Three Holidays and a Wedding

ONE

Anna

December 20, 2000
Denver, Colorado

5 days until Christmas
2 days until Hanukkah begins
The 25th day of Ramadan

Anna Gibson awoke to the sound of sleigh bells ringing. She opened her eyes to see her boyfriend of six months, Nicholas Vandergrey, standing beside the bed, his blond curls still mussed from sleep. He was wearing the deep blue bathrobe she liked because it matched his eyes and a Santa hat at a jaunty angle- and he was holding a ribbon of sleigh bells.

"Good morning, most perfect woman in the world," he said, smiling down at her. "It's time for you to wake up." He shook the bells, and she tried not to wince at the jangling sound. "You have to get out of bed and start this day, because it's going to end with you landing in Toronto and joining the Vandergreys for the best Christmas of your life." He knelt down beside the bed and stared deep into her eyes. "I love you, Anna."

Anna found herself hoping she had remembered to remove last night's mascara as she said, "I love you, too, Nick."

"I can't wait for what's in store over the next week. I have so many Christmas surprises for you."

"And I have so many surprises for you," she said, sitting up in bed. "It really is going to be the perfect Christmas." She felt a small twinge as she said the word "Christmas." She couldn't help it. This year, Christmas and Hanukkah fell at the same time, which brought memories of a childhood long past, when her family celebrated both holidays, no matter where they landed on the calendar. The best years were when they aligned, like this one.

Except she had a new life now. A perfect life. With Nick.

"You okay there, Anna?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Just"-she smiled at him and told a tiny lie-"happy."

There is only one happiness in this life. To love, and be loved. Anna heard her father's encouraging voice in her head, the way she often did. Jack Gibson had always been a big proponent of useful aphorisms-and now that he was gone, Anna was grateful for these sayings because it often felt like she still had him guiding her.

She now smiled a genuine smile. She was twenty-seven years old and on her way to a happy ending. Plus, it was wonderful, she decided, that two of her most beloved holidays were falling at the same time. She had read in the Denver Post the day before that it was Ramadan, too; this was why the stores and airports were busier than ever this year. The increased demand on travel from this rare tri-holiday season was the reason she hadn't been able to get on the same flight as Nick, whose mother, Alicia, had booked his ticket home ages ago. As much as she had wanted to fly with her boyfriend, catching a slightly later flight gave her time to stop into the office and approve one last thing as deputy photo editor of Denver Decor magazine- and squeeze in a hair appointment before heading to Toronto. "There's just so much festive joy and celebration floating around," Anna said to Nick. "We're bound to have the best holiday season of our lives, aren't we?"

"Guaranteed," Nick said. "Now, come on, sleepyhead. I made you some coffee. But it's in the kitchen, meaning you have to get out of bed to enjoy it." He winked. "I'm going to hit the shower."

Anna waited until the bathroom door closed before she fell back on the pillow and rolled onto her side to look at the small framed photo beside the bed, taken the night they met. It was six months earlier, at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Anna's boss, Janey Sawchuk, had come down with the flu that night and had called Anna in a panic. Someone from Denver Decor simply had to attend the Habitat for Humanity Under the Stars fundraiser, Janey insisted. Anna had plans with friends that night, but she couldn't say no to her boss if she wanted to keep her job; Janey had a reputation for firing people on a whim.

The night of the gala, Anna had dutifully dashed off to the mall to grab the closest approximation to a gala-appropriate dress on her limited budget. She had borrowed teetering golden sling-backs from Karina, the style editor. Gia, Janey's long-suffering assistant, had a deft hand with hair and makeup. Soon, her work friends had transformed Anna from harried office worker to upscale gala attendee. "Please make a good impression, Anna," Janey had instructed. "Nicholas Vandergrey of Vandergrey Industries is sitting at your table-and if you play your cards right, they'll advertise."

At the time, all Anna had known about the Vandergrey family was that they owned one of the biggest household cleaning product companies in the world. A quick Google search told her that the company had originated in Toronto, so Anna, who had been born in Toronto, left for the gala confident that she had at least one icebreaker in her back pocket.

She had assumed Nicholas Vandergrey would be a gray-haired man in a business suit and had not realized there was a Nicholas Vandergrey Junior-who preferred to be called Nick, and was quite charming, in addition to looking very much like Scott Foley. Okay, so it was Scott Speedman who was her ultimate Felicity actor crush-but after a few glasses of champagne she had forgotten all about that. She might have even blurted out, "Has anyone ever said you look like-"

"Scott Foley?" Nick had replied. "I get that a lot. Has anyone ever told you you're a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn? I swear, you might just be the most perfect woman I have ever seen in my life."

That was the first time he had called her "perfect"-but it wouldn't be the last. After six months, even if she knew deep down inside she was nowhere close to perfect, she had almost started to believe him.

She snuggled further down into Nick's thousand-thread-count sheets and tried hard not to think about the things she had never gotten around to telling him. The way she had been derailed by her grief over her father's sudden death two years ago. But the mess she had previously made of her life because of grief had no place in her busy schedule today. At the gala, when Nick had asked what she had been doing before starting at Denver Decor, she had told him she had decided to be impulsive and go traveling- which was technically true. What she hadn't told him was that she had given zero notice to her job at Colorado Interiors, then only made it as far as Paris before falling into a depression so deep she had only seen the inside of a Latin Quarter hotel room and the underside of a duvet cover for almost a month. Eventually, she ran out of money and maxed out her credit card on a plane ticket home.

"I'm so glad you went traveling and found yourself in Europe," Nick had told her once. "Because the self you found is absolutely right for me."

If only you knew, she would sometimes think. But it was too late to tell him now. She needed to leave the past behind- which was an easy thing to do when Nick knew so very little about who she had been before they met. The night of the gala, they had bonded over both being Torontonians at heart. "Up until a few years ago, my dad and I always went back there for a few days over the holidays," she had told him, feeling the pull of nostalgia.

"Why did you stop going?" Nick had asked. There must have been other people at the table, but Anna didn't remember who- she and Nick had been completely wrapped up in each other.

"My dad passed away last year," Anna had told him. Nick had told her how deeply sorry he was for her loss. But he had not asked for details, and this became a pattern. Anna had learned that Nick did not like to dwell on unpleasantness. He felt life was for living, and the past was the past. Which was true, wasn't it? It was a better way to live than wallowing in loneliness and misery.

"What if I promise, here and now, to take you to Toronto during the holidays?" he had asked Anna that night at the gala. She had nearly melted into a puddle on the ballroom floor- and then he had asked her to dance.

When she had relayed the story to her work friends the next day, their reactions were divided. "This is magical," Gia had declared, swooning onto the couch in Karina's crowded-with-fashion-samples office. But Karina had been more cynical. "I could swear I saw a photo of him in the society pages just last month, out on the town with his girlfriend, Elsa Miller. The model."

"Well, he didn't mention any models last night," Anna had replied, her expression dreamy. It was clear she had fallen head over borrowed heels. Karina had patted her on the shoulder and said, "I love seeing you so happy-but keep your eyes open." So, Anna dutifully made a weak attempt to look into Nick's past relationships by going through newspaper back issues and asking around. Except she felt like she was testing her luck. If she looked too deeply into him, he might do the same to her-and not like what he found. So, Anna had decided to stop digging and take Nick at his word. From day one, Nick was fully committed to her. He was the perfect...