” he said, giving her a kiss against her temple. “Can

Marcie felt something on her hair and woke to look into Ian’s rich brown eyes. Dawn was barely lighting the cabin and he was running his big hand over her curls. “Morning,” she said sleepily. He didn’t say anything. He just lowered his lips to hers and touched them gently, sweetly. She felt the brush of his beard, the soft flesh of his lips and let her eyes drop closed. He moved over her mouth for a moment. She moaned and slipped an arm around his neck, holding him there. He pulled back just a little and whispered, “We’re snowed in, honey.” “Good.” “I was jealous of Bobby, you know,” Ian said, petting her hair back along her temple, moving it over her ear. “Be careful, Ian—you’re talking about ‘it.’” “I’m ready to tell you anything you want to know. We were all a little jealous of Bobby. He had something real special with you. You sent him panties.” Her cheeks warmed in spite of herself. Her eyes got very round. “He showed you?” Ian chuckled. “He showed everyone. Very skimpy panties. I think they were lime-green with black lace or something.” “I cannot believe he showed you!” “He was proud of them. He kept them tucked in his inside pocket like a good-luck charm.” “They were perfectly clean, I’ll have you know.” “Aw, that almost comes as a disappointment,” Ian said, chuckling. “They should have had your scent on them.” “They had Tide and Downy on them!” “And you sent him that picture—on the motorcycle.” She put her hands over her face. In muffled tones she muttered, “I’m mortified.” He pulled her hands away and lightly kissed her again. “So the night I almost froze to death was actually the second time you’ve seen me in my underwear.” “Technically, I’ve seen your underwear a ton of times. I came home a couple of times to see your cute little rump sticking out of the covers, not to mention all that underwear on my tub, drying out,” he said. “And I’d trade my life to see you in your underwear again.” Her eyes got round for a minute, but then she smiled slightly and a little laugh escaped her. “I’ve heard some interesting come-ons in my limited experience, but that’s a new one. Tell me, do I have to shoot you after you peek?” “What if I told you, you might have to shoot me to stop me? Would that scare you?” “You don’t scare me, Ian. I know you’d protect me from anything. Even yourself.” He

That’s all I have to say.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you sure that’s all you have to say?” She leaned back and eyed him warily. “For now.” The other corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “You’re one stubborn little broad, aren’t you?” “Told you,” she said, lifting her chin. And she thought, It’s probably what got me through the worst of it. “You don’t have to buy food or do chores. I just can’t figure out how a grumpy old guy like me helps you with anything.” “Well,” she said, a little mollified and somewhat confused, “it’s because of the way—” “Tomorrow I deliver wood. I’ll go early with a load, come back empty and reload. I can take you to town then. It’ll take me a couple hours to deliver that load, then I’ll pick you up in town. You’ll be okay in town for that long? Where will you go?” “I’ll sit in Jack’s bar and drink coffee.” “Take your medicine first. That cough gets scary.” She smiled very happily. “Thank you, Ian.

In his devouring mind's eye he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce.

You’re crying.” His voice roughened with concern. “Am I?” She raised one hand to her face and her fingers came away wet. His slashing black brows lowered. “Did I hurt you?” When he shifted, his body slipped from hers. She missed him immediately. “No.” She blushed, although surely an earl’s mistress should have long ago lost the ability to blush. “I’m just…overwhelmed.” “I wanted to overwhelm you,” he said softly, his voice weighted with drowsiness. He drew her against him. “Rest now.” Past the line of his shoulder, she watched the cat stretch and pad toward the door. “I’ll tend to the cat first.” She always allowed Plato a couple of hours to roam while she was here. “Hurry back,” he murmured, kissing the tip of her shoulder. She

You saved my life—mine and Julien’s. If there is any way I can repay you—” But they were parted again, and he stood across from her as couples promenaded past them. He knew how she might repay him. He knew what he wanted. Her. He’d always wanted her. And so when he took her hand for the last form of the dance, he leaned close until he was enveloped by the scent of lavender. His lips brushed her ear and were teased, in turn, by the velvet of her skin. “If you wish to repay me,” he whispered against her hair, “meet me in the blue parlor in a few moments’ time. I must speak with you. Alone.

with my friends instead of just a couple of minutes between classes and at dinner. My family has not made any plans to travel during the break, so I’m sure that I’m going to have a bunch of time to hang out with all of my friends. I noticed that I haven’t written anything about what I did with my friends in the last month and a half. They’re a pretty cool group of people, so I should probably bust out a paragraph about each of them.   I

Do you ever regret the choices you made?” He asked because a man could love his wife and still be honest. Flint’s answer was to leaf through the sketches and pull out one of a young couple from a bygone era, his evening attire nearly as resplendent as her ball gown—for all the image was in black and white. “The fashion at one point was to have mirrors in ballrooms, the better to serve both light and vanity. At our betrothal ball, I caught a particular glimpse of your mother’s face as we danced, and it has been all the answer any husband should ever need.” The young marchioness gazed at her husband much as the queen had gazed at her king—with love and admiration, but without the worry. Clearly she had found her way into the arms of the one man in all the world who was right for her. Flint picked up the sketch. “I would give up the ability to see any color, the ability to sketch, and several appendages as well to spend my life with your mother.

Jenny enjoys her dabbling, but I was rather hoping she might enjoy your company more. Was I mistaken?” Behind the genial bonhomie of a doting father and relaxed host, Elijah heard a thread of ducal steel. A cloved orange was beginning to turn brown in the middle of a wreath on the back of the study door. “We enjoy each other’s company, Your Grace, but you have to know your daughter is not content.” Moreland came around the desk to stand beside Elijah at the window. “You’re not going to ask my permission to court her, are you?” The honesty was unexpected, also a relief, like the cold radiating from the window provided relief from the fire’s cozy blast. “She would not welcome my suit. You underestimate your daughter’s devotion to her art.” The duke snorted. “You’ve spent what, a couple of weeks with her, and you presume to tell me her priorities? I’ve known that girl since she first drew breath, Bernward. She’s no better at hiding her discontent from me than is her mother. The holidays are hard on them both is the trouble. Come calling when spring is nigh, and you’ll be well received. Both ladies are preoccupied now, with all the family underfoot and entertaining to be done.” His

I wanted to thank you for taking me to your family. Especially on Christmas. This is a treat I don’t get to experience very often.” His dark eyes softened and he gave her a slight smile. “You may not thank me in a couple hours. My family tends to be…boisterous. And they will infer that we, uh…” She nodded and stepped back. “They’ll assume we’re a couple? I’ll be sure to set them straight right away.” Stepping back, she could have grinned when she saw the unsettled frown on his face. Can’t have it both ways, big guy. “I’ll

Don’t think about the past visits. You have cupcakes,” Julia said as if they were a magic cure-all, and then whispered, “Bye.” Before she disconnected, he heard her say in that over-the-top excited voice of hers, “Just my dad. He misses me. No, it’s—” “Happy Thanksgiving, Sheriff Landon. Chief Benson here. You might not remember me but we met last time you were in town.” Aidan was about to disconnect but the chief would probably think the call had dropped and hit redial. Thanks to Julia, Aidan was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. If he lost his job because of her . . . He made a noncommittal sound into the phone. The chief seemed to buy it. “I just want you to know that you don’t have to worry about your little girl. I’m taking really good care of her.” Okay, how does Benson not get weirded out talking to a guy who is probably just a couple years older than him about his daughter? Aidan frowned. Wait a minute. Julia distinctly told him she wasn’t the chief’s girlfriend. So what was going on here? Maybe Benson didn’t get that no meant no. Aidan cleared his throat, deepened his voice and added what he thought of as Texan swagger. “Don’t you worry none about my daughter. She’s a bit of a thing and young, but she can take care of herself. She doesn’t need another daddy.” The chief didn’t respond. Aidan heard him talking to Julia, but their voices were muffled. And then they were unmuffled, and he clearly heard the chief say, “What do you mean it’s Aidan Gallagher and not your father?” He groaned, feeling like an idiot. He was going to kill her. “Gallagher, is that you?” the chief gritted out. Aidan pressed his forehead against the steering wheel, and the horn blasted, drowning out his yes. “My office tomorrow morning. Nine sharp.” He didn’t get a chance to respond. The line went dead. Seconds later, it came alive. I’ll fix it. I promise. She was lucky she didn’t add a happy face.

Jessica Cameron had to propose marriage in a couple of hours, and she was a little nervous about it. Trying

When you’re ready to have the conversation, pick the time and place very carefully. Most people choose to terminate people at the end of the day; the most common day is Thursday. The rationale behind these choices is that if you do it at the end of the day, the person is less likely to run into colleagues on the way out, and doing it on a Thursday (and asking that he or she not come to work on Friday) gives the person a long weekend to begin to go though his or her emotional reaction. Out of common courtesy, I suggest you not fire people within a couple of weeks of Christmas, Thanksgiving, or their birthday.

Nate came back into the kitchen, his hair slightly messy from having had the beanie on. The gray thermal Henley he wore gave him a rugged, all-man look that made her heart skip a couple beats. For someone who was the opposite of her type, he sure was hard not to look at. Add the quiet sense of humor she'd seen last night and delivering chocolate chips, and he'd tiptoed into perfect territory.

Mr. Beckett is here, Miss Westforth is here, and I am certain sparks will fly between them. That is, once we put them together.” Philbert glanced over her shoulder into the ballroom beyond. “I fear there is little we need to do for this couple.” She followed his gaze to where she could see Miss Susannah Westforth, the most sought after young lady of the past Season, surrounded by a sea of young men, giving Sebastian Beckett her hand to bow over. Startled, he did so. Then, a waltz began, and before the first three notes had been played, Susannah’s partner had stepped forward to claim her and lead her to the floor. The look on Mr. Beckett’s face fluctuated between completely shocked and utterly murderous. “Well, well,” she murmured. “That knocked his socks off. It will be a few hours yet before she has him smiling. Although, to hear Julia tell it, a little torture might be in that boy’s best interest.” “Hours of torture?” Philbert asked, shaking his now silver head. Lucy could remember when it had been a deep chocolate, thick and wavy. Of course, it was still thick, still waved. She raised her hand to her own light hair. Silver now too, she knew. But hopefully, still stylish. “Yes.” Lucy nodded. “Why, do you think that too much?” “It’s not for me to say, my lady.” The corner of his mouth went up. “Some men will break under hours of torture, wanting for a woman. Some men endure decades.” Something

Will you allow me to call on you?” “Yes,” she whispered without hesitation. “Good.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. They stood facing one another, hearts beating as one, attempting to catch their breath. “This room”—she indicated the parlor—“the glitter, the flowers. You planned this.” “I prayed for this, Rowena. And you came to me. Do you like it?” “I love it.” She smiled shyly. “But you did not need the mistletoe. I wanted to kiss you.” “And I you, but I am confused. I did not give you the mistletoe or plan for you to receive it.” “But Philbert—” “Ah.” He nodded. “It seems we are the fortunate couple this season. Once again, this ball has worked its magic.