looking for.”
“Trust the trapezoid?”
“Always. It’s a center. You just need a center, Hope.”
“Okay.” With him leaning so close and his coat right there, she seized the opportunity to silently slip his gift from her pocket and into his.
“From the top right star in the trapezoid, look right and up about forty-five degrees. See the bright star?”
“Yes.”
“That’s actually two stars, the binary star I showed you in the telescope.”
“Okay.” She didn’t have a clue what they were doing out in the cold looking at stars, but did she care? He was there. With his soft voice and gentle eyes.
“So, you think you could find it again?”
“I may need”—her voice cracked—“help.”
“I can help you.” He didn’t push harder. He didn’t touch her. He was there if she wanted him, but he wasn’t going to push. “But you can do it, Hope. I know you can.”
“The trapezoid is easy to pick out.”
“All right, then. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to show you. I picked it because it’s bright, it’s always in the sky, and it’s easy to locate. No matter where you are, the star is there for you to see. Stars never get lost.” He bent down and gave her a quick kiss. “Merry Christmas, Hope.”
Then, before she could make sense of what was happening, he disappeared into the deep, dark shadows that separated their houses. “Well,” she murmured. “That was different.”
She felt raw. He wanted to help. He wanted to make it work.
When she turned toward her house to go inside, she didn’t feel nearly as lonely as she had before.
She didn’t notice the package until she stepped up onto her back porch. She picked it up and carried it inside. Wrapped in a Santa Claus print paper with green yarn for ribbon, the package tag read TO HOPE. FROM LUCCA.
“I guess he was no more anxious to do a gift exchange in person than I was,” she said aloud. She set the package on her entry hall table as she hung her coat in the closet. Then she carried it over to the fire, which she stoked to life once again. She held the package for a moment, thinking about the last time a lover had given her a Christmas gift. Mark’s gift the Christmas before Holly was taken had been a lovely string of pearls. She still wore them on occasion. They reminded her of one of the most pleasurable holidays she’d ever had. Holly had still believed in Santa, and her joy and excitement when she discovered the Barbie Dreamhouse beneath the tree on Christmas morning had been unsurpassed.
“I wonder what’s beneath your tree this year, baby,” Hope murmured. She wouldn’t believe that her little girl didn’t have a Christmas tree. She had to believe that somewhere, a ten-year-old Holly took with her to bed tonight the same happy, excited spirit that the five-year-old had known on Christmas Eve.
Needing a distraction, Hope opened her gift. A Christmas card rested on top of white tissue paper. She opened it and read Lucca’s firm handwriting.
Opening the tissue paper, she spied a framed certificate, the edges of which were trimmed in breathtaking watercolor and ink drawings of planets and stars, novas and—Hope smiled—whimsical angels. She recognized it as the work of Eternity Springs’ own famous artist, her friend Sage Anderson Rafferty.
The certificate’s words were done in lovely calligraphy and read:
Hope released a shaky breath. “Oh, Lucca.”
Cradling the frame against her chest, Hope rushed back outside. She ignored the winter’s chill and stared up at the sky, searching, until she found Holly’s Star.
“Oh, Lucca,” she repeated. He loved her. He wanted her. He wanted a family with her. He wasn’t just a second chance, a fix to a past she couldn’t change. He was the future she could embrace. How could she ever walk away from this man?
TWENTY
On December 29, after Lucca had spent almost six months in Eternity Springs, the boisterous noise of midtown Manhattan grated on his nerves like sandpaper as he walked toward the Seventh Avenue entrance to Madison Square Garden. Car horns screeched. A siren blared. Across the street, a jackhammer pounded. He found himself yearning for the peace and quiet of Eternity Springs. “Go figure,” he murmured as he walked into the arena.
His phone sounded—Gabi’s ringtone—and he reached into his suit coat pocket to answer it. He’d been waiting for this call. “Hey, Gabs. How did it go?”
“Good, I think. It was a bit hard to tell. She seemed pleased, but she cried.”
“Good cry or bad cry?”
“Good cry. I think.”
“Give me details.”
“Okay. Celeste called Hope and asked her to come over to Angel’s Rest at ten a.m. to discuss a fund-raising idea for the basketball team. She told the rest of us to be there by nine forty-five.”
“Who all came?” He wished he could have been there to see it, but after their last conversation on Christmas morning, he’d decided that the best strategy was to give her space.
“Everyone who has earned one of the medals—except for you—and me and Mom. So, it was Zach and Savannah, Nic and Gabe, Mac and Ali, Sage and Colt, Cam and Sarah, Jack and Cat, and me and Mom. I have to tell you, it’s depressing to be paired up as a couple with your mother—especially when she is dating and I’m not.”
“What did Celeste say?”
“She stood on the staircase and said she had an announcement to make. She told Hope that after finding
