Everything I Give: A Holiday Romance Read online

  I nodded.

  “Why?” Archer asked.

  Leaning in so that only they could hear me, I said, “Important lesson, really quick. I’m going to dance with your mom because when someone you love asks you to do something for them that you know will make them happy, you do it for them. One time, a very long time ago when your mom and I first started dating, she asked me to dance with her and I didn’t. We ended up breaking up.”

  Their eyes widened. “Just because you didn’t dance?” Phoenix asked.

  Shaking my head, I insisted, “That wasn’t the only reason, but it was part of it. Luckily, I figured out what was important to me before it was too late and was able to apologize to your mom. She was the most important thing to me in the world, and I didn’t want to risk losing her. So, I’m telling you now that if you ever have a girl you love and you want to make sure she sticks around, you need to make some sacrifices for her.”

  “What about her?” Archer asked. “Will she do anything for me?”

  I nodded as I stood. “Your mom did for me. Lots of things. But you want to know what the best of all was?”

  “What?” they wondered.

  “She gave me you two and your sisters.”

  With that, knowing my sons were marveling in amazement and a bit of bewilderment at what I’d just told them, I moved toward my wife and slipped my arms around her waist.

  “That looked intense,” she said when I had her body pressed tight to mine.

  “I was giving them a lesson.”

  “On what?”

  “Women.”

  Monroe’s eyes widened. “Don’t you think they’re a bit young?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Not at all. They’ll never be too young to learn how to treat a woman. Especially a good woman who has their heart.”

  Monroe’s face softened. “I remember when you told me your dad taught you about how to treat a good woman.”

  Nodding, I replied, “Yeah. If only I’d taken his advice a whole lot sooner than I did.”

  “The only thing that matters is that you eventually figured it out,” she told me.

  “I love you, angel,” I whispered.

  She pressed a kiss to my lips before she responded, “Love you, too. This is going to be our best Christmas yet.”

  Then, she spent the rest of the song doing her very best to tease me while keeping it G-rated in front of the kids.

  When it ended, we separated from one another and moved back toward the tree to help our kids finish the decorations.

  “Okay, have a seat.”

  “I thought we were going shopping,” my six-year-old son, Ace, said as he hoisted himself up onto the couch beside me.

  My four-year-old daughter, Lark, reached her hand out to hold onto my arm and climbed up into my lap. Once there, she agreed, “Yeah, we have to go buy presents.”

  “We are going shopping,” I insisted. “But we need a plan.”

  “A plan?” Lark repeated.

  Nodding, I confirmed, “Yes, a plan.”

  She scrunched her face up, which communicated her confusion. I couldn’t help but laugh. My daughter was not only the spitting image of her gorgeous mother, but she also had so many of the same mannerisms. Whenever my wife was in deep thought, she’d furrow her brows and scrunch up her nose. And even though I’d seen her do it a million times already, it still gave me the same feeling. I was convinced there was nothing more adorable on the face of the planet than seeing the two of them in deep concentration.

  “Like a game plan?” Ace chimed in.

  Glancing down at my boy, who looked just like me except for the dark hair and bright blue eyes he got from his mom, I said, “Yes. Exactly like that.”

  “Why?” he wondered.

  This was the reason I sat down. I knew they’d have a million questions before I even got to explain anything to them. my kids had always been curious, and it was one of the things I loved so much about them. It wasn’t because they always asked a lot of questions but because their curiosity wouldn’t allow them to give up on something. They’d do whatever they could to figure out how to solve a problem.

  “This is your mom we’re going shopping for,” I began, glancing between Ace and Lark. “She’s the most important woman in our lives. We want to make sure that we think really hard about what she would like most for Christmas so that we can go to the right stores for it.”

  “What if we get the wrong thing?” Lark worried.

  Smiling at her, I gave her hand a squeeze and said, “Monkey, Mommy is going to love anything we get her simply because it’s coming from us. So, you don’t need to worry about picking out the wrong thing. Even still, I want us to take a few minutes to really think about what she might like the most. And I was thinking you could do it individually.”

  “What does that mean?” Ace asked.

  I didn’t want to tell the kids what I had planned for Nikki just yet. It was too early in December, and it was something they’d benefit from as well. There was too great a chance that they’d slip up and mention it to her ahead of time by accident. I figured it was best to give them something without sharing all the details.

  “I’ve got a special gift picked out for Mom,” I started. “That gift will be from all three of us, okay?”

  Ace and Lark both nodded, but it was my son that asked, “What is it?”

  “Let’s not worry about that right now,” I urged. “Just know that I took care of getting her something really special from all of us. What I want now is for each of you to be able to get her something that’s just from each of you.”

  “I’m not sure what to get,” Ace admitted.

  “Me either,” Lark agreed.

  Putting my arm around my son, I promised, “That’s okay. That’s why I wanted us to sit down and talk about it before we leave. Let’s think about it for a minute and hopefully we’ll come up with some ideas. Do you know what your mom loves doing most in the whole world?”

  “Cutting hair?” Ace guessed.

  “Well, yeah, she enjoys doing that for other people,” I remarked. “But I’m talking about for herself.”

  “I don’t know,” Lark mumbled, her sweet face still wrinkled with doubt.

  Squeezing both of my children close to me, I declared, “It’s being with her family. Mommy doesn’t want all these things we can buy her. She likes spending time with the people who mean the most to her. So, I was thinking you could each try to come up with something you enjoy doing with your mom, just you and her.”

  There were several long seconds of silence while my kids considered my words. Eventually, Lark declared, “I know what I can get.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Stuff for a girls’ spa day,” she beamed.

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Girls’ spa day?” I repeated.

  Nodding, she explained, “Yeah. Me and Mommy can paint our fingers and toes and do our hair and makeup.”

  “You don’t wear makeup,” I reminded her, suddenly wondering if perhaps I should have helped guide her decision a bit more. I didn’t want to think about my little girl doing all these grownup girl things.

  “But it’s just for fun,” she pleaded. “And I’m not going to keep the makeup on. Mommy said it’s not good for your skin to sleep with makeup on your face.”

  There was no way I’d be able to deny her. I didn’t think Lark knew just how weak I was when it came to giving her anything her heart desired, but I hoped she never figured it out. I’d be doomed.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll take you to a place where we can get all the things you’ll need for a special day with Mommy.”

  Lark’s face lit up.

  I turned my attention back to Ace and asked, “What about you, dude?”

  Ace shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I like cars, but Mom isn’t really interested in them.”

  “She will be if you are,” I assured him.

  Hope surged in his face. “Do you think she’d like to go to the go-kart racing place that Uncle Logan takes Aunt Kendall to sometimes?”

  “I’m sure she’d love it.”

  Ace thought a moment about it and said, “Okay. I think I’d like to take Mom on a date to go go-kart racing, but I want to take her out to dinner before we go.”

  “You want to take her out to dinner?” I asked.

  Ace dipped his chin and said, “She said she likes to cook for us since she knows how to do it now, but she likes when we get takeout sometimes because someone else gets to do the cooking.”

  “She said that?” I asked.

  “All the time, Daddy,” Lark interjected.

  Suddenly, I had something else I was going to be adding to the pile of gifts Nikki would have waiting under the tree for her on Christmas morning.

  “Alright then. Are we ready to go now?” I asked.

  “Yeah!” they called out in unison.

  “Okay, let’s go. We want to get back here before Mom gets home from work.”

  Ace hopped off the couch while I lifted Lark from my lap and put her on her feet. They took off running toward the door that led out into the garage while I walked behind them. As I followed them, a thought that often came to my mind filtered in once again.

  My wife was at work.

  I’d become a stay-at-home dad.

  I loved doing it, too.

  It wasn’t that Nikki needed to work. She loved what she did. So, while I’d told her years ago that she no longer needed to work, she wanted to continue. I’d never expect her to stop doing something that made her happy but wanted to make sure she knew that I didn’t expect her to continue it.

  But as much as my wife loved the work she did, she loved her family that much more. After Ace was born, she took a full three months off with him.
When she went back to work, she cut the number of days back to three times a week. Once she got pregnant with our daughter, Nikki cut back to two days. She’d kept it that way ever since. I had a feeling the time would come when she’d stop, only doing it for herself and her close friends, but until that day arrived, I’d support her in whatever she wanted to do while I did what I loved day in and day out by being with my kids.

  Once I got them strapped into their car seats, we took off to do our Christmas shopping. A couple hours later, just after lunch, we were back home with the gifts the kids picked out for Nikki.

  We picked up a gift certificate at a restaurant Ace selected that he’d take his Mom to when they had their date. And we swung by the go-kart track to do the same. During our shopping trip, he decided he wanted to take an art class with her, so we added that to the mix.

  What I loved about Ace was the fact that he was a lot like me. Simple. Easy. He knew what he wanted, and we could get in and out within minutes for each stop we made.

  But when it came to Lark, I thought I’d lose my mind. I learned more about things I didn’t care to learn about in the time we spent getting the gifts she wanted for her girls’ spa day. I thought it was simply going to be a couple bottles of nail polish and maybe some blush for her cheeks.

  Apparently, I know nothing about a spa day for women. Worse yet, my four-year-old daughter knew more than I thought was possible or appropriate considering her age.

  Lark selected a bunch of different nail polishes as I had expected, but followed that up with lotions, sugar scrubs, and face masks. She even convinced me to buy the two of them a matching set of robes. I did it because I knew it would mean everything to Nikki to have that time with our girl—and because I couldn’t say no to Lark—but I had the awful thought in the back of my mind that I was going to be in some serious trouble when my daughter grew up.

  Thankfully, despite the amount of time we spent getting everything picked out for Lark’s gift to Nikki, we still made it home before my wife returned from work. We didn’t have a ton of extra time, but there was enough for me to get the kids in the house and get the gifts hidden.

  When Nikki walked in the house not more than five minutes after we’d gotten home, I walked over to meet her. The kids had already both gone up to play in their rooms.

  “Hey baby girl,” I greeted her as I slipped my hand around her waist and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Hi, husband. How was your day?” she replied.

  “Good. The kids and I got a lot accomplished. What about you?”

  “It was busy,” she started. “But it was my last Saturday for the year, so I’m totally okay with it.”

  While I knew that Nikki had taken the last couple of Saturdays of the year off from work, it had slipped my mind until she had just mentioned it again.

  “That’s right,” I said. “We’ve got a couple busy weekends coming up.”

  Nodding, she returned, “Yep. And that’s why I’ve got to run upstairs and get in the shower now. There’s so much to do, but I need to get this hair off me first.”

  Keeping my arms around her waist, I gave her a squeeze and kissed her again. This time, I touched my mouth to hers.

  Just the thought of her naked in the shower was enough for me. “What I would give right now to join you,” I told her.

  She cocked an eyebrow. “If we weren’t short on time and the kids weren’t awake, I’d say we could make it happen. But I think you’re going to need to wait until later tonight.”

  “I know,” I mumbled, not happy about not being able to enjoy my wife.

  She leaned forward, kissed me, and promised, “I’ll be quick.”

  With that, I loosened my hold on her and let her go upstairs to shower. While she did that, I spent my time thinking about all the things I was going to do to her later tonight after the kids had gone to bed.

  I’d just finished up in the shower when I glanced at the clock and realized I only had about fifteen minutes left before my dad was going to arrive. I hadn’t planned to get so sidetracked, but after I got home and talked for a minute with Luke, I climbed the stairs and stopped in each of my children’s rooms to give them a hug and a kiss. Even though I only worked two days a week—and Saturday was only a six-hour day—I still missed my family terribly when I was away from them.

  I never thought in a million years I’d have reached this point in my life, but here I was. Motherly and doting.

  Luckily for me, I only planned on working one day a week for the next two weeks, and then I’d be off from work until after the new year. As much as I loved the work I did, I loved my family more. I loved my kids and my husband. And being able to spend the holidays with them was everything I could have ever wanted.

  In fact, ever since my very first Christmas I spent with Luke, the holiday had been super special for me. Once Ace came along, it got even better. And now that we had Lark and our family was complete, I wanted to spend the holidays making all the memories I could with them.

  I never wanted my children to grow up and have any negative thoughts about their childhood. I wanted them to be able to look back on the holidays and remember all the fun we had together as a family.

  Best of all, thanks to Luke, my children would have their grandfather in the picture, too. My father might have missed out on the chance to make so many wonderful memories with me, but he wasn’t going to miss out on making them with his grandchildren.

  And he was going to be doing exactly that today so that Luke and I could run out and get some of our Christmas shopping done. Typically, I was an online shopper, but I liked the idea of getting out for a few hours with my husband and having that time uninterrupted with him. Not only that, but Emme and Zane were throwing a birthday party for their twin girls next weekend, which meant we needed to buy birthday presents, too. So, for me, it was a win-win situation. I could get some shopping done while I spent time with the man who, to this very day, still made me burn for him.

  Once I’d gotten myself dressed, I walked into Ace’s room and saw him playing with his cars. “Grandpa Mike is going to be here any minute. You should come downstairs,” I told him.

  “Okay, Mom. I’ll be right down,” he returned.

  My boy. Gosh, I loved him so much.

  I walked out of his room and moved to Lark’s next. When I peeked my head inside, I saw that it was empty. She had likely gone down to be with her dad. While Lark had no problem being in her room doing her own thing, she preferred to be wherever the crowd was. And she loved spending time with Luke. So when I got to the bottom of the stairs, I wasn’t surprised to see the two of them playing together. Luke was on his back on the floor, his legs up in the air, and Lark’s belly was resting against the bottom of his feet. She was an airplane. A giggling one but an airplane, nonetheless.

  My girl. Gosh, I loved her.

  With near-perfect timing, there was a light tap on the door that led out to the garage before it opened, and my father walked in with a large container in his arms behind his wife, Marilena, who we all called Grandma Lena. Lena was actually Lorenzo De Luca’s mother. Lorenzo worked at Cunningham Security with my dad, but it wasn’t Lorenzo who introduced my father to his mother. Luckily, in the end, it all worked out.

  I couldn’t have been happier for my father. Lena loved him like crazy, and she was so good to him. He deserved that.

  “Grandpa Mike!! Grandma Lena!!” Lark shouted as she ran toward her grandparents.

  Lena bent her knees and braced for Lark’s impact. When they collided, Lena stood with my daughter in her arms and showered her with kisses. “Hi, love bug. How was your day today?”

  “We had so much fun with Daddy today,” Lark bubbled. “He took us Christmas shopping.”

  “You went shopping?” my dad asked her.

  Lark nodded and said, “Yep. We got Christmas presents for Mommy. She’s going to be so surprised.”

  My heart swelled as Luke made his way over and stood next to me. I looked up at him and smiled.

  My husband. Gosh, I loved him.

  Just then, Ace walked in and said, “Hi, Grandma. Hi, Grandpa.”

  My father set the container he’d carried in down on the floor and lifted Ace in his arms. “Hey, big guy. Are you excited for a night of fun?”

  “Yeah. What are we going to do? What’s in there?” Ace asked pointing to the container on the floor.