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Monica blinked and looked up from her mug of coffee. She smiled at Alex. “Sorry, what? Lost in pre-coffee thought. Or maybe I dozed off.”

“I asked if it’d be okay if Colin comes out with me today. I doubt Jack and Rose will make it with the road conditions. I could use an extra set of hands,” Alex said.

Monica forced herself to smile. “Of course.”

“Finish up, then, partner. We’ve got some ice to break.” Alex must have noticed her horrified look. “In the water tanks.”

Right. Water tanks. Honestly, she was too smart a woman to always be jumping to the most dangerous possibility. Of course, that wasn’t fair. She was always telling her patients that intelligence didn’t have a thing to do with the emotional aftereffects of war. The smartest minds could be as easily wounded by trauma as anyone else.

She thought she’d been dealing with her trauma quite effectively, and it was daunting to realize she’d mostly been running from it, or hiding, or gently pushing it into a corner where she didn’t have to deal with it.

One day at a timehad come to mean considering neither future nor past. Now, she was settling in. Shehadto think about the future because she was knee-deep in helping people build a program she wanted to be involved with for a very long time.

“Everything okay?” Becca asked once Alex and Colin had disappeared from the kitchen.

Monica smiled. “Okay. Holidays are hard. End of the year is hard.”Life is hard.

“If there’s anything about the wedding stressing you—”

“Nothing about the wedding is hard. I’m having a great time helping you plan. In fact, we’ve got a bit of time right now, don’t we? Did you want to finalize the timeline, and then I can make any confirmation phone calls next week?”

Becca drained her coffee. “You’re a dream come true. Let me get the binder.”

Becca disappeared from the kitchen and Monica cleared the table, rinsing the dishes so they were ready to be loaded. She’d chalk up this weird melancholy to not just the holidays, but messing with her routine.

As Becca reentered, the front door squeaked open and voices could be heard murmuring in the living room. A few seconds later, Jack and Rose appeared.

“What do you two think you’re doing driving these roads?” Becca demanded.

“Heat went out at the house. It was brave the roads or freeze to death,” Jack said, helping Rose shrug out of her coat.

“We would’ve been fine,” she grumbled.

“Yes, nothing like letting a pregnant woman hang out in below-freezing temperatures in a house with no insulation.”

Rose rolled her eyes and slid into a seat at the table. “I think he’s being ridiculous, but since it meant I could come help with wedding stuff, I didn’t argue.”

“Do you mind if we stay here until we get the heating fixed?” Jack asked Becca.

“You know you’re always welcome.”

Alex popped in the kitchen doorway, Colin at his heels. “Didn’t expect you today.”

“Heat’s out. We got a helper?” Jack asked, nodding at Colin.

“I don’t know. He said he wants to pet the goat. Not sure I can trust him.”

“You’re marrying the woman in charge of that goat.”

Alex grinned over at Becca. “Oh, right. Well, come on. Best get to it.”

Monica watched the three depart, desperately tried to keep her mouth shut, and inevitably failed. “Bundle up,” she called after Colin. “Be safe.”

“Serious question,” Rose demanded. “Am I going to turn into this worrywart creature once my child is born?”

“I think it depends a little bit on personality, but no matter what, you’re going to worry. To the point where you feel sick half the time. Motherhood is a constant joy.”

“It’s not bad enough I have to push the thing out of me, now I also have to worry about it for eighteen years?”