The others peeled off gradually, everyone going to their rooms, until it was just Logan and Darcy and the roaring fire.

“Can I just say, I love this?” He gestured at the roaring fire with an impossible number of stockings hanging from the mantelpiece. “All these stockings. My mom and sisters are serious about stockings.” They were different colors, but all the same size so the kids wouldn’t bicker over them. There was a photograph of each person pinned to each stocking.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“I love having a big group like this, a big family. A tribe.”

She didn’t answer. She’d come from a big family, one that was tribelike. And it hadn’t worked out so well for her.

His hand dropped from the back of the sofa to her shoulder, gently caressing. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Coming on to you.”

“That’s exciting.”

“I think so, too.”

It was quiet and warm in the room, with music drifting from the speakers. It was briefly interrupted by a storm update. The new prediction was for up to three feet in Ulster County.

“Are you worried?” she asked him.

“I have a rule,” he said. “No worrying on Christmas Eve. Oh, and I have insurance, just in case. I was in the business, so I’m covered. Actually, there is one thing I’m worried about.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“How to get you to spend the night with me.”

And there it was. The invitation she had waited for, hoped for, yearned for and at the same time dreaded. Before she opened her mouth she honestly did not know what she would say.

“Sometimes all you have to do is ask.”

For Darcy, the biggest surprise of the night was not the blizzard. It was not the power of the wind lashing at the windows.

No, the biggest surprise was that Logan delivered on every single promise he’d made with his kisses. Yes, he really was that tender, that attentive to her. He seemed to know just how to make her want him with a yearning so intense it took her breath away. As stealthy as a pair of teenagers, they crept up the stairs to his room. The only light came from the string of colored bulbs hanging from the eaves outside, casting a rainbow glow across his high, peeled birch bed. The room smelled of woods and soap and some ineffable fragrance she found wildly arousing. He went over to a dresser and lit a tall column of a candle, dimly illuminating an area cluttered with unsorted laundry and a box of gift wrap, curly ribbon and gift bags.

“Sorry about the mess,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“You weren’t?”

“Hoping, maybe. Not expecting.” He took her by the hand and brought her over to the bed.

“I’m glad you’re here.”