Kissing Mr. Mistletoe bonus epilogue
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Emily
“Tell me again,” Lu says, tugging at my shirt as I roll out the gingerbread dough. “Tell me how you met Daddy.”
Whit, who’s home from his last year of college for the holidays, snorts as he opens a finished tin of cookies sitting on the kitchen counter. He shot up like a bean pole in his last year of high school, and it’s still a bit shocking to see him like this after he’s been away from home for a while. A big man, all grown up. A good man, like my husband.
“You mean the story of how she laid one on a complete stranger?” Whit asks as I set down the rolling pin and start pressing out the cookies. “Honestly, Emily. You’re lucky he wasn’t a complete psychopath.”
“I take offense.” Miles winks at me from across the table. He’s eating the decorations I set out for the cookies, as adorably shameless as ever, and we’re all drinking hot chocolate from my East Fork pottery mugs. It’s a perfect moment, the kind I used to think I could only find in someone else’s story, but it’s mine.
They’re mine.
“I AM a complete psychopath,” Miles roars as he gets up and launches himself at Whit, who’s already laughing and trying to escape as Miles tickles him under the armpits—the one thing guaranteed to always make him laugh himself silly even though he’s gone and grown up.
“Quit messing around.” Lu pushes her lips out as she pokes at one of the little doughy bodies I just set on the tray. A fierce burst of emotion surprises me, the way they do at the strangest moments, and I think about my beautiful friend Luanne. She’d loved her namesake. She still does, I know, wherever she’s moved on to.
I know she’s still thinking of us in that place beyond our world because she sends me phoenix feathers. I see one every time I have the perfect slice of pie. Every time I find a new romance book with the perfect cheesy title. Maybe it sounds foolish, but I have a little book I keep packed full of stories just for her—things I’ll never be able to tell her out loud.
Sometimes I share them with Mr. Campbell, who’s missing her too. He comes to visit less, but he still calls me several times a week, and we FaceTime so he can see Lu and Whit. He and Miles speak on the phone too. They’ve become closer with the passing years, in part because I truly believe my husband could charm anyone, but also because Miles simply wasn’t willing to give up. Mr. Campbell was family to me, so he wouldn’t rest until he became family to him too.
“Mommy was going to tell me the story,” Lu says with a pout.
“You’ve heard it five hundred times, little bit,” says Whit as he pulls free and tousles her hair.
“I still like it. Nobody else’s parents have a good story. Most of them met on their phones, and May’s parents met in line at the grocery store. Her daddy asked her mommy to pick out his tomatoes.”
“That actually worked?” Miles asks as he reclaims the seat opposite me, then pushes out the chair next to him with his foot for Whit. “I guess I shouldn’t judge. All I had to do was wait for the prettiest girl in town to push me under the mistletoe.”
“I didn’t push you.”
“Did you pull me?”
“That’s what British people call kissing,” Whit offers.
I make a mental note to interrogate him about his dating life. No doubt Bianca and the others will help me.
“Then she definitely pulled me,” Miles says.
I shake my head, but I can’t help grinning at his boldness.
“I was pretty shocked,” Miles tells Lu, throwing an almond in his mouth. “But if an incredible opportunity presents itself, you take it, right Whit?”
Whit, who’s twenty-two and has already started half a dozen businesses, nods. “Damn straight.”
Lu glares at him, and he looks back with a show of wide-eyed innocence. “What? Damn’s not a swear.”
“It is according to her second-grade teacher,” I say.
“And a lot of other people,” Miles agrees. “Not me, and definitely not your Uncle Graham. But a lot of other people.”
“I’m sorry,” Whit grumbles. “I’ll let them tell their sappy story with no more interruptions.”
“Good,” Lu says. “You kissed him, Mommy, and then what?”
I study Miles from across the table, running my socked foot against his as I fall into his dual-colored gaze. It’s so easy to fall into, even after all this time. I’ve never been the type to stop feeling lucky when life chooses to be kind. “I gave him a book.”
“That was her signature move,” Miles says, his grin spreading wider. “Still is. But it was the book she gave me that made it truly remarkable, Lu. It was her first book, and no one knew she’d written it.”
Lu wrinkles her nose. “I still don't understand why you said someone named Gus wrote it, Mommy. Gus is a terrible name.”
“Whit’s much better,” Whit says as he takes an almond from the bag Miles is mowing through.
“I wasn’t ready for everyone to know that I was mine,” I tell her, ignoring my men. “But I wanted to share it with your daddy.”
“Because you loved him,” Lu says dreamily. She’s been going through a Disney princess phase, and Miles thinks we’re in trouble because her favorite “suitor” is Flynn Rider from Tangled. I told him she was walking in her momma’s shoes.
“I didn’t love him yet,” I object.
Miles makes me laugh by laying a palm over his chest as if I just tore his heart clean in two.
“But I think I started falling in love with him right at that moment.”
“And a good thing,” Whit says. “Because if they hadn’t fallen in love, we wouldn’t have you.”
“And we wouldn’t have gotten to keep you,” I say, feeling a gush of love.
“Oh lord.” Whit rolls his eyes. “Let’s not keep going down that road. Emily’s going to cry, and then Miles will start weeping, and—”
“I can still tickle you, bud. That’s always on the table.”
“Yes, Daddy,” Luanne says. “You’re very big and strong. Now, tell what happened when you found out it was Mommy’s book.”
“I gave myself a tattoo,” he says, “the way any rational person would.” He rolls up the sleeves of his thermal shirt, revealing his thick, beautiful forearms, the left covered in art.
Lu leaps out of her chair so she can run her fingers over the feather. Whit has one now, too, on the same forearm, and Lu’s made Miles promise that he’ll do one for her too, as soon as she turns eighteen.
“And what did you think when you saw it?” Lu asks, her eyes hungry for the familiar beats of the story.
What I really thought?
Oh crap.
But of course that’s not all I thought, and that’s not what she wants to hear.
“I thought it was beautiful that he loved my story enough to want it on his body. And I thought maybe I should agree to talk to him.”
“It only took her a couple of months after that,” Miles says. “But eventually she realized I was madly in love with her and decided to give me a shot, even though Romeo here was already trying to sweep her off her feet.”
“Oh, come on, Miles.” Whit scrunches his nose. “I was thirteen. I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“Being in love with Emily is the most sensible thing in the world,” he says.
I feel my cheeks warming.
The doorbell rings, and Lu lights up like the Christmas tree. “They’re here. They’re here to watch Home Alone.”
“Bianca’s gonna love it when I tell her I already picked the movie,” Miles says, grinning at me.
Lu’s already taken off toward the door like a banshee.
“Go make sure your sister doesn’t let out the cat,” I tell Whit.
He gets up right quick, because Phoenix is like his other half. I’m hoping he’ll move back home for a little while after college, because I miss him so, and if anything can convince him it’ll be Lu and Phoenix.
After he leaves the room, Miles gets up and offers me his hand, as if I’ve suddenly lost the ability to get to my feet. I let him pull me up, landing squarely against his warm chest.
“Oh, that’s always yours.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a sprig of mistletoe, the end wrapped in ribbon. I laugh as he holds it over our heads, smiling down at me with that same mischievous smile.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You convinced Lu to ask for that story.”
“I can’t share all my tricks with you. If I do, I’ll stop surprising you.”
I cup his cheek in my hands, feeling my heart expand. “You’ll never stop surprising me, Miles Murphy.”
Then I get up on my toes and I kiss him with all my soul. Because it is nearly Christmas, after all, and it could hardly be a good one without some mistletoe.
Don't miss the next Apple Ridge story: Running with Mr. Valentine. It's Theo and Aria's story, and I have a massive soft spot for Theo.
It releases in February, and you can preorder it here:
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February 4 on Amazon/Kindle+: