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Dinner is loud and wonderful—stories of old missions, plans for sledding tomorrow, bets on whose cinnamon-cookie stack will topple first. Later, our friends head out to rented cabins down the ridge, promising breakfast at dawn. Dad retreats to his favorite guest room with a book of fly-fishing knots and a slice of pie.
At last, the house is quiet save for the crackle of embers and the steady tick of Ellie’s breathing. I carry her up the stairs, lay her in the cradle Gus built from fallen cedar, and sing a soft refrain of his pine-cone lullaby. She drifts off, lips parted in a sleepy smile.
Downstairs I find Gus on the porch, snow still sifting from a pearl-gray sky. He wraps me in his arms, drawing me against the familiar wall of warmth and strength. For a moment we say nothing, watching moonlight silver the ridge and turn the world pristine again.
“Thank you,” he whispers into my hair.
“For what?” I tilt my face up, letting our noses touch.
“For trusting me when I was more battle plan than boyfriend. For making this cabin a home. Forher.” His voice shakes on the last word—the forever kind of wonder that never quite settles.
I slide my mittened hands over his chest. “You once promised me a honeymoon every day for the rest of our lives. Looks like you’re keeping score.”
He chuckles. “I intend to keep winning.” He dips his head, kisses me—slow, sure, tasting of peppermint and promise. Heat flares even in the crisp air.
Behind us, Ellie sighs in her sleep, and the wind breathes through cathedral pines, their branches bowing like guardians.Tyler Cole is a ghost of a bad chapter; fear is a visitor no longer welcome. This cabin, these mountains, this family—they are the beginning and the ending, the whole wild journey etched in cedar and snowfall.
Gus breaks the kiss but keeps me close, his forehead resting against mine. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Monroe.”
“Merry Christmas, hero.”
The words float up with our breath, crystallizing in the cold before drifting away—joining the hush of Saddleback and the bright, unbreakable future waiting just beyond the tree line.