A Christmas Blessing

crossed his heart. “What about you, Jessie? What was it like at your house?”
“Quiet,” she said, thinking back to those days that had been a mix of happy traditions and inexplicable loneliness. “There were just the three of us. By the time I was adopted, my parents were already turning forty. There were no grandparents. I always thought how wonderful it would be if only there were aunts and uncles and cousins, but both of my parents had been only children.”
“Is that why you were coming back to White Pines this year? Did you want to maintain the ties so your baby would eventually have the large family you’d missed?”
“That was part of it. That and wanting her to know she’s an Adams. I don’t have that sense of the past that you have. I suppose it can be a blessing and a curse—Erik certainly saw it that way—but I envy it more than I can tell you.”
“Why didn’t you ever search for your biological parents?”
She recalled how badly she’d once wanted to do exactly that. “I thought about it right after I learned I was adopted,” she admitted. “But my parents were so distressed by the idea that I put it aside.”
He paused in hanging the decorations and studied her from atop the ladder. “Is it still important to you?”
Jessie felt his gaze on her and looked up at him from her spot on the floor amid the rapidly emptying boxes. “I think it is,” she said quietly. “It’s as though there’s a piece of me missing and I’ll never be whole until I find it. It’s funny. I thought Erik and your family could fill that space, but I was wrong. It’s still there.”
Luke climbed down from the ladder, then hunkered down in front of her and rested his hands on her knees. His gaze was even with hers and filled with compassion. “Then do it, Jessie. Find that missing part. I’ll help in any way I can.”
Something deep inside her blossomed under the warmth of his gaze. And for the first time she could ever recall, it seemed there was no empty place after all.

Chapter Seven
Though it tested her patience terribly, Jessie agreed with Luke’s idea that they not turn on the tree lights until evening. The decision to wait left her brimming with an inexplicable sense of anticipation, almost as if she were a child again. She could recall year after year when she’d huddled in her bed, pretending to sleep, listening for the sound of reindeer on the roof, the soft thud of Santa landing on the hearth after a slide down the chimney. She wanted those kinds of memories for her daughter, those and more.
She wanted Angela to grow up with memories of Christmas Eves gathered around a piano singing carols, of midnight church services, and of the chaos of Christmas morning with dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles. She couldn’t give her those things, but Erik’s family could. And as difficult as it might be at times to be around Luke without touching him, without openly loving him, she would see to it that the connection with the Adamses was never severed.
She glanced up to find Luke’s gaze on her. She smiled, her eyes misty. “We’ll make it sort of a Christmas Eve ceremony,” she said, wondering at the magic that shimmered through her at the hint they were starting a tradition of their own. The memory of it was something she could hold tight, something no one could criticize or take away from her.
And yet, judging from the intent way Luke studied her, there must have been a note of sadness in her voice she hadn’t realized was there.
“Are you sorry you’re not spending Christmas Eve at my parents’ house?” he asked.
There was an odd undercurrent to the question that Jessie couldn’t interpret. Was he regretting not acting more aggressively to get her out of his hair? Or was the question exactly what it seemed? Was he worrying about her feelings?
“It’s not the Christmas I was anticipating,” she admitted, and saw the immediate and surprising flare of disappointment in his eyes. She hurried to reassure him. “It’s better, Luke. No one could have done more to make this holiday special. You made sure I had a healthy baby. And how could I possibly regret the first Christmas with my daughter, wherever it is?”
Luke glanced at the baby she held cradled in her arms. Angela had just been fed and was already falling asleep again, her expression contented.
“She is what this season is all about, isn’t she?” he said. “They say we don’t always do so well with our own lives, but we can try harder to see that our children experience all of the magic of the holidays, that they get everything they deserve out of life.”
His bleak tone puzzled her. “Luke, you sound as if your life is over and hasn’t turned out the way you expected. That’s crazy. There’s still lots of time for you to fulfill all your dreams.”
His inscrutable gaze met hers. Something deep in his eyes reached out and touched her. It was that odd sense of connection she’d felt so often in the past, as if their souls understood things they’d never spoken of.
“I’m not so sure about that,” he said quietly. “I think maybe I missed out on the one thing that makes life worth living.”
“Which is?” she asked, her voice oddly choked.
“Love.”
Something in the way he was looking at her turned Jessie’s blood hot. Her pulse thumped unsteadily. There was no mistaking the desire in his hooded eyes, the longing threading through his voice.
Nor was there any way to deny the stubborn set of his jaw that said he would never act on whatever feelings he might have for her. Fueled by guilt or conscience, he had declared her off limits.
Which was as it should be, Jessie told herself staunchly. Yet she couldn’t explain the warring of regret and relief that his silent