Jim looked pointedly at the pile of Kleenex growing on the floor and raised a ginger eyebrow at her. "Just a little cold?"

She kicked at the blanket, her blue eyes mutinous. "I want to go to the Christmas party."

"Trixie, honey, you couldn’t even stand up five minutes ago," he reproved. Jim leaned over and tucked the blanket around her again and put a tray in front of her. "I’ve put a glass of eggnog here for you," he began and winked at her, "with the good stuff in it." He then pointed to the box of photos next to her. "I pulled out all the holiday pictures so you could look through them for that project you want to work on."

"I want to go with you. I don’t want to stay here by myself," Trixie protested.

He shook his head. "Bed for you. I won’t stay too long. I promise." A smile curved his lips. "Then I’ll give you the Frayne get well recipe."

A reluctant answering smile tugged Trixie’s lips. "Oh, you will, will you? Aren’t you afraid of getting sick?"

"Not if it means being laid up in bed with you to minister to me." He grinned wickedly at her.

She finally giggled and then sighed dramatically. "Okay, okay. I’ll be good and stay here while you and our daughter are out socializing." Trixie gestured toward the bassinet. "Before you go, show me how cute she looks in her little Santa suit."

Her husband leaned over the bassinet and picked up their little girl, her sleepy form curling up in a little ball against his shoulder. "Hey, little one," he crooned. "Aren’t you going to wake up and show your mama how beautiful you are?"

A wistful, tender look crossed Trixie’s face. Again and again, she marveled at how wonderful Jim was with their daughter.  Just as I knew he would be.

The white fur trim caressed the little behind encased in the red velvet pants that Uncle Dan had bought for her. Jim leaned over, grabbed the small Santa hat and kissed his daughter before he tugged the hat over her downy head.

"She looks pretty cute if I do say so myself," Jim bragged, holding the tiny girl out for inspection. "All that hard work to wiggle her into the suit paid off, didn’t it?"

Trixie nodded, suddenly feeling choked up at the sight of her grinning husband and sleepy daughter in their matching Santa suits. "You’ve got her bottle, right? Just in case? And you won’t be too long? I…" Her husky voice was silenced as he leaned over and kissed her firmly.

"Don’t worry," he said. "We’ll be fine." He gestured at the eggnog and pictures. "Now drink and stay busy. We’ll be back in a little while." With another kiss, he straightened, grabbed the stuffed diaper bag and slung it over his shoulder and disappeared out the bedroom door, whistling "It Must Have Been Ol’ Santa Claus" as he went.

Trixie sighed and looked back at the tray in front of her. She picked up the eggnog and sipped at it cautiously, knowing that Jim liked to add an extra splash of brandy to make it extra potent. Once the slight burning of the brandy was replaced by its welcome warmth, she turned to look at the pictures in front of her.

She started to laugh as she looked at the first picture. Drunk as skunks, they were. Mart, Brian, Dan and Jim, all shirtless, wearing Santa hats and showing off their new tattoos. She bit her lip, shaking her head. I wonder how long it took Honey to talk Brian into it. It sure took me forever to get Jim to do it…

Instead of smiling back at him, she grabbed his hands in hers and stared intently into his eyes. "I love you, Jim Frayne. Scars and all. I don’t regret one moment of you and me." Her blue eyes welled with tears. "And it’s because of you that any of us are Bob-Whites at all."

"Yes," she said emphatically. "In fact, I’d insist on it."

Trixie traced a finger along the curve of Jim’s shoulder and over the Bob-White on his chest. He’d had too much scarring on his back to put the Bob-White there. So, Dan had elected to do a chest version of Diana’s designed tattoo along with Jim while Brian and Mart opted for their backs. The things you do for me, Jim Frayne.

She pulled out the next photograph and started to laugh. Jim and Honey were astride a reindeer, both grinning like banshees at the camera, their faces flushed with the red that comes from icy cold weather. She remembered that it had been a very long Christmas that year, the first she’d spent apart from Jim and Honey since they’d found Jim in the crumbling mansion. The Wheelers had determined they would take a family Christmas trip to Europe for two weeks, meeting up with Juliana and Hans in the northern Lapland country near the top of the world.

Jim had come home with glowing reports of a hotel made out of ice and a ride on reindeer. He’d been utterly fascinated by the Land of the Midnight Sun. And he enjoyed teasing me about those Swedish beauties too much! Trixie shook her head and tossed the picture on top of the other one. She glanced at the eggnog, shrugged and took another sip. "Have to fortify myself for memories like that!" With a giggle, she picked up the next picture.

Her giggle turned into outright laughter as she glanced at the picture. Jim and she had posed for what seemed to be hours in front of that stupid candle.

"We have to have a special Christmas card!" Trixie insisted. "One with our picture in it. It’s our first Christmas as a married couple!"

"No! We’re sending this to people like my grandmother!" Trixie scolded, pushing him away from lifting up her red sweater. "I’m not sending anything like that to her!"

She giggled and the two of them spent the next half hour attempting to stare soulfully into the candle’s flickering light. Instead, they both ended up looking possessed when they weren’t actually bursting into fits of laughter.

Trixie giggled again. This was even better than It’s a Wonderful Life. "And I’m only on picture number three!"

She continued to flip through pictures, chuckling in remembrance of Mart’s having to pay up on his and Dan’s bet by singing Mariah Carey’s version of "Joy to the World" in falsetto while they were hanging ornaments on the tree at Crabapple Farm. Brian had been so pleased that Mart hadn’t thought he’d be the slowest to ask a girl out that he’d quickly deserted the pile of their old faded first-grade ornaments with their construction paper snowmen and glazed macaroni frames, and warbled along with him just to keep Mart from having to do it alone.

At the final picture, she stopped and just stared at it for a long time. She’d worn green that day because it was Christmasy and because it reminded her of him. He’d been so breathtakingly handsome in his suit. She’d thought they were going to a fancy dinner. Instead, he turned her upside down with a proposal in a small, stone church with candles and flowers and notes that had reaffirmed to her how much he loved her.

They’d had dinner later over an intimate candlelit table in a small restaurant hidden in an alcove, away from prying eyes, and she’d found that she couldn’t do more than stare at him…to drink in his dear, dear face, to hold his hand every chance she got and to know, truly know, that she was his and he was hers.

Trixie grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her runny nose and teary eyes.

"Is this cold sniffling or crying sniffling?" demanded a fondly amused voice from the door.

Trixie looked up to see her husband, returning with their daughter asleep on his shoulder. She gave him a watery smile. "Maybe a little of both?"

Jim gently placed the baby in the bassinet and set the diaper bag on the floor next to it. He turned around and looked at his wife thoughtfully, her blue eyes rimmed red, pictures strewn across their bed and the eggnog nearly drained from her glass. He pulled out a candy cane from his pocket, one of the favors from the Christmas party, and slowly began to unwrap it. He tossed the peeled wrapper in the trash and walked over to the bed and sat down. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," she said softly, not wanting to wake the baby. "A little better with that brandy running through my system." She smiled at him and started picking up the pictures to make room for him on the bed. Once she was finished, she eyed the candy cane he twirled on his finger and gestured at him. "What’s that for?"

"It’s a special candy cane," he said huskily. "A wishing candy cane."

A sandy eyebrow shot up. "A wishing candy cane?"

He nodded and held on to the smaller, curved end of the candy cane. "You treat it like a wishbone. You pull one end; I’ll pull the other. Whoever gets the bigger piece gets to make a wish."

Trixie snorted. "Um…aren’t the sides supposed to be of equal length? Somehow, I think you’ll get the short end of the stick on this one, Frayne," she said, wrapping her fingers around the longer end of the candy cane.

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t grin, except for a wicked twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, I think I’ll survive. After all, I know what you’re going to wish for."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

He nodded. "A cure for that cold," he said huskily. Jim winked one green eye at her. "And your husband knows just the cure for that."

Trixie couldn’t repress a delighted shiver at the look in his green eyes. How the man could even look at her, let alone be interested in providing her with a…well…a cure was beyond her. She pushed her curls off her forehead with her free hand and smiled demurely. "You know me too well."

His grin grew positively sinful as he locked gazes with her. "On the count of three. One…"

"Two…," she said quickly after him.

"Three!" they cried together, each of them pulling on the candy cane until the cane splintered, and they each held a sticky portion of the red and white striped candy in their hands.

Trixie looked over her piece and crowed, "I get my wish!" She gestured at her husband. "I want my Frayne cure-all, please."

He grinned at her and popped his curved piece of candy into his mouth. She mimicked him, doing the same with her piece.

Jim stood up and slowly undid the thick golden buckle around his waist, humming a slightly-out-of-tune version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town under his breath, and tossed the belt to the floor, pulling the coat open to flash her a brief look at the pillow stuffed into his oversized pants.

Trixie grinned at him. "C’mon! My wish involves more than just a sighting of a pillow! I want a look at that supple chest of yours."

He grinned wickedly. "Don’t rush it! You know Santa comes just once a year!"

Trixie looked at her red-headed husband, his green eyes twinkling with mischief, his lean body evident even under the padding of his costume, and she knew that Santa came more than once a year. He had made a special trip for her long ago, giving her Christmas on a hot day in July. She blinked back sudden tears and whispered, "I love you, Jim Frayne."

He stopped and looked at her in concern, his Santa coat dangling over one freckled shoulder. "What’s wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing," she said hoarsely. She gave him a watery smile. "I was just thinking about the best Christmas present I ever got."

A sympathetic understanding lit his eyes, and the crooked smile she loved so well curved his lips briefly before his mood changed and he flashed a grin at her. "Forget all these other Christmases, baby. Santa’s got something extra special for you this year." Jim wiggled his eyebrows and leered at her.

Trixie shook her head and began to laugh as her husband dropped the large red coat to the floor. "Does he? Well, let’s hope so. If he only comes just once a year…"

Jim’s grin grew wider and he winked. "He only comes once a year, sweetheart. But it’s always Christmastime when you’re married to Jim Frayne."

Amen to that, Trixie thought to herself. Amen to that.

The characters herein are copyrighted by Random House Publishing.  No money is being made off their use here.  All other characters are of my own creation and should not be used without permission.