Page 17 of Daddy's Little Christmas

“Cocoa sounds perfect,” I said, surprised by how easily the words came out.

She nodded and turned to the machine, movements efficient but unhurried. “Rosa,” she added over her shoulder. “And you’re new.”

“Rudy.”

“Well, Rudy,” she said, setting the mug down in front of me a moment later, steam curling up between us, “you found Winterhaven on a good day. Tree lighting tonight. Folks pretend they come for the lights, but really it’s the company.”

I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my palms. “I might check it out.”

“You should,” she said simply. “Town’s at its best when it’s all together.”

I carried the cocoa to a small table by the window and sat, watching the snow drift past the glass. Outside, everythingmoved at its own pace. Inside, the café hummed low and steady, voices blending with the soft clink of cups.

And then—uninvited, inconvenient—

Graeme slipped back into my thoughts.

The way he’d looked up from behind the counter. The gravel in his voice. The weight of his presence, like the room had adjusted itself around him. I pictured the silver threaded through his beard, the quiet confidence in his posture.

Heat flickered low in my chest, sharp enough to surprise me.

I frowned into my mug, annoyed with myself—and not.

It had been nine months since Nate. Nine months since anyone had made my attention snap like that. Since my body had reacted before my brain could weigh the risks.

Was he married?

Single?

Too old for me?

Not old enough to care?

The questions came fast, unhelpful, persistent.

I took a sip of cocoa and let the heat spread through my chest, slow and grounding. But it wasn’t the drink that steadied me.

It was Graeme.

His size, for one—the solidness of him, broad shoulders filling the space behind the counter without ever feeling imposing. The kind of man whose arms looked like they knew how to hold someone and keep holding on. My mind, unhelpful and traitorous, supplied the image of being tucked against that chest, of feeling protected in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Then there was his voice.

Low, warm, with a steadiness to it that hadn’t asked me anything but somehow got me to do what he suggested anyway—to sit by the window, to take the mug, to stay. It had slipped past my defenses before I realized I’d lowered them.

I wondered what his hair would feel like under my fingers—dark and thick, threaded with gray at the temples. Silky, probably. The thought sent a small, unmistakable pull through my gut.

And beneath all of that—the physical, the voice, the quiet competence—was something harder to name.

Openness. Warmth. The unsettling sense that with him, I might be safe.

I didn’t know why that thought landed so deep. I only knew it startled me—how easily my attention kept circling back to him, how my body seemed to recognize something my head hadn’t caught up to yet.

Graeme was attractive. That part was undeniable.

But it was the way he made space for me—without questions, without pressure—that stayed with me.

That was new.