Page 39 of Daddy's Little Christmas

Rudy

I woke up with his voice in my head.

Sleep hadn’t wiped it clean; if anything, it had pressed it deeper, like a thumbprint in soft clay.

Sleep well, sweetheart.

The words wrapped around that other word—the one that slipped out of me on the inn steps like it had grown legs and escaped.

…’Night… Daddy.

Heat crawled up my neck just thinking about it. I scrubbed both hands over my face, groaning into my palms.

“Smooth, Callahan,” I muttered. “Real smooth.”

The radiator hissed in the corner, filling the small room with its familiar hum. The quilt was heavy and warm across my legs, the kind of weight that made it tempting to stay put forever. Outside, car tires crackled over packed snow, muffled by the old inn windows. Somewhere downstairs, someone laughed. It sounded easy.

My gaze slid to my open duffel at the foot of the bed.

The reindeer’s ear peeked out.

I hesitated, then reached for him, fingers brushing the worn plush of his belly. He was small, solid, nothing fancy. Mrs. Davis had once called things like this “anchors.” “Some things,” she’d said, “you hold onto.”

I’d thrown so many anchors away after she passed.

Except this one.

I pulled the reindeer onto my stomach, tracing the stitched line of his smile with my thumb. Graeme’s face rose unbidden behind my eyes: the way he’d looked at me in Holly & Pine yesterday, all that patient focus and zero judgment.

The way his thumb had caught a tear at the corner of my eye and wiped it away like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The way he made me feel seen.

He hadn’t called them rules.

That mattered.

He’d asked instead. Framed everything like a choice. Like something I could step into or step back from without being punished for it.

But lying there now, with the radiator ticking and the reindeer warm against my stomach, I understood why it had settled so deeply in me anyway.

It had shape.

Two simple things I could hold onto when my head started spinning. Use your words. One moment at a time.

They didn’t fence me in. They didn’t ask me to be smaller or quieter or better behaved.

They just… made things clear.

And clarity, it turned out, was something my body trusted.

A knock sounded on the door, light but clear.

“Rudy” Mae’s voice carried through the wood, warm and efficient at the same time. “You’ve got a visitor, dear. Downstairs when you’re ready.”

My heartbeat stumbled.

A visitor?