Santa had visited there, too, it seemed. Her bed was heaped with gifts wrapped in silver paper and tied with gossamer ribbons. Shay’s heart beat a little faster as she crept closer to the bed, feeling the wonder, the magic, that is usually reserved for children.

Some of the packages were large, and some were small. Shay shook them, one by one, and the biggest one made a whispery sound inside its box. She lifted a corner of the foil lid but couldn’t see a thing.

Should she or shouldn’t she?

She tried to distract herself by stacking the gifts and carrying them out to the Christmas tree. She would open her presents in the morning, she decided firmly, when Hank opened his. When Mitch and Kelly and Alice were all there to share in the fun.

Resolutely, Shay washed her face, brushed her teeth and put on her warmest flannel nightgown. She tossed back the covers and started to get into bed, only to find a tiny red stocking lying on the sheet.

She upended it and a small, black velvet box tumbled out, along with a note. Shay’s fingers trembled as she opened the paper and read, “I want your body. Love, Santa.”

She was smiling and crying, both at once, as she opened the velvet box. Inside it was a beautiful sapphire ring, the stone encircled by diamonds.

On impulse, she grabbed for the phone on her beside table and punched out Mitch’s number. He sounded wide awake when he answered.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

There was a smile in his voice. “You’re beautiful,” he countered.

Shay willed him to say that the ring was an engagement ring, but he didn’t. She wasn’t going to get out of proposing, it appeared. “I left your present with Mrs. Carraway,” she said, admiring the flash of the beautiful stones. “I asked her to put it in the library, beside the TV.”

“That’s intriguing,” Mitch answered. “I’ll get it and call you back.”

Shay’s heart was in her throat. In order to withstand the wait, she scampered out to the living room and snatched up the big present that had made her so curious.

Chapter Fifteen

The package was sitting near the TV set in the library. Mitch smiled as he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, savoring not the gift itself, but the thought of the woman who had given it. After some time, he tore away the wrapping; by the shape, he had expected a CD, but he saw now that Shay’s present was a homemade DVD instead.

His lips curved into a grin. The woman was full of surprises.

He slid the DVD into the player and pressed the proper buttons and, as he settled himself on the library couch, Shay’s face loomed on the television screen. “Oh, Lord,” she muttered, “I think it’s going already.”

Mitch chuckled.

The camera’s shift from telephoto to wide angle was dizzying; Mitch felt as though he’d been flung backward through a tunnel. Shay was fully visible, standing in front of a gigantic cardboard rainbow and looking very nervous.