Holiday Wishes by Nora Roberts Page A

remember.
    What kind of man was he really? He wasn’t sure anymore, but he knew there was one woman who could make or break him. Leaving the suit in the closet, he went to find her.
    She had been waiting for him. She was ready to admit she’d been waiting for him for ten years. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, Faith had made her own decisions. She’d made a success of her life. Though the search hadn’t always been easy, she’d found contentment. Confidence had come with the years and she knew she could go on alone. It was time to stop being afraid of what her life would be like when Jason left again and to accept the gift she’d been offered. He was here, now, and she loved him.
    When he came into the house he found her curled in a chair by the tree, her cheek resting on the arm. She waited until he came to her. “Sometimes at night I sit like this. Clara’s asleep upstairs and the house is quiet. I can think about little things, enormous things, just as I did as a child. The lights all blend together and the tree smells like heaven. You can go anywhere, sitting just like this.”
    He picked her up, felt her yield, then settled in the chair with her on his lap. “I remember sitting like this with you at Christmastime in your parents’ house. Your father grumbled.”
    She snuggled close. There was no padding now, just the long, lean body she knew so well. “My mother dragged him into the kitchen so we could be alone for a little while. She knew you didn’t have a tree at home.”
    “Or anything else.”
    “I never asked where you live now, Jason. Whether you found a place that makes you happy.”
    “I move around a lot. I have a base in New York.”
    “A base?”
    “An apartment.”
    “It doesn’t sound like a home,” she murmured. “Do you put a tree in the window at Christmas?”
    “I guess I have once or twice, when I’ve been around.”
    It broke her heart, but she said nothing. “My mother always said you had wanderlust. Some people are born with it.”
    “I had to prove myself, Faith.”
    “To whom?”
    “To myself.” He rested his cheek on top of her head. “Damn it, to you.”
    She breathed in the scent of pine while the lights danced on the tree. They’d sat like this before, so long ago. The memories were nearly as sweet as the reality. “I never needed you to prove anything to me, Jason.”
    “Maybe that’s one of the reasons I had to. You were too good for me.”
    “That’s ridiculous.” She would have shifted, but he held her still.
    “You were, and still are.” He, too, stared at the tree. The tinsel shimmered in the lights like the magic he’d always wanted to give her. “Maybe that’s why I had to leave when I did—maybe it’s why I came back. You’re all the good things, Faith. Just being with you brings out the best parts of me. God knows, there aren’t many.”
    “You were always too hard on yourself. I don’t like it.” This time she did shift so that her hands were on his shoulders and her eyes were directly on his. “I fell in love with you. There were reasons for it. You were kind though you pretended not to be. You wanted to be considered tough and a troublemaker because you felt safer that way.”
    He smiled and ran a finger down her cheek. “I was a troublemaker.”
    “Maybe I liked that, too. You didn’t just accept things. You weren’t afraid to question.”
    “I nearly got kicked out of school twice because I questioned.”
    The old anger stirred. Had no one understood him but herself? Had no one else been able to see what had been racing and straining inside him? “You were smarter than anyone else. You’ve proved that if you needed to.”
    “You spent a lot of time defending me, didn’t you?”
    “I believed in you. I loved you.”
    He reached for her face in an old gesture that melted her heart. “And now?”
    She had too much to say and not enough ways to say it. “Do you remember that night in June, after my senior prom? We