Page 37 of Befriending the Bear (Forestville Silver Foxes #6)

My father cleared his throat. “You’ve got a good kind of stillness about you, son. Don’t see that much anymore.”

“Thank you, sir,” Fraser said. “You raised a good man.”

And that was it. Something shifted. It wasn’t a blessing. Not yet. But it wasn’t a wall either. More like a door opening wide.

“Will you send a picture from Montana?” my mother asked. “With the snow?”

I blinked. “Sure. W-we can do that.”

“And maybe,” she added hesitantly, “a few pictures of the food too. I hear Montana’s big on stews.”

Fraser nodded beside me. “Oh, the best. Elk stew, if you’re lucky. And the Wild Creek Diner makes a mean bison chili.”

Her eyes brightened. “Really? I didn’t even know that was safe to eat.”

Fraser grinned. “I’ll bring you a recipe.”

Another pause. And then, “Thank you,” my mother said. Not just to him. To me too. “Both of you.”

When the call ended, the silence in the room was full, like a chord held too long, not quite resolved.

I set my phone down. My hands were shaking.

Fraser’s arms wrapped around me from behind, his beard brushing my temple as he pressed a kiss there.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “I th-think so.”

“They’re trying. That’s something.”

“M-more than I thought I’d get.”

We stood like that for a long moment, soaking in the quiet. And then, because it was Christmas, and because I wanted to believe in softness and healing and second chances, I turned in his arms and kissed him again.

Slow. Deep. Meaningful.

The rest of the day passed in slow-motion comfort.

We stayed in pajamas, played Scrabble. I racked up triple-word scores like it was nothing, and he accused me of memorizing the dictionary because no one knew a word like aphelion.

I retaliated by adding xeno to phobia on a triple-word score, and he kissed me so thoroughly I couldn’t remember my own name.

We napped through part of a nature special, tangled on the couch with his feet tucked under my thigh, his arm slung around my waist. The wind kicked against the windowpanes, and inside the house, something felt permanent.

After dinner—no formal Christmas dinner for us, but turkey sandwiches with sharp mustard and cranberry—I brought up one of the boxes from the storage closet. The one I hadn’t opened since moving back to Forestville.

Fraser watched me from the armchair, setting aside his Kindle as I lowered the cardboard onto the living room floor. “You sure?”

I nodded. My hands shook a little as I peeled open the flaps. Inside the box, scattered among tissue paper yellowed with time, lay small memories frozen under a thin layer of dust.

I reached in, fingers trembling slightly, and picked up the tiny glass piano first. It fit in the palm of my hand, delicate and cold.

Marcus had found it at a flea market in Brooklyn, his eyes lighting up like a kid when he saw it, saying it looked just like the one his grandmother used to keep on her vanity.

I remembered how he’d cradled it all the way home like it was spun sugar instead of fragile crystal.

Behind me, Fraser shifted in his seat, the couch creaking softly under his familiar weight. He didn’t speak, didn’t ask questions or fill the silence with reassurances, and I loved that about him.

“I haven’t opened this since N-New York,” I said. “I p-packed it up after the f-funeral. Thought maybe one day I’d use them again. Or maybe I just c-couldn’t let them go.”

Fraser moved to sit beside me on the rug, his knee bumping gently against mine. “You don’t have to do anything with them. We can put them back. Or just…look.”

I nodded, but my fingers had already found the ceramic snowflake ornament. Our initials were hand-painted in shimmering gold: C + M , crooked and a little smudged because we’d been kissing between decorating.

“I want to k-keep some,” I said softly.

Fraser nodded, warm approval in his eyes. “You should.”

I set the snowflake aside and kept digging. A metal reindeer missing one antler. A velvet ribbon that once wrapped a gift I couldn’t remember anymore. Nostalgia lived in these folds, some of it love, some of it joy, and some of it bittersweet.

Then I found an ornament I hadn’t meant to see: a photo frame.

The kind you see in those kitschy Christmas stores that play Bing Crosby nonstop in July.

Inside was a picture of us— Marcus and me.

I must’ve been thirty-five or so. Marcus had his arm slung around my shoulders, all dimples and sunshine, and I was laughing, head tilted back, eyes soft and unguarded.

Fraser leaned in, his chest brushing my arm. He looked at the photo but said nothing. Just gently slipped his fingers between mine, grounding me.

“He was g-good to me,” I said.

“I can see that.”

“And I l-loved him.”

“You always will,” Fraser replied, his voice quiet and sure. “And you’ll always have him. The people we love live in us. They shape us. They stay with us, even when we’re making room for someone new.”

I turned to look at him, and in his eyes, I didn’t see jealousy. I didn’t see doubt. I saw something deep and unwavering. Recognition. Acceptance.

Words failed me, so I just nodded, my eyes misty.

“We could add some of these to the tree,” he said after a minute. “To remember and honor the good chapters.”

So we stood together and placed a handful of the ornaments Marcus and I had shared between the newer ones Fraser and I had picked up at the Christmas market last week—tiny knit mittens, a wooden bear for Fraser, a delicate little ceramic book that somehow felt like me.

The tree didn’t look curated or elegant. It looked lived in. It looked true.

When we finished, Fraser settled behind me on the couch, arms wrapped around my waist. We sat like that, looking at the lights, sipping mulled wine, and listening to a jazz version of “Silent Night” crackling from the old record player.

“I love our first Christmas together,” Fraser murmured against my ear.

“It’s not the l-last.”

“No, we’ll have many more, sweetheart.”

I turned in his arms and pulled him close, burying my face in the crook of his neck.

Outside, the rain continued its quiet rhythm. Inside, we held each other under the soft glow of a tree that now held pieces of two lives woven into one. A past honored. A future beginning.

And in that in-between space, I found peace.