They lay tangled together a while later, both wearing satisfied smiles as Amanda traced lazy circles on Lee's chest with her left hand, her head resting on his shoulder. "Well, now we're both underdressed," Lee quipped as he cradled her to him.

"So, we are," she laughed. She looked up at him as her laughter died off, her tone becoming more serious and said softly, "I love you, Sweetheart," but then shuddered slightly as she said it as her mother's words echoed in her ears again.

"You cold?" Lee questioned worriedly at her shiver and made a move as if to get up.

She stopped him with a hand on his chest and answered, "No, not with you here to keep me warm. It's just...just something else that Mother said...something that hadn't even occurred to me before."

Lee laughed and asked, "What else could she possibly have said? In her mind, she's already got us married with a house, a two-car garage and a half-dozen new grandbabies for her to fuss over. What else is she planning for our future?"

"It's not about that really," She explained as she pulled away from him nervously, walked back toward the sofa, picked up the blanket from the back of it and wrapped it self-consciously around herself.

"Amanda..." Lee was beginning to get concerned as he rose from his spot on the floor, reached for his discarded sweatpants, hastily pulled them on and then reached for her. Bracing his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him, then tipped her chin up to look her in the eye. "What is it?"

"Calling you Sweetheart," she confessed.

He smiled warmly at her. "Is that what you're worried about? I liked hearing it."

"I know...I know you did," she replied as she placed her hands on his chest and looked down again. "But the thing is, what Mother brought to my attention is that I called Joe sweetheart last night right in front of you..and I...just...just didn't even think about how that might make you feel and...and I...I-" Her words were silenced by Lee's lips on hers, his hands sliding to the back of her head to pull her in closer. Their earlier kisses had been those of passion and raw desire, but these were of love and devotion, long and lingering until the pressing need for oxygen separated them. "Lee, I'm sor-" Again, she was stopped by a kiss from her fiancé'. After another long moment of tender kissing, they pulled apart again. "Lee-"

Finally, Lee placed a quieting finger to her lips and whispered, "Amanda, stop. What do I have to do to convince you that I'm okay? The thing with Joe...yes, it makes me a little jealous because he's shared things with you that I never have, but I also understand that you have a deeper connection with him than anyone I've ever had in my past." He took her hands in his and continued. "The sweetheart thing...it doesn't really bother me..it's an old habit...I get that...I have old habits that are hard to break that I know drive you crazy too...like for example...trying to get out of celebrating Christmas."

Amanda couldn't help laughing and responded, "Okay, but it is a bad habit for me and I will try very hard to be more conscious of it in the future."

"And I promise to try not to be such a Grinch. Besides, seeing you at Titan Toys in that little Santa's helper costume...in the Santa hat today..." He released one of her hands and picked up her discarded sheer red bra that was strategically adorned with white balls of fluff like the hat she'd come in wearing, "And this..." He winked at her, "gives me a whole new appreciation for Christmas."

"Give me that," she scolded as she snatched it from his hands, tossed it aside and slapped at him playfully.

"Hey, you're the one who wore it," He fired back.

"Not for long, thanks to you."

"Wasn't that the point of wearing it?"

"Well...yes, but that's beside the point," she replied as she meekly batted at him again.

He captured her hand in his, gazed at the diamond ring there and said, "You know, I'm thinking..."

"Ooh, that's dangerous," Amanda jested.

"Hey!" he protested with a playful swat to her bottom with his free hand. "I'm trying to be serious here."

"I'm sorry, go on."

"What I was thinking is that there's no reason that you couldn't tell your mother that this ring was my Christmas present to you. I mean, we both agreed that the idea of the mystery marriage would never work, right?"

"Right, especially if we want to have a baby," Amanda confirmed with a decisive nod as she linked her arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly. "By the way, you never did give me your actual present."

"Oh, right," Lee extracted himself from Amanda's embrace long enough to retrieve her gift from the cabinet beneath his TV.

While he did so, Amanda plucked Lee's tee from the floor, opened her bag to retrieve his gift, then sank down onto the couch, and draped the blanket across her lap. He slid beneath the blanket with her and handed her a small box, while she handed him the flat one he'd seen beneath their office Christmas tree. "Hmmm, too heavy to be a scarf," Lee teased.

"Just open it," Amanda said impatiently.

Lee tore off the wrapping paper and opened the box beneath it and his breath caught in his throat as he saw what was inside. "Amanda, I...I don't know what to say," he said, his voice choked with emotion as he gazed at the collage of family photos in its pewter and silver frame, his parents' wedding photo on the upper left, his parents with him as a child below it. In the upper right, Amanda's parents' wedding photo with a similar photo of her and her parents beneath it. There was a snapshot of Phillip and Jamie in the upper middle between the two wedding photos, his uncle in his uniform with him at age ten in the lower middle and in the center one of only four photos that existed of him and Amanda celebrating their engagement. He remembered vividly the day that it had been taken. It was the same day he'd left her engagement ring on her desk. After sharing a long, lingering kiss, he'd swept her out of the office and taken her to the same photo booth that had led to her rescue from Addi Birol and insisted that they need to have something to commemorate the moment. In the photo, they were cuddled together, their hands linked in a way that prominently displayed her engagement ring, both wearing bright, happy smiles. He gazed at the entire thing as a whole and smiled at the words, our family, engraved on the frame.

"Do you like it, Sweetheart?" Amanda asked as she leaned over his shoulder.

"I love it," Lee said, marveling at her creation; how it must have taken her a lot of time to find the right photos to put together and take the tiny little photo booth picture to have it enlarged to fit the frame. "How did you manage to put this all together?"

"Your uncle helped with the photos of you and your parents and the one of you and him, the rest were easier," Amanda explained.

"Hmmm, that explains a lot," Lee shook

"What do you mean," Amanda asked.

"The Colonel called me this morning to wish me a Merry Christmas and he asked me how I liked my gift from you. He seemed disappointed that I hadn't gotten it yet. What made you think to do something like this?"

"Well, when you started talking about getting a new house, I thought, I don't know...that this would be something we'd hang in our home. I started putting it together then, but I...Um...I almost didn't finish it when we started talking about keeping our marriage hidden because we wouldn't be able to have a home together, but then I thought that maybe it wouldn't have to stay hidden forever and I wanted to give you...give us...something to look forward to in the future. I thought that someday we'd take out the engagement picture and replace it with a wedding picture of our own. Then these two empty spots at the bottom, I thought...I don't know, maybe our children... I just kept thinking, that well...maybe we wouldn't have to keep our marriage a secret forever and we'd have...you know...time... It's silly, I know."

"No, Amanda, no it's not silly at all. It's a beautiful, thoughtful gesture." He paused for a beat. "My gift to you is silly in comparison."

"Oh, I'm sure it's not," Amanda said reassuringly.

"Just wait until you open it to make that call," Lee warned with a gesture to the tiny box in her hand.

"Well, come on, it's too small to be a scarf," she quipped. When he glared at her she clarified, "That means it's got to be something special that you picked out just for me." She tore off the wrapping paper and opened the velvet-covered box inside, her eyes widening. "Lee," she gasped as she gazed in wonder at the open-heart diamond earrings inside. "They're gorgeous!" she exclaimed. "And they... they match..." her voice trailed off at the thoughtfulness of his gift as she lightly fingered the heart that dangled from the platinum chain around her neck.

"...the necklace that the boys bought you that you love so much," Lee finished for her. "I...um...I saw them in the jewelry store when I was shopping for your ring and that was right after I'd given you back that necklace from when Birol took it from you. You...uh...you were still in the agency infirmary recovering from what he did to you and I...I don't know. I know how women like to coordinate everything and since you wear that necklace all the time to show your love for the boys, I thought it might be nice for you to have something from me to match it. Like I said, silly."

"No, that's not silly. It's a very sweet thought and I'll always think of you when I wear them."

"Good," He said with a smile.

"I love them," Amanda gushed as she leaned in and kissed him tenderly. "And I love you."

"I love you too," he said. "As for this," Lee said indicating the framed collage in his hands. "We will have a home to hang it in."

"So, we're agreed then, no mystery marriage?"

"No mystery marriage," Lee replied. "Normal family life all the way." He nodded toward the chips and guacamole still on the table. "Guess that means this is my last Christmas doing that."

"It doesn't have to be," Amanda countered.

Lee looked at her in confusion. "But you and the boys...your mom...you have your own Christmas traditions. I wouldn't want to shake things up. Things are going to be weird enough for the boys with adjusting to having a new man in their lives while we all get used to each other."

"All the more reason to incorporate your Christmas tradition into ours," She replied hopefully.

"I don't follow you," Lee shook his head, more confused than ever.

"Look, you said yourself when we were shopping that the boys are getting too old for toys, right?"

Lee nodded. "Yeah...still not following."

"Okay, look...last night we opened presents the night before because Joe was picking the boys up this morning, but normally we're up at the crack of dawn Christmas Day to open them early and after that, we just relax. I mean, we do the family dinner, but during the rest of the day, Mother and I usually just sit on the sofa watching old Christmas movies while the boys enjoy their new gifts, but with them getting too old for toys, maybe it's time to do things a little differently. And you know, being boys, they like football too." She gave a nod to the silent television. "If I'm not mistaken, aren't chips and dip traditional football snack food?"

Lee grinned broadly at her and her reasoning. "You think they'd go for it?"

"Sure, I do! And what better way for the three of you to get to know each other than with some...what do they call it these days...male bonding? You know...yelling at the TV...calling the officials stupid or the receiver a butterfingers?"

He laughed heartily at that, "Okay, okay, I get your point."

"I hope so. Just because we're starting a new life together, that doesn't mean that you have to give up everything in your old one."

"I do think I'll have to skip the champagne part, though," Lee said with a serious look on his face. "I don't think drinking with the boys would win me any stepfather of the year awards."

"No, don't skip it. Just save it for you and me when we're alone...like now. Yes, things are going to change for both of us, but that doesn't mean that they can't be positive changes for our future and for our family." Amanda paused for a moment as she lightly fingered her engagement ring and then said, "You do know that the second that my mother sees this, she's going to start planning our wedding, right?"

"Let her," Lee said with a decisive nod feeling confident that he and Amanda had a shot at a real future for the first time since fear had overwhelmed in seeing Khai's family nearly torn apart. "It can't happen soon enough for me." He set aside their gifts on the coffee table, reached for their forgotten champagne glasses and said, "With that in mind, a toast. To our future Christmases with our family"

"To our future Christmases," Amanda replied happily as they both sipped at their champagne. "Now, how about that football game?" She reached for the remote to switch the TV on, tossed it back onto the coffee table and then snuggled back up against Lee as they sat together both wearing satisfied smiles regarding the decisions they'd made regarding their marriage.