Green eyes sparkled with excitement. “Yeah, and…?” Sam giggled as she felt the warm kisses being placed on her throat.

“I made us reservations for Wednesday through Sunday. I thought it would be nice with just you to keep me warm in that snowy winter weather.”

“Hmm…that’s five days… are we going to ski the whole time?”

“Well, not the whole time…” Brooke pulled back, giving Sam a devilish look. “I have a few surprises in store for you.”

“Hmm… I like surprises.” Sam’s train of thought stopped as Sarah entered her mind. “Brooke, you remember, we still have Sarah…”

“Not to worry, Darlin’,” Brooke kissed her temple. “Your Dad said that he’d even come stay here at the house with Sarah for a few days. It will give them a chance to work out some of the problems.”

“Well, thank you again for being the one to make that call to my parents tonight. I’m not so sure that Mother wouldn’t have just slammed the phone down when she heard my voice on the other end.”

“You’re welcome, Darlin’. You know that I’d do anything for you. Besides, they’d better get used to me, ’cause I intend on sticking around in their daughter’s life for a long time.” Brooke gave a little wink to the blonde. “You know, your dad is really looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday when he comes.”

“And how’s he going to pull that one off with my mother?”

“He said something about an out of town trip. I really don’t know.” Brooke feigned any knowledge of Samuel’s plans.

The young woman turned her head to gaze into Brooke’s face. “Hmm… and just what do you have planned, Brooke… that you’re involving my father in?” Sam saw the woman’s eyes widen at the same time that she heard the exaggerated intake of breath. “Wait. Hold it right there. I don’t want to know.” The blonde chuckled, “If you can get my mother to agree to let me come home for a few hours on Christmas, I can hardly imagine what you’re up to now. I saw how chummy you two were when you picked me up.”

“Hey, he asked if Sarah being here would spoil any plans we had for tonight and I told him no.” Brooke stated boldly, and then as she continued on, her voice started rambling just like her thoughts. “Then we got to talking about some other things and I told him about the ski trip. I mean… the weather’s supposed to be nasty here this weekend. I figured that way, instead of being cooped up with cabin fever here, we could actually make a vacation out of it, sort of.”

Green eyes stared at Brooke as Sam slowly shook her head. “Hmm… why do I think that there’s more to this?”

“Because you know me. You know I care about the people that I love. See, I even convinced you that you love me and want to marry me.” The dark-haired woman winked at her lover. “I’m a miracle worker,” she beamed proudly.

“That you are Honey.” Sam leaned in to snatch a kiss. “Now, let’s give that miracle of yours a rest. What do you say we get some sleep?”

“Sleep?” Brooke glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Sam, Darlin’…” her head turned quickly back to the blonde. “It’s almost Midnight on New Year’s and you wanna sleep? You mean there’s no way I can convince you to stay awake for a bit?

“Well, since you put it that way…” Sam let the words come out slowly as if she had given it much thought, “…and we do have to start the year out right.” The thoughtful expression on the young woman’s face turned into one of sheer love as she closed the gap between them, melting into another kiss.

“Mmm…” Brooke sneaked a peek at the time on the clock. “Happy New Year, Sam,” she whispered, then resumed their kiss letting it move on to the more passionate side.

As the kiss ended Sam felt dazed, yet invigorated all at the same time. She came off the kiss and let her forehead rest against Brooke’s. “Happy New Year, Hon. That was a nice way to start this year together.”

“I agree.” Brooke took in a deep breath. “Anything else I can do for you, my love?” The older woman smirked, “You know, that doesn’t involve any chocolate syrup at the moment?” Brooke let the smile flash across her face. “Like you said, Sarah is just down the hall.”

Sam pulled her head back from her lover’s brow and wiggled her eyebrows as she gave the most rakish grin she could muster. “Need you ask?”

The risqué laugh started deep within Brooke’s chest, then rumbled out into the air. “Care to keep up our techniques on making a baby?”

“Well, you know what they say, Brooke… whatever you do during the first hour of the New Year, you’ll do the whole year through.”

“Oh, yeah?” Brooke sounded surprised, then smiled with delight. “Well, then, it sounds like one Gordon baby on the way to me.”

The sound of bacon sizzling in the pan was the background music for the couple engaged in a kiss as the toaster punctuated the melody with a timely sound, popping the golden brown slices out of its inferno. Sam took in a breath as she looked over to the food, trying hard to keep a watchful eye on it as Brooke teased her with soft kisses and whispers meant for only her ears.

“Brooke,” Sam giggled as her ear was being nibbled on, “Stop it. I’m not having my sister think that I can’t cook. We are not burning breakfast again this morning.” The young woman turned her head from the distraction when she caught sight of her sister standing in the doorway. “Hey, Sarah. Did you get enough sleep last night?

Brooke turned to greet her future sister-in-law. “Hey, kiddo. How’d you sleep after that big day of shopping with your sister?” The dark-haired woman let a lazy smile come to her face, then slipped into a kiss to Sam as she waited for a reply.

Sarah tried to focus while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Oh, hi,” she groaned, “‘morning.” She stifled a yawn. “You know, you guys have some god awful noises in this house. They nearly kept me up all night.” The girl quickly brought her hand to her mouth as she yawned again.

The dark-haired woman coughed nervously after thinking about the previous night. “Noises…you say?”

“Yeah, that’s the second night in a row now.” Sarah watched as her sister shot a quick glance to Brooke. The teen hastily quelled the satisfied smile that came to her face.

“Ah… it must have been that wind last night. You know, with the snow… I guess you’re just not used to that kind of howling with the houses so far apart out here.” Sam tried to busy herself with the food on the stove, so that the blush that she felt coming was hidden from her sister’s view.

“Uh-huh… Okay, Sis. I mean, you should know.” Sarah shuffled over to the table and sat down as Brooke moved away from Sam, pouring herself a cup of coffee. Nonchalantly, the young girl fingered the glass of juice at her place setting, then picked it up, taking a sip. “By the way, Sam…” Sarah sipped at the juice again. “When did you become so religious?”

“Religious?” Sam turned to look at her sister, then stole a glance at Brooke. The furrows in her brow grew deeper as she racked her brain trying to think of what her sister was referring to. Suddenly a thought came to her, causing her face to lose its color. Stunned by her sister’s inferred reason for her sleepless night, Sam could do nothing but mouth out the very words that the girl was referring to. “Oh God.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought I heard you calling out. ‘Oh God,’ exactly.”

Sarah enjoyed the fast rise of red that traveled up her sister’s neck and overtook Sam’s face in seconds. “I figured that you must have found some kind of religious inspiration… or something.”

“I… I… It’s a new…” Sam’s eyes darted from her sister to her lover. “Brooke what is that called that you were teaching…” she glanced over to see that the words caught Brooke by surprise in mid-swallow, causing her to spew coffee all over the floor. “Damn you,” Sam muttered under her breath, then trailed off. “You would hear everything.”

The tall woman wiped at her mouth with one hand as she set the cup down on the counter. “Sorry, I… I… I’ll go get a towel and clean that up.” Brooke shot a glance at her lover. “And no, it wasn’t ‘damn you’ that you were saying last night,” Brooke smirked as she passed the blonde, making a quick exit from the room.

Startled, Sam tried to regroup as she faced her sister alone. “Chant…” the blonde’s eyes grew bigger with an idea, and she quickly jumped into it, thinking as she went. “That’s what it was, Sarah. It was a chant to ah… ah… get me to… relax and… and ah…”

“To Brooke?” Sarah cast a doubtful look at her sister. “The way you were calling out her name?” The young girl shook her head. “I don’t know, Sis. You would have thought she was the patron saint of orgasms the way you were carrying on last night.”

Sam felt her legs growing weaker and braced herself with a stiff arm, leaning onto the counter. “Oh God,” the blonde hid her face in her hands, mortified by her own sister’s perspective on the situation.

The young girl let go with a toothy grin as she relished in her sister’s embarrassment. “Sam… I’m seventeen now. I may not be a legal adult but I’m not stupid either. I know that you and Brooke are getting closer… more intimate, now that you’re engaged.”

The only thing that Sam could do was shake her head in disbelief. Slowly, she was able to bring a hand down from her face and cast as innocent a look as she could muster. Sam gave a faint smile as she tried to move the conversation to a less embarrassing topic. “Speaking of you being seventeen now, you know I sent you a card for your birthday in November. I guess Mom didn’t let you have it.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Sarah took another drink of her juice. “Yeah, I figured that you did. She was kind of bent out of shape after the mail came that day.” The young girl’s eyes followed Brooke as she came back into the room and went to work to clean up her mess.