“Rach?”
Her voice came out huskier than usual. “I think we’d better stick to well-populated areas tonight.”
“You’re undoubtedly right.”
But he sounded every bit as depressed about the decision as she was, which cheered her considerably.
FOLLOWING a wonderful date Friday evening—ending in steamy kisses on the doorstep because Rachel hadn’t trusted their combined willpower if she invited David in—came a night out with the girls.
Since both Lilah and Tanner had agreed they didn’t want to be out partying the night before their wedding, they were holding their bachelor and bachelorette parties the weekend prior to the ceremony. Much to Lilah’s relief, Arianne’s talk of a wild and crazy bash had been slightly exaggerated. Still, they did drive toward Atlanta to an upscale club that featured male dancers and really, really cute waiters. One of Lilah and Quinn’s colleagues at the school had a minivan that seated eight, so the entire bridal party and three teachers piled in to ride together. Vonda suggested before they left Mistletoe that the women draw straws to pick a designated driver—Rachel drew admiring praise and friends for life when she volunteered.
Once at the nightclub, Vonda suggested they hit the dance floor. “Ever since the hip replacement of ‘05, I’ve been a new woman!”
“Okay, but first Lilah has to put on her veil,” Arianne insisted. It was a joyfully tacky affair with blinking neon lights and a cellophane-wrapped green condom that looked like an oversize circular jewel in the center of the headband.
A good sport, Lilah slid it on her head to the sounds of her friends laughing and clapping.
Rachel leaned in, keeping her voice to a whisper. “Make sure that thing accidentally falls off on the dance floor, and I’ll accidentally trample the heck out of it. Sadly, I’ll have to throw it away. Inevitable party casualty.”
“Don’t tell Ari,” Lilah whispered back, “but you are definitely going to be my favorite sister-in-law.”
The club was having a retro-themed night, and Rachel had a great time joking with her friends and belting out the lyrics to songs from Abba, Blondie and Barry White, but it didn’t quite compare to the night before, dancing to more staid holiday selections in David’s arms. Lilah unknowingly echoed that sentiment later while they stood at the bar and waited for a couple of glasses of cold water.
“Having fun?” Rachel asked.
“A blast. Although having that one dancer come to our table …”
Rachel grinned. “Vonda certainly seemed to like him.”
“I think everyone’s having fun, and Arianne did a good job planning something naughty without completely destroying my comfort zone. I mean, the dancer was hot, I admit.” Lilah fanned herself with one of the small square napkins. “Seriously hot. Still, the only guy I want getting that close to me is Tanner.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Rachel assured her. All I want for Christmas is David.
Chapter Fourteen
“Have I mentioned how much I appreciate this?” David asked, studying the planks in front of him and matching them with the diagram in the instructions.
On the other side of the room where he was assembling a matching bookshelf, Tanner wiped a sleeve across his sweaty brow. “Happy to help. Although I gotta admit, it’s not how I pictured spending my Christmas Eve. I was planning on letting Lilah catch me beneath the mistletoe. A lot.”
Both Lilah and Rachel were currently sleeping at Susan and Zachariah’s. The Waide tradition was that the whole family gathered there for Christmas Eve and dove into presents first thing in the morning, just as they did when they were kids. Because David had told everyone he shouldn’t leave the puppy alone all night, the women were having a slumber party in Arianne’s old room and the guys would rejoin them around sunrise. But he’d been serious about not leaving Hildie alone all night—she was camped outside the doorway, gnawing on a chew toy and regarding their progress with friendly curiosity.
David dismissed his brother’s lascivious hopes. “Despite whatever you had in mind, Mom was planning on making sure the two of you slept in separate rooms until after the wedding—”
“Three more days!”
“—so look at this as a way to burn off your physical frustration in the meantime.”
“I’ve long passed physical frustration and am headed into physical exhaustion,” his brother groused good-naturedly. “Moving the guest room furniture into the garage and all this stuff out of the garage … You really think Rachel will be surprised? I’d do anything in the world for Lilah, but she would have found the boxes by now. She has present radar. She stumbles over things I’ve hidden away even when she’s not purposely looking for them. Trying to keep her from finding her engagement ring early was a comedy of errors.”
David shook his head. “Rachel rarely ever goes into the garage, especially in the winter.” The space was too cramped for them to park cars inside, and had become little more than a storage facility for lawn and maintenance tools—it had been the perfect spot to hide the boxes for a few days. Even if Rachel had ventured out for a better look, she would have seen a neatly stacked row of cardboard, all taped up and full of parts and pieces that required assembly.
He grinned at all they’d managed to accomplish in just one night, trying to imagine her face when he showed her. “For future reference, Tanner, I owe you a beer.”
“Ha! I was thinking a keg.” But his brother was smiling, too. “As long as Rachel loves it, that’s enough for me.”
David couldn’t agree more. This was going to be the best Christmas ever.
RACHEL FELT warm and contentedly cocooned in the dreams she’d been having, but her senses were starting to provide solid motivation for waking up, too. The alluring scent of baking cinnamon rolls, for instance. And she was aware of the gentlest, coaxing pressure … She returned the light kiss as she opened her eyes, waking in David’s embrace.
He sat on the bed, smiling. “Merry Christmas.”
She sleepily returned the smile, then remembered where she was and glanced around. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Arianne’s helping Mom with breakfast, which is nearly ready, and I think Tanner dragged Lilah off in search of mistletoe. He was pitiful last night. The way he carried on, you’d think they were separated for weeks on end instead of a few hours.”
Rachel stretched, grinning nostalgically. “I remember the days before our wedding when I was sleeping under the same roof as my parents, only I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking of you.”
“Yeah?” David stroked his hand over her face. “What kind of thoughts?”
“Hey!” Arianne called from the hallway. “If all you happy couples think you’re gonna get fed, I demand help in the kitchen.”
Pulling herself into a sitting position, Rachel laughed. “Your sister is really going to have to learn to be assertive and ask for what she wants.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard, being the baby of the family and a girl,” David deadpanned. “Tanner and I probably sheltered her too much. I blame myself for her crippling shyness.”
Rachel was still shaking her head and chuckling when she walked away to brush her teeth. She smiled at her own reflection in the mirror. Hard to believe that cheerful, beautiful woman was really her. If anyone had asked her a month ago, she would have said this was her last holiday with the Waide family, probably her last holiday as a Waide. She would have expected it to be tinged