“She’s giving me some land. Wow, two hundred acres. The last of her mom’s original ranch.”
“Is this a map?” she asked, as one of the other pieces of paper slipped from his hand. They held it together, pulling it straight. “That’s the creek,” she said, “between our properties. That’s the land Dad just gave me.” She pointed to all the land west of the creek. The land east of the creek was marked off in pink highlighter.
“And that’s the land Mom gave me,” he said. The acreage connected at the creek, and together it meant they had roughly three hundred acres of Wyoming.
“Oh my,” she breathed. He glanced over at her and saw the tears in her eyes, and he couldn’t quite hide the tears in his.
It was a legacy, and it was theirs. Without strings. Without poison.
“What a gift,” she breathed. “What a beautiful gift.”
You are, he thought, watching the red Christmas lights turn his skin to rose. You are the gift.
She glanced up and met his eyes, a smile slowly illuminating her face.
“I love Christmas Eve.”
“Come on,” he said, glad to be laughing. “You’re just saying that.”
“Nope. It’s true. As of right now, it’s my favorite day.”
“We fixed it?”
“You fixed it. It was all you, baby.”
He disagreed, but she was kissing him. And taking off that Santa shirt. And then his shirt came off too and he couldn’t remember what he was disagreeing with. It seemed like a bad idea to disagree with a girl who was taking off her pants.
That night they ate yule log for dinner and they played each other their favorite songs on the stereo. She asked him to move his guitar in first thing in the morning, and he told her he had bought her a piano. An old standup he’d found outside of Laramie. That was his Christmas gift to her.
They lay in each other’s arms and held hands, watching the tree and the snow gather at the edges of the window.
“Merry Christmas, Dean,” she whispered.
“Merry Christmas, Trina.”
And it was. And it would be. Forever.
The End