Alice shook her head. “I doubt that very much, Shay. Mitch loves you.”

“Then why hasn’t he called? Why isn’t he here?”

“He probably wants to accept in person, Shay.” At the protest brewing on Shay’s lips, Alice raised both hands in a command of silence. “The man has a little girl, and it is six o’clock on Christmas morning, you know. Give him a chance to wade through the wrapping paper, at least!”

Shay was comforted, if grudgingly so. “I still think he should have called,” she muttered.

“Let Mitch have this time with his daughter, Shay,” Alice said gently. “It’s probably the first Christmas he’s spent with Kelly since the divorce.”

Chagrined, Shay nodded. “Breakfast is ready,” she said.

Except for the stack of gifts Mitch had left, Santa Claus–style, on Shay’s bed the night before, all the presents had been opened. The living room looked like the landscape of some strange wrapping-paper planet.

Shay was gathering up the papers and stuffing them into a garbage bag when the doorbell rang. A sense of sweet alarm surged through her as Hank left his electric train to answer.

“That stuff you gave me was really neat!” the little boy whooped, and his face glowed as Mitch lifted him up into his arms and ruffled his hair.

“I’m glad you liked it,” was the quiet answer.

Kelly came shyly past her father, holding the doll that had been her gift from Shay. A beautiful, delicate fairy, complete with silvery wings and wand, the doll was well suited to its ladylike owner. “Thank you very much,” the little girl said, looking up at Shay with Mitch’s eyes.

Shay forgot her own nervousness and smiled at Kelly. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

Alice, who had been quietly reading a book she had received as a gift, suddenly leaped out of her rocking chair, the warmth of her smile taking in both Kelly and Hank.

“Let’s go and see how that turkey of ours is coming along, shall we?”

The children followed Alice into the kitchen.

“Crafty old dickens,” Mitch muttered, watching Alice’s spry departing figure with a smile in his eyes.

Shay suddenly felt shy, like a teenager who has just asked a boy to a Sadie Hawkins dance. She just stood there, in the middle of a mountain range of Christmas paper, the garbage bag in one hand, stricken to silence.

Mitch seemed similarly afflicted.

Alice finally intervened. “Get on with it,” she coaxed from the kitchen doorway. “I can’t keep these kids interested in a turkey forever, you know!”

The spell was broken. Mitch laughed and so did Shay, but her nervousness drove her back to her paper gathering.

Mitch waded through the stuff to stop her by gripping both her wrists in his hands. “Shay.”

She looked up into his face, her chin quivering, and thought that if he turned down her proposal, she’d die. She’d surely die.

“Where did you get that rainbow?” he asked softly.

Shay was incensed that he could ask such a stupid question when she was standing there in terrible suspense. “I made it myself,” she finally replied through tight lips.