"Shovel the snow from the driveway," she joked, then shook her head. "Actually, I could use your help. If you can hold these two walls like this, at a right angle, I can glue them together with the frosting."

"Are you sure we shouldn't be using concrete?"

"Don't get smart with me. Either you help or you clean the driveway."

"Okay. Right angles." He hovered over the table, his large hands dwarfing the slabs of gingerbread. Ellie used a narrow spatula to seal the corner with icing. She managed to get some of the icing on Curt's pinkie. He let go of the wall to lick it off, and the house nearly collapsed.

"No licking till we're done."

"You're a slave driver."

"You partied all afternoon. Now I get to boss you around."

"Hmm." He nudged the top of her head with his chin. "Are you going to discipline me with a velvet whip? Maybe use some fur-lined handcuffs?"

"If I handcuffed you, you wouldn't be able to hold the walls up. Right angle, Curt," she emphasized when he shifted the wall slightly. "Ninety degrees."

"I forgot to bring my protractor," he joked, but he adjusted the walls and Ellie was able to cement them with the icing.

More than an hour pa.s.sed before they had the house standing reasonably solidly and decorated with candy canes, M&M's, jelly beans and gumdrops-a few of which disappeared into Curt's mouth instead of becoming part of the house's decor. "It'll do," Ellie said wearily. The gingerbread houses she'd seen in magazine photographs looked a h.e.l.l of a lot better than this one.

"Not done yet," Curt interrupted, fishing a toothpick from the box on the table. He dipped it into a smear of frosting and dabbed it against the house's front wall, above its white-icing door. Another dip and a dab, and another. When he was done, Ellie could see the faint white shape of two letters in the slightly bulging gingerbread that rose toward the peaked roof: "H. S."

Hope Street. Just like the shingle he'd made for this house and attached to the front wall above the door. She remembered the day he'd emerged from his bas.e.m.e.nt workshop carrying that shingle, just a few weeks after they'd moved into the house, when she was eight and a half months pregnant with Katie and looked as if she'd swallowed a watermelon whole. Curt had hung the shingle, then taken her in his arms and said, "I promised you we'd always live on Hope Street. This house might be on Birch Lane, but we're living on Hope Street, too."

Now the gingerbread had officially been granted a Hope Street address. Suddenly, the crooked little structure seemed more beautiful to Ellie than any gingerbread house in any magazine.

She carried it on a foil-covered tray into the living room and set it on the coffee table next to the cookies Peter had left out for Santa. "Do you think we can do the presents?" Curt whispered.

They glanced toward the stairs. No sounds emerged from the kids' rooms, no activity, no signs of life. Ellie nodded, and they tiptoed down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and retrieved the gift-wrapped parcels from a.s.sorted hiding places. Katie's gifts were all wrapped in red foil, Jessie's in silver, Peter's in green, Ellie's in white and Curt's in gold. Ellie had explained to the children, years ago, that Santa liked to sort the packages this way so he'd know who was getting what.

From under the tool bench Curt hoisted a large white parcel, squarish but not rectangular enough to be a box. "What's that?" she asked.

"You'll find out tomorrow," he teased.

"Oh, come on-you can tell me!" She sounded as wheedling as the girls when they were angling for some new privilege.

"It's a very big bracelet," Curt said before tiptoeing up the stairs with a bulky pile of gifts.

After a few trips between the bas.e.m.e.nt and the living room, all the presents were arrayed under the tree. Delicate white lights winked among the Scotch pine's branches and glittered off the tinsel garlands, giving the tree an elegantly icy appearance. The Frost tree should look frosty, Curt always said, so they limited their decorations to white and silver. If the tree were standing outside, it would be even more frosty, glazed with snow.

Curt switched off the living-room lights so only the tree illuminated the room. "Sit," he murmured, nudging her toward the sofa before he vanished into the kitchen. He returned carrying two gla.s.ses of port. Then he lowered himself onto the sofa next to her and arched an arm around her.

He no longer smelled of perfume or punch. Only of Curt, a dark, heady, deliciously male scent that made her long to melt into him. She rested her head on his shoulder and wished she looked better. She still had on the baggy sweater and frayed jeans she'd donned once she'd gotten home from work, and her scent carried heavy undertones of flour and mola.s.ses and ginger. Not the most romantic fragrance in the world.

Curt didn't seem to mind. "The house looks great," he said.

Ellie took a sip of port, then shook her head. "My mother won't think so. What do you want to bet she walks through the door tomorrow and tells me I should wash the kitchen floor?"

"I meant that house," he said, gesturing toward her gingerbread creation. "But our house looks great, too. Your mother will be too busy fussing over the kids to notice the kitchen floor."

"Oh, she'll notice." Ellie's mother wouldn't have cared about Ellie's floor if Ellie had fulfilled her destiny and become a doctor. "If you were a doctor, I wouldn't expect you to have time to scrub the floors," her mother would say. "But you just work at that school. You're home by the middle of the afternoon, and you can't possibly be tired. If you haven't got a demanding career, the least you could do is have a clean house."

It was clean enough. And at age forty, Ellie was no longer desperate for her mother's approval. Maybe in another few years, she wouldn't even mind the criticisms anymore.

Curt sipped some port, then lowered his gla.s.s to the table. "I think the kids'll be pleased with their presents."

"They ought to be." Along with the usual books, CDs, games and stocking stuffers, they'd bought Katie some computer software that would enable her to edit videotapes-she'd pretty much taken over the family's camcorder, and her current dream was to direct music videos. Jessie would be getting a Discman, which she'd been hinting about for months. Peter had written in his letter to Santa that he wanted a new baseball bat and glove, and those items now sat beneath the tree, awkwardly wrapped in green paper. "I know I'm eager to try on that very big bracelet," Ellie added, gesturing toward the mysterious white package Curt had carried upstairs.

He chuckled softly and kissed the crown of her head. Then he eased her gla.s.s from her hand, placed it beside his and pulled her half onto his lap. "It'll look gorgeous on you. You'll have to model it for me-wearing just the bracelet and nothing else."

"Do you think that's what Santa had in mind when he got it for me?"

"Santa's a dirty old man," Curt warned before kissing her again-a deep, sensual kiss that stole Ellie's breath. She turned toward him, reaching for his shoulders, and he slid a hand under her sweater and cupped her breast. "A very, very dirty old man."

"We shouldn't do this down here," Ellie warned.

"The kids are asleep."

"They could wake up."

"They wouldn't dare." With that, he twisted out from under her, deposited her onto the sofa cushions and sprawled on top of her. "You know what the best thing about Christmas is?" he murmured as he pushed her sweater up, baring her midriff. "Being married to you." He punctuated this sentiment with a warm, wet kiss on her belly.

Her exasperation with the gingerbread house went forgotten. The children's prebedtime rambunctiousness faded from her mind. Her parents' impending visit, the now-refrigerated turkey she'd have to dress and roast tomorrow, the early-morning wakeup Peter would subject them to with his exuberant yelling...Her mind emptied of everything but Curt, his weight, his warm hands moving over her skin, his hips pressing into hers. His stubble scratched her cheeks and throat as he kissed her, and she wondered if she'd have beard burns marking her skin tomorrow. Not that she cared. In fact, they might distract her mother from the fact that the kitchen floor wasn't spotless.

Ellie and Curt had been together for twenty years, married for seventeen. They'd done their share of experimentation-although, joking aside, neither of them had a taste for velvet whips or fur-lined handcuffs. But Curt still excited her. He touched her as if each time was an entirely new experience, as if each brush of his fingers or his lips or his tongue represented a unique discovery. His body was as lean and hard as it had been the first time she'd seen it one twilit morning in his apartment on Hope Street. He'd thrilled her then. He thrilled her now.

"I love you." She sighed as he eased her slacks down her legs. "Oh, Curt..."

"We got this right, didn't we." He slid his hand between her thighs, found her wet and trembling. "The love part."

She didn't want to come without him, but he was too deft, he knew her too well. A few strokes and she was gone, gasping into the hollow of his throat as her body throbbed with pleasure.

"I love when you come," he whispered, and his words made her come again.

"Take off your pants," she moaned.

"I'm getting there." He worked his fly with one hand, his other remaining where it was, teasing her, keeping her tense and painfully aroused. He wiggled his hips and she shoved his jeans in the general direction of his ankles, then guided him to her, took him, held him deep inside.

His movements were familiar, so sweet and strong. She loved the hardness of his b.u.t.tocks against her palms, the caress of his breath against her brow. She loved the rhythm of his strokes, the depth of them, the way he and she possessed each other, trusted each other, antic.i.p.ated each other's needs and satisfied them. Ellie knew digging her thumbs into the small of his back made him wild. Curt knew tweaking her nipples sent flames of sensation through her. She knew when he was nearing his peak; he knew when she was nearing hers.

Yes, they'd gotten this right. So right, she thought as her body convulsed around him, as he groaned and took her in a fierce final surge.

Eventually they wound down, their bodies sinking into the upholstery, Curt's mouth grazing hers with a lazy kiss. "Merry Christmas, Ellie," he murmured.

"Forget the very big bracelet," she murmured back. "I just got my favorite gift."

THE VERY BIG BRACELET turned out to be a padded bleacher seat-and Ellie was as delighted as she would have been by jewelry. She already had more than enough trinkets-bracelets, pendants, a diamond eternity ring Curt had given her in honor of their tenth anniversary, which she wore every day along with her wedding band.

A bleacher seat would keep her bottom from going numb during the countless hours she sat watching her kids play baseball, softball and basketball. Sometimes, the comfort of a woman's b.u.t.t was more important than the glitter of diamonds.

Peter squealed and bellowed over his gifts, single-handedly maintaining a noise level high enough to rouse any neighbors foolish enough to leave their windows open. The girls used to behave the way he did on Christmas morning, but now that they were tweeners they were too cool to scream. Instead, they resorted to muted gasps and murmurs of "Awesome!" and "Yes!" as they unwrapped CDs by Destiny's Child and Matchbox Twenty, books from the Sweet Valley High and Baby-sitters Club series, enameled b.u.t.terfly-shaped earrings for Jessie and ladybug earrings for Katie. All three children oohed and aahed over the gingerbread house, and Curt modestly downplayed his contributions and insisted that Ellie had created the thing by herself. Personally, she thought his having inscribed the house with "H. S." was the most important decoration, but if Curt wanted to give her all the credit, she wasn't foolish enough to argue.

She observed the happy mayhem for a few minutes, thanked Jessie for the tortoisesh.e.l.l barrette, Katie for the stacking coasters with impressionist paintings reproduced on them and Peter for this year's Popsicle-stick-framed crayon masterpiece, and then holed up in the kitchen to dress the turkey. After a bit more revelry in the living room, Curt and the children joined her, Curt wearing the handwoven wool sweater Ellie had found at a craft fair in October and impulsively bought to give him for Christmas. The slashes of color-green and gold and a rusty brown-were reflected in his hazel eyes. The pattern and texture were kind of artsy for Curt's taste, but he didn't have to wear it to court. Just when he was around Ellie.

Seeing him in it made her want to tear it off him.

But she couldn't do that when Katie, Jessie and Peter were crowded around the kitchen table, whining about how starving they were. With their Christmas stockings drooping from the mantel under the weight of foil-wrapped chocolate Santas and sugar-cookie Santas and Santa-shaped lollipops, they could certainly have found something outside the kitchen to ease their hunger. But no, it was Christmas morning and only pancakes would do.

Ellie mixed some batter and put Curt and Katie to work cooking the pancakes on the electric griddle, then resumed her efforts with the turkey. Her parents would be arriving around midday and expecting to eat by one. If the turkey didn't get stuffed and into the oven soon, they'd be dining on raw bird.

She hummed while she crumbled a loaf of bread into chunks for her stuffing, and listened to the enthusiastic chattering of her children. Peter boasted that he was going to be the best baseball player ever, and Ellie remembered her brothers making the same proud claims when they were Peter's age. One had wound up an accountant and the other a high-school teacher, both of them having ultimately opted for practicality over glamour-or perhaps reality over fantasy. Of course, the small wooden bat Peter had received, while perfectly suited to the double-A Little League team he'd be playing on next spring, wasn't going to power any b.a.l.l.s out of Fenway Park. For the time being, though, he believed Santa was the greatest guy in the world because he'd brought Peter such a wonderful bat. The glove was great, too. "But Santa isn't here anymore," he concluded, "so Daddy will have to show me how to make a pocket in my glove."

"I think I can do that," Curt said, shooting Ellie a grin. Evidently, he didn't mind coming in second to Santa.

Ellie was still in the kitchen, preparing her sweet-potato ca.s.serole, cutting vegetables into a salad, scouring the griddle and stacking the syrup-sticky breakfast plates into the dishwasher long after the rest of the family had departed-Jessie to listen to music on her Discman; Katie to phone all her friends to find out what they'd received for Christmas; Curt to rearrange his tool bench to make s.p.a.ce for the power drill he'd selected for himself and then asked Ellie to give him; and Peter to run around the house with his bat, shouting, "It's outta here!" as he swatted imaginary homers out of an imaginary ballpark.

"Watch where you swing that thing!" Ellie warned, visualizing all the fragile objects in her house that could wind up in the path of Peter's bat. Lamps, a set of handcrafted ceramic bowls, the TV..."Just pretend your swinging it, Peter," she called from her post at the kitchen sink. "It's really an outdoor toy."

"It's not a toy," he shouted back. "It's a bat."

"It's an outdoor bat."

"I'm being careful."

She smiled. All the tension that had built up inside her during the weeks before Christmas was finally ebbing. Her children were home and happy, her husband liked the sweater she'd selected for him, she had a cushioned bleacher seat along with a box of G.o.diva dark chocolates, a pair of fleece-lined leather slippers, a new barrette, some pretty coasters and original artwork from Peter. She had a beautiful white snowscape to view on the other side of the window above the sink-just enough snow to look pretty, not enough to mess up the roads. She had a husband who could make spontaneous love to her on the sofa when she was wiped out after a long day, and leave her feeling as if she was actually competent in the art of creating a holiday atmosphere for her family.

What more could a woman want?

A mother who was a little less judgmental, she thought a couple of hours later when her parents swept into the house, bearing armloads of gifts for their grandchildren. For Peter they'd brought a Lego set and for the girls some stuffed animals that the girls were polite enough to thank them for, even though Ellie feared they might be a little too old to appreciate fluffy toy Persian cats wearing rhinestone tiaras and dangly earrings.

"The gingerbread house is so cute," her mother said once the frenzy that accompanied their arrival had simmered down and she could join Ellie in the kitchen. "The girls said you made it yourself."

"Curt helped," Ellie admitted, then bit her tongue. She should have taken full credit, just so her mother would acknowledge her hard work and her domestic achievements.

Too late. "Curt is a gem," her mother gushed. "I hope you thank G.o.d every day for a husband like him. I can just imagine what your father would say if I asked him to help me bake a gingerbread house." She clicked her tongue and shook her head. "What kind of stuffing did you make?" she asked, opening the oven to peek. The room filled with the heavy scents of garlic and b.u.t.ter and roasting turkey.

"The usual," Ellie said. "Apples, celery, whole wheat bread..."

"You should make oyster stuffing," her mother declared, closing the oven. "n.o.body ever makes that anymore, except for me. Your father loves it. Curt would love it, too."

"He likes my apple stuffing."

"You could use a little foundation, Ellie. And some concealer. You're middle-aged. It's starting to show. You've got frown lines sprouting above your eyebrows..."

On cue, Ellie frowned.

But what was the point of arguing with her mother that Curt-the gem-loved her stuffing and didn't seem to care if she had frown lines above her eyebrows? Even if she wanted to defend herself, she would have been hard-pressed to break through her mother's monologue, which touched on Ellie's job-"Don't you find it disgusting having to treat all those strange children with stomach bugs?" And her sweater-"Didn't you wear that sweater last year? It's getting old." And the children-"You shouldn't baby Peter so much. He's getting to be a big boy." And, of course, the kitchen floor-"All those boots piled up by the back door leave water stains. If you're going to be so lackadaisical about cleaning your floor, you should get darker tiles. Something with a pattern, maybe. That would disguise the dirt, the way your highlighting disguises your gray hair."

Thank you, Mom.

But Ellie got through it, because Curt was a gem and her children were magnificent and it was Christmas. Everyone praised the dinner, even though she hadn't made oyster stuffing, and afterward her parents agreed to watch the Frosty the Snowman video with Peter, despite the fact that he'd watched it last night. Katie and Jessie cleared the table and placed the dishes in the dishwasher, and Curt wrapped up all the leftovers and wedged them into the refrigerator, leaving only the pot-scouring ch.o.r.e for Ellie to handle.

Peace-or as close to peace as she could hope to get in a houseful of people-descended, along with a fresh dusting of snow.

She didn't notice the threads of tension woven into that peace until her parents were saying their goodbyes. Her father fussed about having to visit Ellie's baby brother-they'd eaten too much, and now they'd be expected to have supper with that whole branch of the family.

Ellie and Curt and the girls a.s.sured him that by the time he arrived at Uncle Mike's house he'd be hungry again. Peter gave his grandparents as big a hug as he could, not easy since he was wearing his new baseball glove, but his face was taut and his eyes, hazel like Curt's, glinted coldly.

"Are you okay?" Ellie asked him once her parents were in their car and backing down the driveway to the street.

"Sure," he grunted, then turned and stormed away.

"What's that all about?" Curt asked, watching Peter stomp off in the direction of the family room.

"He's such a jerk sometimes," Jessie muttered before heading upstairs.

Curt ushered Ellie into the kitchen. It was nearly clean, and would no doubt look cleaner if she installed flooring with a pattern like her hair's highlights. Remembering her mother's litany of veiled criticisms sparked a giggle. "G.o.d, my parents wear me out."

Curt laughed. "Scary to think you swam out of their gene pool."

"And your children swam out of mine. My parents' chromosomes live on."

"Thank heavens the kids have inherited all their good traits from my gene pool."

Ellie jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow. "Yeah, right."

"My height, my talent, my intellect," he ticked off. "My coloring. My sense of humor..."

"Your inflated ego." She crossed to the sink, lifted the roasting pan from the drying rack and wiped it with a towel. "Your ugly toes. Your cluelessness."

"My toes aren't ugly."

"Have you looked at them lately?"

Their banter was interrupted by a loud thumping sound and then as cream from Katie. "Peter! You idiot! Why did you do that?"

Ellie nearly dropped the pan. Curt was already out of the kitchen, hurrying toward the living room. As soon as she'd set the pan back onto the rack, she trailed him down the hall, nearly colliding with him when he stopped short in the living-room doorway. "Peter. Give it to me," he commanded, his voice ominously low, his hand outstretched.

Ellie sidestepped Curt and then froze when she saw what Peter had done: smashed the gingerbread house with his new bat. The confection lay shattered across the coffee table, chunks of gingerbread, flakes of dried frosting and gum drops strewn around it, as if a tornado had descended from the ceiling and demolished it.

Katie shoved Peter away from the table, her eyes glistening with tears. "You stupid idiot!" she roared. "Mommy worked so hard on this, and now you've ruined it!"

"What did he do?" Jessie yelled, racing down the stairs.

"He destroyed the gingerbread house!"

"Can we still eat it?" Jessie asked.