The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

and she was one who knew her own mind.

      And this is what her own mind knew, standing there on Christmas Eve having her first fight with Ty Halliday.

      The woman she had become was in love with him. Enough to believe, even given the stubborn cast of his features, that a Christmas miracle could still happen.

      She went and sat beside him on the couch, covered his hand with her good one.

      “Tell me what’s wrong between you and your dad,” she said, again.

      She needed desperately to know that he felt he could trust her. She was aware that it was the only gift she wanted from him. And she wanted to give him the gift of not being so alone. That’s what she had wanted to give him from the moment she had set up that tree for him.

      And her hopes hung between them, in the silence, waiting for his answer.