Chapter 1

Harrison & Sara

The idea had been Harrison’s, and once Caleb had gotten on board, the rest of the family had followed. Harrison wanted all of the Thornton siblings, their spouses and significant others, and their children to rent a cabin near the Cascades during Christmas.

As Sara Thornton, formerly Flannigan, watched her husband and the rest of the Thornton clan bustle inside the huge cabin, she wondered how great of an idea this really was. Nothing like putting a bunch of people together in a cabin to create some chaos, she thought wryly.

The cabin could house up to fifteen people, with seven bedrooms and four bathrooms, a huge living room and kitchen, and a hot tub out back. Constructed solely out of pine, it resembled a log cabin you’d imagine one of the pioneers living in centuries ago—if you didn’t include the indoor plumbing and central heating. Although it hadn’t gotten dark yet, someone had already turned on the outdoor Christmas lights, the colors twinkling merrily.

The selling point was that it had enough rooms for each couple and one more for the kids. James, Sara’s son, hadn’t been pleased that he had to sleep in the same room as the little ones, but when Sara had promised him he could help Harrison and the guys cut down a Christmas tree, he’d gotten over his disappointment with his rooming situation quickly. James also enjoyed looking after the babies, no matter how much he tried to act otherwise.

Sara couldn’t help but smile as she inhaled the scent of evergreens. She’d never been in the woods like this. She’d grown up poor, her family having had to make do with cheap artificial Christmas trees strung with popcorn.

“Mom, Mom!” James scampered up to her, his cheeks rosy. At almost ten years old, James was growing so much that soon he would be taller than his mother. He shared her blue eyes, although Sara preferred to blame his sauciness on her ex-husband, James’s father.

“Mom, there’s a bird stuck in the chimney!” His eyes widened. “Uncle Caleb is trying to get it out.”

“That’s great. Where’s your brother?” Sara and Harrison’s son, Bennett, now ten months old, was just starting to become mobile, and Sara had asked James to watch him while the adults got their suitcases out of all of the cars.

“He’s with—um. Aunt Lizzie? I think?”

Before Sara could grill James about Bennett’s whereabouts, James scampered off again after Caleb shouted something unsavory from the nearby living room.

Along with Harrison, his five other siblings were also staying at the cabin: Caleb, with his wife, Megan, and their infant daughter, Evie; Mark, with his wife, Abby; Lizzie, with her husband, Trent, and their toddler, Bea; Seth, with his girlfriend, Rose; and Jubilee, with her fiancé, Heath.

Sara found Bennett in the living room and scooped him up, kissing him on his chubby cheeks. She couldn’t believe her baby would be a year old in just two months. Where had the time gone? Bennett giggled when Sara kissed him again before wiggling to get down. He’d been lifting himself up lately and, with the help of his parents, had walked some. Sara definitely wasn’t ready for her baby boy to be running all over the place yet.

“Where’s the broom?” Caleb asked as he crouched under the chimney, Harrison and Mark close by. “We need to get this damn bird out. Otherwise it’s going to get roasted for tonight’s dinner.”

“You could smoke it out,” said Mark, his voice low and rumbling. “Not sure a broom would help.”

“I think if you light a fire, it’ll fly out,” said Harrison as he peered up into the chimney. “Then again, it might just catch on fire.”

“Please don’t set the cabin on fire,” said Sara. She caught Harrison’s gaze and smiled. “I’m going up to our room. Bennett needs to take a nap.”

Harrison smiled back, and Sara couldn’t help the flutter in her chest at the sight. Even after two and a half years of marriage, Harrison still managed to make her giddy.

“I’ll see you up there,” said Harrison with a wink.

Caleb rolled his eyes. “Get a room, you two.”

Mark snorted. “Didn’t I just catch you and Megan kissing in the pantry?”

“I never kiss and tell.”

Sara, with Bennett in her arms, left the men to figure out the logistics of getting a bird out of the chimney while they bickered and bantered. Upstairs, she found her younger sister Megan nursing Evie in one of the rooms.

It still felt strange sometimes to be around such a huge family, considering it had been just Sara and Megan, along with their mother Ruth, for years. Sara often needed a break from all of the commotion, and she had a feeling Megan felt the same way.

Sara set Bennett on the floor before collapsing onto an overstuffed armchair next to Megan. “I’m already exhausted and we just got here,” she complained.

Megan laughed. “Tell me about it. But it’ll be fun. If all else fails, you can get drunk on spiked eggnog.” She patted Evie’s bottom, then touched the infant’s thatch of bright red hair. “Are you still nursing Bennett?”

“Not much anymore,” Sara said with a sigh. “Is it terrible that I wished he wouldn’t stop?”

“Not really. I’ll be a wreck when Evie decides she’s done. Then again, it’ll be nice to drink again.”

“Hard to believe my baby sister has a baby. The wild child has been tamed.”

Megan grinned. “Don’t tell Caleb that.”

Sara heard James clomp up the stairs right before he found her and Megan. “Mom, they got the bird out!” He crouched down next to Bennett and began to help his brother race cars across the cabin rug. “Uncle Caleb totally said the f-word, too.”

“Oh dear,” said Megan, trying to bite back a smile, “I’ll have to tell him to behave himself.”

James shrugged. “Travis said the b-word last week in class, and he got detention. I told him it was his own fault.”

Travis was James’s best friend and their former neighbor, and although Sara sometimes wished Travis would get his mouth washed out with soap, she was glad that James had such a good friend to count on. She knew how tough it could be without any friends when you were young.

“Why did Travis call someone the b-word?” asked Megan.

Sara almost tossed a car at her sister’s head. Instead, she sent her her most judgmental older sister glare.

“Oh, I can’t remember. It wasn’t a big deal.” James shrugged and made a point not to look at either his mother or his aunt, which raised Sara’s suspicions immediately. Although James was in fourth grade now, he rarely kept secrets from Sara.

“Really? Sounds like a big deal to me,” said Sara. “Especially if Travis got detention for it. Did he call someone in your class that word? Because that’s not nice of him to do, you know.”

“I know it’s not. I didn’t say it.” James was sulky now as he slowly pushed a car toward Bennett. “I don’t know why it’s a big deal, that’s all,” he said again.

Sara decided not to press James despite her intense curiosity. This wasn’t the first instance of Travis getting into trouble for saying a bad word, but as far as Sara knew, he’d never called a fellow classmate one. So what had brought that on? Had the two boys gotten into some argument? But wouldn’t their teacher have contacted her if that had been the case?

Sara had been working at James’s school as one of two third grade teachers until she’d given birth to Bennett. She’d decided to stay home for the foreseeable future, although that didn’t mean she didn’t still talk with her former coworkers from time to time. If something had happened, Sara knew that Karen, James’s teacher, would’ve told her as much.

Bennett squealed at his older brother’s antics, effectively distracting Sara for the time being.

Later that evening, when the kids were asleep and the adults were sitting in the living room together in front of the fire, Sara nestled closer to Harrison and said quietly, “I think something’s up with James.”

With his good looks, charm, and his fancy medical degree, Harrison Thornton had seemed like the last man who would fall for a girl like Sara, a girl who’d grown up in trailer parks and had gotten a bad reputation in school simply because she’d turned down one of the asshole jocks.

Every time Sara looked at Harrison, she knew how lucky she was that he’d looked past the rumors and seen her. And he’d fallen in love with her, just as much as she’d fallen in love with him.

“Really? Like what?” Harrison rubbed her shoulder, keeping his voice as low as hers.

They sat on the couch furthest from the fire. At the moment, Jubilee and Rose were toasting marshmallows over the fire while Heath and Seth supervised. Abby and Mark were talking quietly nearby, while Megan, Caleb, Lizzie, and Trent were debating the merits of real Christmas trees versus artificial ones. Currently, Caleb was arguing for real Christmas trees with perhaps a little too much gusto, Megan looking on with an amused expression on her face.

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me what happened at school. Travis called someone the b-word—”

“He called someone a bastard? Or a bitch?”

Sara snorted. “You would ask that. I don’t know. I didn’t ask him to clarify. Anyway.” She huffed out a breath. “He told me it wasn’t a big deal, but if he and Travis fought with some other students...”

“Hmm.” Harrison frowned. “I’ll ask him about it. Maybe it’s not something he wants to talk about with his mom.”

A prick of hurt bloomed in Sara’s chest, although she’d thought the same thing. Was her little boy so old now that he couldn’t talk to his mother? She didn’t want to think about such a thing.

Seeing her sad face, Harrison squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Like he said, it’s not a big deal. Maybe we should take him at his word.”

“You’re such a guy,” was her complaint, which just made Harrison chuckle.

“And you love me for it.” Whispering into her ear, he added, “Want to take this party upstairs to our room?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Harrison used to hate the mornings. During medical school, he’d dread hearing his alarm go off in the morning. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy medical school, but he’d never enjoyed getting up early.

Now, though, he loved the mornings the most. This morning in particular made him appreciate them even more.

Next to him, Sara still slept, her shoulder rising and falling with each breath. Her brown hair was spread across her pillow, reminding him of how they’d enjoyed each other just last night. His body heated. Pushing her hair aside, he kissed the nape of her neck, inhaling her sweet scent.

Sara murmured something but only turned over to face him, still asleep. He began to kiss her forehead, then her cheeks and her nose. She finally yawned and opened her eyes with a low groan.

“What time is it? Bennett is probably awake. I should go get him—”

“It’s early, and there are ten other adults in this cabin who can entertain him for a bit. Besides, James will let us know when he’s awake.”

He kissed her, the kiss deepening within moments, and then Harrison was pushing Sara into the soft mattress. It didn’t take long for him to strip her out of her clothes and plunge inside her warm depths. Every time he made love to her, it was like coming home. Moving inside her, feeling her tighten around him. The way she said his name, how she moaned and arched. How her body had changed after she’d had Bennett, but it had only made him love her even more, this woman who’d flipped his world upside down and who’d given him not one but two sons to love.

Harrison’s eyelids were heavy, and he was about to doze again when a knock sounded on their door. “Breakfast!” Jubilee called. “Get up or starve!”

Harrison groaned. “When did my little sister get so ruthless?”

“When you’re the youngest in your family,” Sara said wryly, “you have to be pretty ruthless to survive.”

After breakfast, the men put on their outdoor gear to find a Christmas tree. The women had been invited—no one could ever say the Thornton men weren’t men of the twenty-first century—but when a fiercely cold wind started blowing through, none of them wanted to traipse through the woods.

“Have a good time. And be sure to ask James what’s wrong,” said Sara, her expression serious.

Harrison had noticed that James seemed distracted lately. This morning, he’d only eaten five pancakes, when he’d been known to eat double that if given half a chance. Sometimes Harrison caught his stepson staring off into space, and then sighing deeply, like the world was resting upon his shoulders.

“Is this legal?” Mark asked as they began to trek through the nearby woods.

“Who’s going to know?” countered Caleb with a grin. “Besides, it’s just one tree.”

“Do any of you even know how to cut down a tree?” asked Heath.

Trent snorted. “If the six of us can’t figure out how to cut down one tree, there’s no hope for humanity.”

Seth grunted a laugh as he dragged a sled behind him with the saw and ropes while Caleb and Trent searched for the best tree. Heath was on duty to make sure Caleb and Trent didn’t pick a tree that would be too big to get through the front door. Mark would wander off when he saw interesting wildlife; he had always preferred animals to human company.

Harrison stayed back with James, who scuffed his feet along the ground, his hands in his pockets. Normally, James chattered like a magpie, although as he’d gotten older, he’d begun to shed anything he’d deemed babyish. Showing too much enthusiasm for anything seemed to be the latest thing that only little kids did, not mature fourth graders like James.

“Hey, what about this one?” Caleb called out. The group conferred, apparently decided it wasn’t the best tree, and kept walking.

Harrison pulled his coat tighter as the wind blew harder. He hoped it wouldn’t rain while they were out. He didn’t really relish the thought of dragging a tree back to the cabin as he was soaked through.

“So, James,” Harrison began, “your mother says that Travis got detention for saying a bad word. Want to tell me about it?”

James kicked at a rock. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

Harrison wavered between annoyance and curiosity. James picked up a stick and began to drag it along the trees as they passed them, the clicking sound countering the sound of the other men arguing over various trees some yards ahead.

“Well, your mom is worried, so I told her I’d talk to you. Did you and Travis get into a fight with somebody?”

“Not really.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

James hunched into his coat, and Harrison could just make out the beginnings of a blush on his cheeks. “We didn’t get into a fight,” James finally said. “It’s complicated.”

Harrison had to bite back a chuckle at that pronouncement. The last thing he needed to do was make James self-conscious. Putting his hand on James’s shoulder, he said, “You know you can talk to me, right? I’m not going to get mad or anything.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Right then, Trent motioned at Harrison to come over to the group. Harrison jogged toward them, not the least bit concerned about the damn tree.

Finally, everyone decided this tree was the tree, and Harrison made James stand back as Seth began to saw at the trunk. When Seth got tired, Mark took over.

“Timber!” yelled Caleb as the tree listed sideways before falling. The tree itself was maybe seven feet tall, so when it hit the ground, it didn’t make the loudest noise imaginable.

Harrison helped tie up the tree before the group made the trip back to the cabin. It was already getting dark despite the early hour. Harrison’s breath fogged in front of him.

Worry poked at him as James trudged alongside him. What he’d thought was something innocuous made Harrison concerned something truly serious had happened.

It was time to bring out the big guns.

“If I promise not to tell your mom,” Harrison said, “will you tell me what happened?”

James’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

Harrison knew that Sara would tan his hide for promising this, but he nodded. Sometimes you have to play dirty. “Really.”

James narrowed his eyes, but then shrugged. If Harrison got himself into trouble, that was his own problem. Harrison knew that his stepson was a smart cookie no matter his age.

“Travis called Eric the b-word because Eric was making fun of me. He saw me give Sophie a flower the day before.”

Who’s Sophie? Harrison had to practically bite his tongue in half to keep from asking questions.

“Eric was saying that I was kissing girls under the slide, which is not true. I’ve never kissed any girls. Then Eric and his friends started singing that song. ‘James and Sophie sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.’” James frowned, rather ferociously. “Travis told them to stop and then he called Eric a bitch.”

Harrison choked. “James, don’t say that word,” he said, although it was difficult when he was trying not to laugh. He set his hand on James’s shoulder. “I’m sorry Eric was making fun of you. That wasn’t nice. But who’s Sophie?”

A blush climbed up James’s cheeks until his face was cherry-red. “A girl,” was all he said.

“I figured that. Do you like her?”

James ducked his head. “Yeah. She’s nice.”

“Did she like it when you gave her a flower?”

“She just laughed and ran away. I don’t know.” James sighed. “I think I’m in love.”

He said it so seriously that Harrison’s initial bout of laughter faded. He could understand falling in love with a girl who seemed not to love you back.

Up ahead, Caleb and Mark argued as they crested the hill that led to the cabin. Heath said something that made the group laugh. By the time they got to the house, the argument was forgotten in the midst of jokes as they untied the tree to take it inside.

Harrison hung back with James. “If you like Sophie,” he said, “then you should tell her how you feel. The worst that could happen is that she says she doesn’t feel the same.”

James frowned. “You think so?”

“I do. Being honest is really hard, especially with girls. It’s scary. I was terrified to tell your mom how I felt about her.”

“Really? Why?”

Harrison thought of how he’d fallen hard and fast for Sara while the world seemed intent on keeping them apart. When Sara had ended things, he’d been afraid he’d never get over his broken heart. Until he’d discovered that his own mother had interfered and had tried to keep them apart. Harrison hadn’t wasted a moment in getting Sara back and convincing her that they were meant to be together—no matter what anyone else thought.

“Love is scary because you don’t know how it’s going to end.” Harrison gazed off into the distance. “Maybe the person you love won’t love you back. Maybe she’ll break your heart. But maybe she feels the same, and it’ll be worth it. Love is all about having the courage to act on it.”

James stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I guess that makes sense.”

Slinging an arm around James, Harrison hugged him close before ruffling his hair. James made a muffled protest.

“I know I’m not your real dad, but I love you just like if you were my own. You know that, right?”

James rolled his eyes. “You’re my dad, Dad. Don’t be dumb.”

The guys were currently trying to figure out how to get the tree through the door without scraping off all of the needles. James ran ahead to watch, leaving Harrison to bite the inside of his cheek to keep the tears at bay.

What was it about kids that tore you up inside? Not just James, but Bennett, too. Sara had given him so much that sometimes it was overwhelming.

After everyone went up to bed that evening, Sara practically pounced on him the second he shut their bedroom door.

“Well?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “Did you talk to James?”

“I did.” Harrison began to undress. “But I can’t tell you what we talked about.”

“What? Why? What happened? I’m his mother.”

“Everything’s fine, I promise. But I told him I wouldn’t tell you.” Sara looked hurt, and Harrison pulled her into his arms. “Don’t be upset, baby. James is growing up, that’s all. And I bet you everything he’ll tell you on his own.”

“I don’t believe you, but thanks anyway.” She sighed, laying her head on his chest.

He kissed the crown of her head, his hands moving downward until he cupped her ass. “How about I distract you really well tonight?”

That earned him a smile. “Sounds like you have your work cut out for you, Doctor Thornton.”

Her throaty voice sent his body into overdrive, and before she could protest, he tossed her over his shoulder and took her to bed to show her just how well he could distract her.