Page 58 of Daddy's Little Christmas

I didn’t know how long we stayed like that. Long enough for the tears to taper into hiccupy breaths. Long enough for my body to finally decide it didn’t have to be rigid to survive.

At some point, Graeme reached over and tugged the blanket down from the back of the loveseat, draping it over my shoulders and his arms in one smooth motion. The softness of it brushed my neck, my cheek. It smelled faintly of clean cotton and the shop.

My head tipped sideways until my ear rested over his heart. The steady thump anchored me to something real.

“You with me, Rudy?” he asked quietly.

I nodded against his chest.

“Yeah,” I whispered, the word slurring a little. “M’here.”

His chest rumbled with a soft, barely-there chuckle.

“Good,” he said. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

My eyelids felt heavy. The fairy lights blurred at the edges of my vision, turning into soft halos. The pacifier was still in my hand, curved against my palm. The reindeer’s knit scarf tickled my chin.

“Graeme?” I mumbled.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

I hesitated, the other word hovering again. It slipped out before I could catch it.

“Daddy?”

His arms tightened, just a little. His breath hitched, then settled.

“I’m right here,” he said, voice roughened at the edges in a way that made my stomach flutter and my heart calm all at once. “You rest, okay? I’ve got you.”

My muscles went lax, one by one, like someone flipping off switches. His hand kept tracing slow, soothing patterns over my back.

“You’re safe here, sweetheart,” he whispered, lips warm against my hair. “All your pieces are safe.”

The words wrapped around me like the blanket.

My last clear thought, before sleep pulled me under, was that this—this quiet little corner in the back of a Christmas shop, in the arms of a man who’d made space for every soft, scared part of me—felt more like home than anywhere had since Mrs. Davis’s home.

Chapter 11

Graeme

Some traditions survive because they’re charming. Others survive because people need them. Letters to Tomorrow was the second kind.

The box sat where it always did, just off the center of the square, low and solid on its table like it had grown there instead of being placed. Oak, darkened with age, the edges worn smooth by decades of hands. My father had built it before I was born, joints fitted tight enough that it had never warped, not even after fifty winters. Someone—probably Rosa—had wrapped garland around the table legs and tucked warm white lights along the lid, the glow catching in the grain of the wood.

A hand-painted sign leaned against the front, dusted lightly with snow but still easy to read.

Letters to Tomorrow

A hope. A dream. A letting go.

I’d brought Rudy here because it mattered to me.

I told myself it was because it was part of Winterhaven. Because it was something you didn’t see everywhere. Because it was good for newcomers to understand the shape of a place.

That wasn’t the whole truth.

The whole truth was that some part of me wanted to see his face when he encountered something this town had held onto for generations. Something quiet and human and unshowy. Something that asked you to name what you wanted and trust it somewhere outside yourself.