A Christmas Blessing

I’d do it over?”
“It is Angela’s first tree,” she reminded him in that sweet, coaxing tone she used so effectively. “You want it to be perfect, don’t you?”
He laughed. “So that’s how it’s going to be, is it? One teeny little mistake and you’re going to accuse me of traumatizing the baby’s entire perception of Christmas?”
He glanced down at Angela and saw that she’d fallen fast asleep amid her nest of pillows. “Look,” he said triumphantly. “She’s not even interested.”
Jessie waved off the claim. “She won’t sleep forever. Test the lights, but that’s all, Lucas.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When she’d gone, Luke tried to recall the last time he’d taken orders from anyone. Not once that he could think of since moving out of his father’s house. More important, this was absolutely the only time he’d ever taken orders and actually enjoyed it.
* * *
Something had changed overnight, Jessie decided as she searched through her luggage for the festive red maternity sweater she’d bought for the holidays. She’d fallen in love with the scattered seed pearl trim around the neckline. Except for its roominess, it made a stylish ensemble with a pair of equally bright stirrup pants and dressy flats.
Suddenly she was overwhelmed by the Christmas spirit. It wasn’t just the sight of that incredible tree. It was Luke’s thoughtfulness in getting it for her. There was no mistaking that the tree and his shift in mood were his gifts to her.
She thought she’d seen something else in his eyes, as well, something she didn’t dare examine too closely for fear she would confirm the attraction that had scared her away from White Pines.
Twenty minutes after she’d left him, she was back with a tray filled with mugs of steaming hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, and a plate of Christmas cookies she’d found in a tin, plus slices of her own homemade fruitcake. It made an odd sort of breakfast, but who cared? It fit the occasion. She also brought along the radio, which she immediately tuned to a station playing carols.
“Now?” Luke asked dryly, when she had everything set up to her satisfaction.
Jessie surveyed the ambience and nodded. “Ready. Did you check the lights?”
“All the strands are working,” he confirmed. “More than we could possibly need even for this monster. I suspect half of them were used outside last year.” He regarded her with a teasing glint in his eyes. “I assume you have a blueprint of some kind for their placement.”
“Very funny.”
He held out the first strand. “It’s all yours.”
Jessie’s enthusiasm faltered slightly as her gaze traveled up the towering tree. “You have to do the first strand. I can’t reach the top.”
“I brought in a ladder.”
She shot him a baleful look. “Never mind. Heights make me dizzy.” So did Luke, but that was another story entirely. She was finding the powerful nature of her reactions to him increasingly worrisome.
“Are you sure you can trust me to do it right?” he teased.
“Of course,” she said blithely. “I’ll be directing you.”
To his credit, he actually took direction fairly well. He seemed to lose patience only when she made him shift an entire strand one level of branches higher. “It’ll be dark there, if you don’t,” she insisted.
“There are going to be a thousand lights on this tree at the rate we’re going,” he argued. “Nobody’s even going to see the branches.”
She turned her sweetest gaze on him. “The baby will like the lights.”
The argument worked like a charm. Luke sighed and moved the strand.
“I’d better check the fuses before we turn this thing on,” he complained. “It’ll probably blow the power for miles around.”
“Stop fussing. It’s going to be spectacular. Let’s do the ornaments next.”
“Where did you intend to hang them? There’s no space left.”
She hid a grin at the grumbling. “Lucas, I could do this by myself.”
He actually chuckled at that. “But you’d miss half the fun.”
Jessie narrowed her gaze. “Which is?”
“Bossing me around.”
“You have a point,” she said agreeably. “But admit it, you’re getting into the holiday spirit.”
The teasing spark in his eyes turned suddenly serious. There was an unexpected warmth in his expression that made Jessie’s pulse skitter wildly.
“I suppose I am,” he said so quietly that she could practically hear the beating of her heart. “Can I tell you something?”
Jessie swallowed hard. “Anything.”
“It’s the first Christmas tree I’ve ever decorated.”
She stared at him incredulously. “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “Mother always hired some decorator, who’d arrive with a new batch of the most stylish ornaments in the current holiday color scheme. We were never even allowed to be underfoot. By January second, it was all neatly cleared away, never to be duplicated.”
“That’s terrible,” Jessie said. “I just assumed…”
“That we had some warm family tradition, like something out of a fairytale,” he concluded. “You were there. You saw the fuss Mother made over choosing the design for the tree.”
“I thought maybe it was something she’d started to do after you were all older and the family started doing more formal entertaining during the holidays.”
“Nope. Not even when we came home from school with little handmade decorations. Those went on Consuela’s tree. I think she still has them all. Mother paid a fortune for the perfect tree. She wasn’t about to have the design marred by tacky ornaments made by her children.”
Jessie’s heart ached for the four boys who’d been deprived of the kind of tradition she’d always clung to. When she looked his way again, Luke’s thoughtful gaze was on her as if he was waiting for her reaction to having one of her myths about his family shattered.
“Where are those decorations now?” she asked, clearly surprising him.
“In Consuela’s suite, I suppose. Why?”
“Can you find them?”
He gave her an odd look. “Jessie, there’s no need to get all sentimental about a bunch of construction paper and plaster of paris decorations.”
“I want them on this tree,” she insisted.
Luke shook his head at what he obviously considered a fanciful demand. “I’ll take a look later.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” He played along and solemnly