He shrugged. “Then, we’ll get a bigger tree.”

“It’s too late. The lot was shutting down when I bought the last one.”

“Fine.” He moved to another display. “But we have to get these lights and this star for the top.”

“Why?”

“If you’re going to do this, you need to do it right,” he said and laughed. “Every tree has to have lights and a topper.”

He pushed Tia aside when she tried to pay at the register and bought them himself, but before she left, Tia turned over one of the business cards by the register, signed it and gave it to the woman who’d been so respectful of her privacy. “Thank you,” she murmured.

The woman’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “No, thank you!” she said excitedly. “I didn’t want to ask, but... I thought it was you.”

“Merry Christmas.”

When they came out of the store, Seth took Tia’s hand. “That was nice of you.”

“I could see her watching me.”

“I could see it, too,” he said as they strolled down to Sugar Mama and bought cookies and mint hot chocolate they then carried to the park.

“So...what do you think?” he asked when they reached the giant Christmas tree he’d wanted to show her.

She’d left her scarf untied so she could drink her hot chocolate but felt far less self-conscious than she had in a long while. She smiled as she gazed up at it. The sun was beginning to set and the lights were just coming on. “It’s spectacular.”

“I thought you should see it for the sake of inspiration,” he said.

She fit comfortably against him when he put his arm around her. “I’m definitely inspired.”

They took a selfie in front of the tree. It was the first picture Tia had taken since the accident—not counting the cover of People—but she was so happy she didn’t care that her face wasn’t what it had been before, especially when Seth held a piece of mistletoe he’d purchased at the gift store over her head and said it was a tradition to kiss beneath it.

They took a selfie of them trying to do that, too, but keeping the mistletoe overhead and one arm stretched out far enough to fit them both in the frame wasn’t easy. They came away laughing at the shot they’d gotten as a result.

A group of people passed by, wishing them a Merry Christmas, and Tia responded in kind, but none of them seemed to recognize her. She didn’t think any of them had looked too closely. Busy celebrating themselves, they hurried on.

By the time she and Seth started back to the car, they could see their breath misting in front of them.

“It’s getting cold,” he said.

“We need to start a fire in the fireplace when we get home.”