“Do you like it?” Luke asked gruffly. She looked at his face, it was carefully blank, as if he were preparing himself for a painful rejection of his gift.
Her heart melted. “Luke, whenever I start to think you’re the most unusual man I’ve ever known, you ask a question like that. Of course I like it.” She flung her arms around his waist and dropped a kiss at the base of his neck, he pulled her up and returned it enthusiastically.
“How did you know?” she said softly after she had caught her breath again. They had settled down on the floor before the tree, the smell of fir was pungent and wonderful. “I’d almost forgotten… ” She blinked several times. Whenever she thought of passing time, or the past, or the future, it was as if the corners of her mind were lost in shadow. “I’ve always loved Christmas trees.”
Luke arched his jaw along the top of her head, his voice vibrating into her bones. “I knew. I guessed. Does it matter?”
Shaking her head, Joey leaned back to gaze at the tree, not missing electric lights or glittering tinsel. At last she found the gifts, wrapped in plain brown paper, half-hidden under the lowest branches. “Are those for me?” she whispered idiotically. She turned into his chest and hid her face there, too moved and too vulnerable to do more than shiver.
He pried her away and cupped her face in his hands. “I wish I could give you more, Joelle. Everything. All the things you deserve.” His kiss was gentle, tender rather than sensual. Her heart skipped a beat, and she spread her hands against his chest for support.
“And is it Christmas yet?” she murmured, knowing how absurd she must look and sound, knowing that Luke didn’t care.
The smile he gave her was a gift in itself. “Tomorrow. Today is Christmas Eve.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to wait,” she sighed, leaning back into the cradle of his arms.
Luke chuckled into her hair. “Somewhere in the world,” he reminded her softly, “it’s the right time.” He eased her away from him and retrieved two of the gifts-each a flat box, neatly but plainly wrapped, a cluster of autumn’s bright leaves at the center in place of ribbons—and presented them to her gravely.
Her fingers were trembling as she opened the first. The long chemise was of sheerest silk, flowing like water in her hands, pale silver-gold in the filtered light. There was nothing deliberately risque in the cut of it, or in the delicate matching robe she found in the second box. Nothing but the sensual sheerness of it that stroked her skin like Luke’s kisses. “The color of your hair,” Luke explained, his lips caressing her cheek.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered Luke had never cared that all she wore each day were the same jeans and oversized shirts, but suddenly Joey felt genuinely worthy of the gift Genuinely as beautiful as he claimed She closed her eyes and rubbed the wisps of silk against her skin The feel of it kindled a warmth deep within her, she opened her eyes to see the same heat reflected in Luke’s
She leaned against him, letting the silk flow into her lap. “I don’t have anything for you,” she admitted sadly.
“Oh, yes, Joelle. You do. ” His touch turned the warmth into a blaze. There were many gifts yet to be given.
That night they walked hand in hand over the frozen lake under a moon so luminous that the brittle winter stars were overwhelmed by its brilliance. The ice was uncertain under Joey’s feet, but Luke was always there to hold her, whispering the secrets of his world into the stillness. The winter was a world in waiting, dormant until the coming of spring, only the wolves and the animals upon which they fed braved winter’s harsh and austere beauty.
It was the first of many such walks Luke took her out into the woods, by day and by night, teaching her to see and hear and smell, testing the limits of her senses. Confirmation of that newborn inner truth—of what she was—came to her slowly. It settled into her bones, into her heart and into her soul. The bond she felt with Luke was no convenient little fairy tale, his need for her no mere excuse for endless lovemaking. Yet, in spite of that deep inner conviction, Joey was sometimes aware of a blank where the need to analyze and understand and make sense of a truth so irrational should have been. Luke filled that small emptiness so completely that acceptance came almost without struggle.