Matt Sanders

Aubree Dawson was not sure she had ever experienced a more perfect or magical night.

The whole town seemed to have gathered at the pond for the skating party that welcomed Wesley Wellhaven to Huntington.

Wesley was the antithesis of his wife. There was no hiding that he was a shy and self-effacing man. His manner was so mild that Aubree wondered if he could really produce the voice he was so famous for.

She voiced that doubt to Matt in a low whisper when they skated off after being introduced to Mr. Wellhaven, who had thanked them both effusively for their hard work on The Christmas Angel project.

"It's probably some trickery of the brains of the outfit," Matt said. Despite the miraculous progress Mrs. Wellhaven had made with the children's choir, Matt had never quite forgiven her their initial encounter.

And then they laughed, and Aubree marveled at how easily they laughed together, and how often, and at how the hard lines seemed to be melting from Matt's face, one by one.

"What are you looking at?" he teased.

"You. You're a handsome man, Matt."

"Stop. you'll make me blush." and then he bent and brushed his lips to hers, and threw back his head and laughed.

Aubree knew it was partly Matt's hand in hers, his easy affection, that made the evening so completely magical. A huge bonfire burned beside the pond, vats of hot chocolate were kept warm, and trays and trays of Christmas cookies sat on tables that had been set up beside the pond.

It was a true community event. Everyone was there, from the mayor to the waitresses, from grandmas and grandpas to small babies being pulled around the ice in sleds.

There were cameras filming some of what would be inserted into the moments right before the commercial breaks of the television special, but after a few minutes of self-consciousness everyone seemed to forget they were.

But all of this was only a backdrop for what was unfolding inside of her. Matt's hand was always in hers, or his arm around her waist. He would tilt his head to listen to her, or to laugh at something she said.

They were a couple, Aubree realized. Everybody knew it. He seemed proud of it and her.

It came on her suddenly, a delicious sensation of not belonging. Not just with him, but in this community.

She did not miss the small smiles people exchanged with them, or the liking and enormous respect these people had for Matt.

She did not miss how much they had hoped for him to be what he was tonight: energized and laughter-filled, mischievous and fun-loving. And because they saw her as part of what was bringing Matt back to them, they accepted her.

Maybe it wasn't even going too far to say that they cared deeply for her, their grade-one teacher, Matt Sanders' girlfriend.

Girlfriend. She savored the word, like a caramel melting on the top of her tongue.

Aubree glided across the ice with Matt and a single word formed in her mind. Belonging. It was a whisper of something she had waited her whole life to feel.

Aubree had not skated very much, but she soon found she loved the sensation of gliding along the ice, especially with Matt, a strong skater, beside her.

The children were racing around on their skates, shouting with exuberance, playing games that ace seemed to always be at the center of.

Matt followed his daughter for a moment with his eyes, then smiled, satisfied. "You've worked a miracle, there, Aubree Dawson." he said. "She's happy. To be truthful? I did not think we could have a happy Christmas ever again."

In the past days, he had told Aubree all about growing up with the Three Musketeers, about the closeness of their friendship, about David and Valery loving each other so much. and then David going away and not coming back.

He told her how for the longest time he thought he would lose Valery, too. she had pined, not eating properly, not going out, the light gone from her eyes. Every day he had gone to her, made her eat, made her get out of the house.

They had become a habit for each other. It came to a point that he could not imagine life without her.

and he felt they'd had a good marriage. Solid. based in respect and friendship.

And then Matt told Aubree about the accident that had taken his wife, about that final errand she had gone to run on Christmas Eve and never come back from.

How even in excruciating pain, she had something that he could never hope to have. A simple faith. A belief that somehow every thing, even this, was unfolding according to a larger plan.

And then Matt told Aubree about his own black days after. There was no one to come rescue him from that feeling of sinking into a mire that he could never get out of. He had told her the worst of it was a sense of having failed.

"A man wants to believe he can protect those he loves from harm. But he can't. Not always. Learning that," Matt had told her, "has been the hardest lesson of my life."

But for a man who had learned hard lessons, he seemed only at ease now as he guided her around the fire lit surface of the frozen pond. Matt Sanders seemed only enormously sure of himself and his place in the world.

Aubree wanted the night to never end, but of course, all good things had to end.