Page 24 of Daddy's Little Christmas

I folded my arms. “Good morning to you too.”

They finally noticed me.

“Graeme,” Earl said, smiling like he hadn’t just been accused of wreath crimes. “We need your help.”

“I can tell,” I said. “Your sister again?”

Ed groaned. “She said last year’s wreath was ‘aggressively cheerful.’”

Earl lifted his hands. “In my defense, I didn’t know a wreath could be aggressive.”

“She’s got opinions,” I said, steering them toward the wreath wall. “What’s the goal this year?”

“Something she can’t insult,” Ed said.

“That’s impossible,” Earl added, and Ed elbowed him.

I walked them through options—fresh pine, mixed cedar, one with dried oranges that smelled like winter itself, another with berries tucked in like little sparks. They argued in low voices, then in louder ones, then in that overlapping way brothers do when they care more than they want to admit.

When they finally agreed on a simple cedar wreath with small white lights, Ed pointed at me like I’d performed a miracle.

“You,” he said, “are the most patient man in Vermont.”

“I’ve had practice,” I replied, and Earl laughed.

They paid, left still bickering, and I watched them go with a quiet kind of affection. Winterhaven was full of people like that—loud in harmless ways, earnest under the noise.

The bell chimed again and a young woman stepped in, a toddler bundled against her hip with a mitten string dangling like a loose tail. The child’s eyes went wide at the garlands and lights, wonder on her face so pure it made my chest ache.

“She’s been asking about the ‘Christmas store’ since October,” the mother said, a little breathless. “I promised I’d bring her when it snowed.”

“It snowed,” I said solemnly. “A promise is a promise.”

The toddler stared at the glitter-dusted pinecones in the front basket. I crouched, picked one up, and offered it to her.

“Would you like to hold a piece of Winterhaven?”

Her small hand reached out carefully, then closed around it as if it might disappear.

“She’s going to sleep with that,” her mother said, smiling, and I could hear the tenderness in her voice.

“Good,” I said. “It’s good company.”

They wandered for a while, the mother choosing small gifts, the child clutching her pinecone like a treasure. When they left, the bell chimed again, and then the shop finally slowed.

Quiet arrived the way it always did—gradually, with the hum of the heater and the faint tick of the wall clock, with pine and wax and the ghost of cold air slipping in whenever the door moved.

I went back to restocking, hands moving from habit more than thought. And still, under it all, my mind kept drifting.

To last night.

Not the tree lighting itself—the speeches, the countdown, the cheer that rolled through the square when the lights snapped on.That part would fade into the general December blur the way it always did.

What didn’t fade was the moment the crowd surged and Rudy’s whole body changed.

I’d noticed him earlier—almost as soon as I arrived. He stood near the edge of the square, alone, shoulders slightly hunched in that oversized sweater, hands tucked deep into the sleeves like he was bracing against more than the cold. There was something familiar in the way he held himself, a careful stillness that made him stand out in a crowd full of easy movement.

I’d meant to go over. I really had.