*****121:

It was almost Christmas. The kids programs were done, attended and dutifully photographed. It was too cold out to surf, and the residual headache she'd been building all day was a little more than she could handle alone. She intended to go upstairs and shower, and lay on her magnetic bed, flat out, naked. The kids were down, why not?

Her cell phone rang. She was on her way up the stairs, but stopped and took it off the charger and looked out the sliding glass door to the golf course, lights, fog, beach drizzle, trees blowing.

"Hi." A voice she'd not heard in months.

She sat down at the kitchen table, her heart beating too fast, her thoughts suddenly careening. "Richard!"

"It's almost Christmas, thought I'd have my once a year call now, you'll probably be busy on Christmas Day." She heard the words, but heard the deafening, take your breath away , music as well. Music she hadn't heard in so long.... So long.....

"We'll be in London on Christmas Day."

"I thought you might be going to ParkCity."

"Well, the boys are going skiing with Austin on Christmas in ParkCity, they're leaving tomorrow, and they'll be gone the whole two weeks."

"But you're not going?" His voice was curious, sweetly interested, always interested in her...

"I—no, I'm not...."

"Why, Trace? Your last couple of letters have had a lot about Austin. I thought maybe you and he were... you know...."

Yeah, he'd think that, wouldn't he? He'd want reassurance right now. Wouldn't he? "Are you supposed to be concerned about that while you're out on your mission? Are you supposed to be calling me?"

He sighed loud enough for her to hear. "Sort of... you're family. And I can call home on Christmas."

"I'm family?"

"You're like family."

"Like family? Like your sister? Your cousin?" She was teasing him a little, she knew what she was like to him, it was okay to admit it now, she'd been thinking so much about Austin, she'd had to think about why she wasn't attracted to him in that way. And the reason was something she needed to face as well....

If he said she was like a sister to him, he'd be lying.... But talking about this while on his mission.... He knew other guys who did, who did all the time.... But that was breaking mission rules, and he didn't really like to break mission rules....

"What's wrong Richard? Cat got your tongue?"

He decided to ignore it. "I saw the cover of Rolling Stone."

"Pretty hot, huh?"

"Actually, yeah." He said and laughed, if he was going to talk the talk, then he might as well just do it. The December cover of Rolling Stone had featured Tracy McCaffrey, long hair falling about her like a lioness, dressed in a wet suit, crouched on the sand, a half smile on her face, but her eyes captured an expression of pain and sadness somehow. Inside had been recent escapades with Austin all over Southern California, and his subsequent break from Lisa as he and Tracy openly discovered who they were together, even to an interview talking candidly about this desire to know for sure, if they should be together.

"You read the interview?"

He was a little more wary now, unsure. "Yeah."

"Did it bother you?"

"You know it did."

"Because of me and Austin?"

Now he was silent, not wanting to say it, knowing she could explain if she chose. "Did you read the whole thing? Did you see the concert pics? How about the other surfing shots? How about the home ones?"

"In white? On the white couch? Where is that? Not your house?"

"No, not my house. I wouldn't let them come to my house, or ParkCity. But I have an apartment now at ABC. I let them come there."

"I read a lot about your progress with that."

"It's done, it's open. I told you all about it in my last letter. Or did you only read the parts about Austin?"

He laughed. "I reread the parts about Austin. He broke it off with Lisa?"

"For a couple of months yeah." She said and then he heard her sigh. "It's weird talking about it, Richard, I usually write to you about stuff. So this is the story. I had taken his kids for awhile. His kids, to help him out. But we started hanging out a lot so he could visit the kids and Lisa started getting annoyed and bored with it, because you know how we are when we're together. We kind of shop talk, and spend a lot of time jamming, and skiing....so, Lisa started getting jealous, and finally, Austin started wondering if he had feelings for me. So he decided to break it off with her and figure out if he really liked me better."

"This doesn't sound like a mutual decision."

"It wasn't. Lisa didn't want to break up, she just wanted me out of the picture, and I didn't want to date Austin, I—I just wanted to keep his kids."

"Ah.... Where have I heard that before?"

"Exactly." She laughed.

"Does he know that you want to keep his kids?"

"Om.... No, actually, I didn't tell him, I really prayed to know if I should be with him, and I got an answer."

"An answer." He repeated, fearing something momentous, and yet, not. He knew the answer already.

"I am not supposed to marry Austin or adopt his kids."

"Oh." He said and felt a release of pent up energy, even though he thought he knew.... No, he did know..... "Did, ah.... He get this answer too?"

"Yeah." She said softly, wishing she could reach through the phone and caress the side of his face suddenly. She wanted very badly to be held, for the first time since Raine's death nearly a year ago, even when Richard had held her then, it had been different... necessary.... And he hadn't been a missionary. But now, she really wanted to disregard mission rules and just spend a moment sharing the burdens, letting him take her pain and her fears, and the darkness....

A longing so great welled up within her that she felt a prick of tears behind her eyelids. A reaction she was very used to, but that was unexpected all the same.

"What is it baby?" he whispered, sensing something in the way her silence progressed.

She couldn't talk; her throat was clogged shut with emotion. A tear rolled down her cheek. "I just hadn't thought to be hearing your voice." She choked.

Concern immediately edged his tones. "Trace, are you building? Are you okay?"

She got up and started up the stairs, pulled back the covers on her bed and laid flat on the magnetic mattress Armani had put there. It wasn't enough, she took off her sweater and then her shirt, and laid there. Still the tears and the headache, and the dizziness and the shakiness.... But... it was receding, soothingly, quickly.

"Baby, you okay?"

"Why do you call me baby?" she managed.

"Habit."

"It implies.... That I'm your...."

"As it should."

She felt her own breath leave her suddenly.

"Stop crying and listen to me, baby. It's Christmas. We can talk freely, okay?"

She nodded, even though he couldn't see her, she pictured him in her mind. She pulled a blanket up over her and cuddled into it as the build dissipated, and she felt the warmth of Richard's love surround her. Had he always loved her? Had he waited, patiently, heartbrokenly sometimes, but still there, waiting, trusting, not knowing, but knowing? He had to have.

"I meant it, Trace, that day at Austin's in Malibu. When you were grieving. Do you remember?"

"You said you loved me, to hang onto that."

"I do love you." He said softly, but with so much meaning, such deep longing and desire.

Another tear slipped out. "I don't... I don't deserve...."

"Tracy... deserving love isn't an issue with true love, is it? I'm not going to discuss our worthiness to love, only that we do. I've loved you since I met you, you know that. Through it all, all the things you had to go through, all the things I've had to go through...." Now his own breath caught and a fierce threat of emotion clutched at his throat and behind his eyelids.

Tracy sensed it. "Richard. It's okay."

"We've been through a lot." He said then.

"Um hm." She managed, sensing his tears, and loving him in that moment more than she'd ever admitted. A realization that she did, and could love him permeated her. It didn't damage or take away from her relationship with Raine. But it did help put it in the past, and in perspective. For the first time, it felt like it was past. Not a blurry indistinct past, but clear and pristine, and away.... Like it was supposed to be that way.

He'd gotten control of himself. "This wasn't quite what I thought would happen when I called you." He said and laughed a little to clear the air.

"Well, I didn't know you were calling, so I couldn't have prepared." She answered.

"No, it was more a spur of the moment thing, and Christmas was just an excuse."

"So you are breaking mission rules."

"It's not Sinai, Trace, it's a guideline."

"I know." She laughed, wiping at fresh tears.

"So... so why didn't you go to ParkCity?"

"I'm not going there. Austin and Lisa are getting back together, they've been talking for a couple of weeks, and he's taking the boys permanently. I'm okay with that, really I am. I really want them to be with their dad. But we are buying the land on FlatheadLake. In fact, there's this island, and we're buying the entire thing, and Jules is building a house for him and his new girlfriend, did I tell you he's got a girlfriend?"

"Yeah, I think you tell me everything, every day."

"Basically." She laughed.

"So, you'll be able to do concerts and all that from this place?"

"Yeah, the first thing we're building is the studio. It's really big, state of the art, and it'll be a retreat for people who want to record..."

"Who is funding it?"

"Funny you should ask. Yeah, I actually am running a little low on money. Weird huh? Didn't think I could spend so much, but I have."

"I thought you could, you've built that house next door to Austin's in ParkCity, you've built ABCSC and started the one in Utah. Getting that up and running is.... Challenging, no?"

"It's been interesting. I'd wanted to have more input, but actually, Andrea has to do a lot, and she's hired a lot of people to work there, and get it going."

"I knew that would happen. One little Missy can get stretched too thin, you know."

She grinned. "I am pretty thin."

"You look pretty curvy in a wetsuit."

"You liked that huh?"

"Hot, you are sexy hot."

"You want me, huh?"

His voice dropped to barely a low controlled whisper. "Yeah."

"As much as you did that night in the kitchen?"

He had mixed emotions about that night. What had started out as a good thing, had escalated into a bad thing. The bad thing memories outweighed the good thing memories. "More like that day on the Seine."

"Oh." She whispered back, remembering, she'd remembered it a lot, like a kiss between them that was more, felt somehow without being physical. When she'd known that he wanted her enough to give her away, for her happiness, without a thought for his own happiness. A purely selfless act, that day on the Seine... one of those freedom moments spoken of by poets and lyricists.

"But it can wait." He said, with a tinge of regret.

"I wish I was there. I would just hold you."

"You? You would hold me?"

"Yeah, for the first time in my life I can see myself wanting someone else more than I want the comfort of them wanting me."

"The first time?"

"Weird, huh?"

"No, enlightening, and a blessing."

"Enlightening? How?"

"For you, I mean. To realize that you want to give more than you receive. You've always been that way, Trace. You're a very giving person."

"But not of that side of me, Richard. I've never.... Never really given inside.... Like, I don't know how to say it.... In relationships, it's more of a taking thing with me. Like I t-take comfort and l-love.... But I don't give my whole self.... I want to.... I thought I did, but I really didn't.... I give it to children, and to- to- I don't know.... To.... Music....."

"But you won't let yourself share that kind of love between a man and a woman that transcends the physical comfort, as you say, and becomes.... Deeper, like..... full...."

"I'm just beginning to understand that it's a different thing, Richard."

" I guess I started getting it sooner.... Like when I was convalescing with my leg and the drugs. I had to really think about life and what is important. You seemed to have that love thing down, but there was always something elusive about it, like we all hold something back. And when we can finally give it... submit it, if you will, and be glad to.... Want to with all our hearts, nothing held back...."

Tracy felt her heart racing. She loved him that way, she knew it, she wanted to say it. He was saying it... he wasn't supposed to be saying it.... There was another year to get through... but he was saying it.....

"You there?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good, I was starting to think we'd lost the connection and you might not have heard...."

"No, I heard. And I understand, and I--- agree."

"You do?"

"Yes."

He blew out his breath. "That's been a long time coming."

She chuckled. "One more year." She said.

"Piece of cake."

"You didn't buy that magazine did you?"

"No. Why? Did you send me pictures for Christmas?"

"I did." She said. "Better ones."

"Better than the wetsuit?"

"I guess I'm not a guy, so maybe not...."

"Are you in them?"

"Some of them."

"Are there kids in them?"

"Yeah."

"Still not better than the ones of you."

"I miss you." She whispered.

"I miss you too." He answered.

"Merry Christmas, Richard."

"Merry Christmas, my love."

*****