Eat Your Heart Out, Hallmark
Piper! Piper’s back!”
The MacLean cabin was warm and bright and full of noise the moment Kol opened the door. Presley made it to the hall first, shouting his sister’s name and then catching her around the waist and lifting her off the ground. Her eyes bulged, her fingers stiffened, and she tried to speak, but all the air had been crushed out of her lungs.
“Uh, I think you’re suffocating her,” Kol said, poking the man in his shoulder.
Presley dropped her but didn’t let her go. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“Wha?” Piper wobbled as she took a full breath, and the rest of her family caught up, piling into the hall.
“Pippy? Honey?” Her father pushed through the others and pulled her into a gentler hug. This one Piper returned though her eyes were wide, searching for and finding Kol. He just shrugged and stood to the side, watching the others. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jim said as he rubbed her back. “Please don’t scare us like that again.”
“I…I left a note.” Carefully, Piper pried herself from her father’s grip.
“But you were so mad at us,” said Aunt Deb in perhaps the quietest voice she’d ever mustered.
“Jiminy Christmas, let our girl breathe!” Grandma Tilda waved her arms and parted the familial sea, pushing her own son away and taking Piper gently by the arm. “Come on, honey, dinner’s almost done, and if they haven’t made a mess of your mother’s recipes, you’re in for a treat. But first, let’s take a load off.”
Piper gave Kol a wary look over her shoulder as her grandmother guided her away, but he just grinned, recognizing the fear and sincerity passing over the faces of the MacLeans. She had disappeared after telling them she was going to burn down the house, and despite that he knew she was joking, the rest of them had obviously taken it to heart. She never spoke to them like that, he gathered, but he hoped they would soon get used to it.
“Pippy,” Presley called, following after like Doc when he begged for a treat. “Check out the mantle!”
Kol filed into the living room behind the others, and there on the mantle was the fabled Christmas village Piper had longed for someone to find but hadn’t had the time to look for herself.
“It was behind my old weights,” Presley went on. “I must have stacked them up there over the summer when I moved. It took forever to find, but all the pieces are there.”
Piper covered up her mouth with a gasp, eyes going glassy. She poked at the little, ceramic people, and she shifted the bakery by a quarter turn, and then she was absolutely beaming. Her grandmother guided her over to the couch after, and someone else pushed a hot drink into her hands, and someone else took her coat. Kol stood back in the doorway, watching the confusion pass over Piper’s face as it transformed into a quiet acceptance of the courtesies she was being offered. Kol always knew his feelings were too big—everyone said—but as he watched her face warm, he knew there was nothing too big about how full his heart was to see her happy and loved.
Across the room, the spruce leaned against the picture window, languid and sickly. He slipped away and crushed the seejia buds, covertly sprinkling them into the tree’s water. As if it took a breath, the boughs of the tree lifted, and its greenery began to sparkle. Crisis averted, for at least a bit.
Christmas Eve was filled with warmth in the MacLean household, and Kol assumed much less work for Piper than it would have been otherwise. Someone else cooked, someone else cleaned, someone else worried about a schedule and keeping everyone entertained. Piper was still exhausted by her own attempts to find something to take charge of, but she was consistently put back on the couch, handed another snack, and fussed over. By the time she was falling asleep, all the feistiness had been driven out of her, and she let Kol walk her upstairs. Together they climbed into her bed and curled up in one another’s arms. She was out before her head hit the pillow.
“Merry Christmas, Piper,” he said the next morning, planting a kiss on her nose.
“Mer…ismas.” Her eyes remained closed as she cuddled deeper into him.
“Don’t you want to see if Santa came?”
Piper yawned, her fingers clawing at his collar and tugging him closer. “Nuh uh,” she mumbled and then gasped. “Oh, no, the presents!” She flew upward, nearly falling out of the bed.
“Whoa, chill out, Pipsqueak.” Kol caught her by the hips and dragged her back. “We brought everything downstairs nights ago, remember?”
Piper slapped a hand to her chest, settling backward into his lap. “Oh, well, does that mean we have a little extra time?”
He rubbed against her and kissed her cheek. “You tell me, schedule keeper.”
Half an hour later, they climbed down the stairs, groggy and in their pajamas, but they hadn’t missed a thing. Everyone else was just waking up, and Russ’s boys were sitting patiently on the couch, no small thanks to Buddy, Kol assumed. But once everyone was gathered, it was a mad dash, wrapping paper flying through the air and happy declarations from everyone as gratitude and hugs were traded.
“You should go get your stocking,” Piper said into Kol’s ear through his beanie.
He retrieved Grandma Tilda’s knitting, and inside was indeed an intricately wrapped gift complete with a perfect bow. “When did you do this?”
Piper’s smile was taut, anxiety in her eyes. “Well, I got it a while ago, and then I wrapped it when you were showering, and then I hid it in my nightstand until Grams put up your stocking, and then I sneaked it in there this morning when you were getting me coffee.”
Kol squished the soft packaging, watching Piper’s eyes as they filled with more worry. He flipped it over and hummed, and he thought she might rip into it herself just before he finally decided to unwrap it. With precision, he unfolded her neat creases, listening to her whine until there was no care left to take, and he let the paper fall away.
Inside was a pair of socks, pale blue with white moose hand stitched all over them, and a tag reading,Made in Hiberhaven. Something in his chest cracked open, and he metaphorically slapped duct tape all over the crevice to hold it in.
