Page 36 of Befriending the Bear (Forestville Silver Foxes #6)

CALLOWAY

W e woke late on Christmas morning—not late by most people’s standards, but ten past eight was nearly decadent for the two of us.

Morning light pressed softly against the edges of the curtains, pale and diffused, like it had also decided to sleep in.

I lay curled against Fraser, warm under the heavy quilts, feeling the steady rhythm of his breathing against my shoulder.

For a long moment, I simply lay there, soaking it in: the perfect stillness, the way his arm rested across my waist as if it had always belonged there, the low hum of contentment that had become the background music of my mornings.

I used to wake up with a heavy heart and a tight throat, counting the days since I’d last heard Marcus’s voice. Now I woke up happy and eager for another day. Marcus would always be with me, but I knew he’d be okay with me losing count.

“Morning,” Fraser murmured against my skin, his voice low and gravelly with sleep.

“M-morning.”

He shifted, brushing a kiss to the top of my shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”

I smiled, even before I managed to say it back. “Merry C-Christmas.”

Outside, the weather forecast had been dire: a day of endless drizzle with no hope for a white Christmas this year.

But I didn’t mind. We’d already decided to stay in, turn off the world, and let the day stretch in front of us, slow and unstructured.

Just coffee, Scrabble, enough food to feed us for days, and the kind of intimacy that didn’t require bells and whistles.

We’d set up a Christmas tree together the week before. It was a small one that Fraser had picked himself from Macallister’s lands, and we’d kept the decorations simple.

I turned toward him slowly, pressing our foreheads together. “Do you th-think we’re t-t-trapped in a Hallmark movie?”

He blinked groggily and then grinned, wide and warm. “Definitely. And if we aren’t yet, we will be when we start playing Scrabble by the fire while sipping eggnog.”

I let out a small laugh, already warm from the inside. We kissed in the quiet way people do when they’re in no rush—soft and slow, with smiles in the middle. His hand cupped my jaw, his thumb brushing absently over my little stubble.

“Do you want me to make coffee while you shower?” he asked, already pulling back the covers.

“Only if y-you want to earn h-holiday boyfriend points.”

He sat up with a mock-sigh. “Well, now I have no choice.”

We moved around each other easily. He disappeared into the kitchen, and I heard the familiar clatter of the old enamel kettle, the quiet murmur of the NPR host Fraser listened to every morning.

It had taken me some time to get used to the sound of another person in my space, to believe that hearing someone else move in my house didn’t mean I was dreaming. That I was allowed to have this. Him.

I showered slowly, luxuriating in the heat and the pine-scented soap Fraser had insisted on buying because it reminded him of Christmas morning.

By the time I padded barefoot into the kitchen, wrapped in plaid flannel and smelling like sugar and pine, the table had been set: two mugs of coffee and a stack of Fraser’s apple pancakes.

“You cooked,” I said.

He turned from the stove with a proud smile. “Well, I’d make you breakfast every morning if you let me, and you said you loved my apple pancakes when I made them last week.”

I pressed a kiss to his cheek before sitting down. “They’re d-delicious. Th-thank you.”

“For breakfast?”

“For making me believe in mornings again.”

His eyes went soft. He reached across the table, fingers closing over mine.

We ate slowly, punctuated by comfortable silence and little shared glances that said everything.

He told me about Christmases in Montana: how they cut down their own Christmas tree and his mom decorated it, how his mom was the best pie baker in the county, how his dad once built all four boys wooden sleds, and how Doug broke his arm spectacularly trying to ride one standing up.

He missed them, I could tell, and my heart ached for him. “Are you g-going to call them to wish them Merry Ch-christmas?”

He hesitated. “I don’t want a fight on Christmas morning.”

I reached for his hand. “You d-don’t need to tell them about me. You can d-d-do that another time, when you feel the t-time is right.”

“No.” He firmly shook his head. “I’m not going back into the closet. I’m not hiding who I am…and that I’m in love. If they can’t accept that, then I have to draw my conclusions from that.”

We were still at the table, coffee cups warm in our hands, the last pancake sliced neatly in half between us. Outside, rain slicked the windows in slow, steady rivulets, softening the morning into a watercolor.

Fraser had just said he wasn’t going back into the closet, not even for Christmas morning. A deep sense of pride filled me. “You don’t have to do it n-now. Christmas d-doesn’t have to be the day for ultimatums.”

He looked at me and smiled, all tenderness. “I don’t want it to be an ultimatum. I want it to be truth.”

We sat for a while in the comfort of our shared silence. Then, as if the air had shifted around us, he stood. He walked over to the kitchen counter, where he’d left his phone charging, and picked it up. With a last look at me and a deep inhale, he touched the screen.

He stepped into the hallway, and my stomach clenched for him.

Not with fear, but with empathy because I remembered too well what it was like to brace yourself against blood ties that didn’t bend when you needed them to.

I couldn’t hear the words at first—just muffled tones, Fraser’s low rumble of a greeting. I busied myself clearing the table.

I heard the rise and fall of his voice, the careful words he delivered as he spoke measured truths. Then another pause. Another breath. Then the creak of the floorboards beneath him. And then he returned.

His face was hard to read. A little flushed, but not angry. Not sad. There were shadows in his eyes, yes, but no storm, no grief, no bruised silences.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded slowly, then walked over to where I stood by the sink, wiping down the counter.

“They asked if I was seeing anyone. I said yes.”

“And then?”

He looked at me with a smile that was half-worn and half-victory. “And then I told them about you. That you’re kind. Quiet. Brilliant. That you make the best tea this side of the Cascades. And that I love you.”

I blinked.

“And then w-what?” I whispered.

He exhaled. “My father said, ‘Well, all right.’ My mother asked if you bake.”

That drew a laugh out of me, low and surprised.

“I said yes. And that you’re a librarian and a writer and that I’m bringing you to Montana in January.”

“Oh,” I said, biting back the swell of emotion. “Well. Sh-she’s going to expect c-cookies.”

“She said she’s looking forward to meeting you and swapping baking recipes.”

I leaned against the counter, breath leaking out of me all at once. “That’s… That’s g-good.”

“It’s not a parade,” he said, stepping close, “but it’s not rejection either. And right now, I’ll take that.”

He kissed me again, soft and sure, his hand warm against my jaw. I melted into it, closing my eyes. He tasted like coffee and maple and something sweeter underneath.

When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine. “Thank you,” he said.

“F-for what?”

“For giving me something worth telling the truth for.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just kissed him again.

The call with my parents was easier. I’d told my mom I’d FaceTime her, and when I did, she was ready, wearing a red- and-green blouse and her hair all done despite a blistering ninety-degree heat down there. I’d take the rain any day.

“M-Mom and D-Dad, this is F-fraser,” I said.

I heard the waver in my voice, even through the screen. Fraser gave that charmingly awkward wave he reserved for moments of vulnerability, and I felt myself fall a little more in love with him. His fingers brushed along the edge of my knee under the table, grounding me.

My parents, appearing in their Florida living room, blinked in perfect synchronization.

My mother had her holiday earrings on—gold bells that distracted me to no end—and my father sat beside her in his recliner, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his face.

His mouth twitched, somewhere between a polite smile and a grimace.

I watched them both carefully, heart hammering.

“Well,” my mother said after a long beat. “You’re taller than I imagined.”

Fraser blinked. “Uh…thank you?”

Realizing how that might’ve landed, she laughed, a bit breathless. “I only meant… You’re very handsome. A good, sturdy, kind of handsome. The sort of man who knows how to fix things.”

Fraser chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. I do own several toolboxes.”

My father shifted in his seat. “Firefighter, right?”

“Yes, sir. Thirty years of being a hotshot. Smokejumper.”

“Dangerous business,” my dad mumbled. “Takes guts.”

Fraser nodded, his tone easy. “It does. But I was lucky.”

The silence that followed wasn’t tense, but it was weighted. My mother filled it the way she always did, by skimming over the discomfort like it was a puddle. “Calloway tells us you’re going to Montana in January.”

My hand tightened slightly on my mug. Fraser didn’t hesitate. “I am. I’ve been invited to teach new recruits. Four weeks. Fewer if they’re slow learners.”

A smile tugged at my father’s mouth. “That kind of teaching, you don’t want slow learners.”

“No, sir. They’ll be booted out faster than a blowup.”

“And you’re taking Calloway with you?” my mother asked, her tone light, but there was a tightness under it, like she was measuring every word.

“Yes, ma’am. He agreed to come with me, and I’m grateful to have him by my side for this. He makes me happy.”

That seemed to knock the air out of the room for a strange, sweet moment. My mother fidgeted with a corner of her blouse. “Well. That’s good. I wasn’t… That’s good.” She sniffed. “I’m just glad he’s smiling again.”