Page 44 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas

“Okay!” he cried, practically leaping to his chair. There was a chorus of more goodbyes and waves as I wheeled him away. As I unlocked our front door, I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder. Remy was watching us with the happiest expression across his handsome features. I didn’t know what possessed me, but I winked at him before heading in.

I had thought it before, but now I was more sure than ever that someone, somewhere, was handing me my own Christmas miracle.

Chapter 12

Remington

The Devil’s in the Details

I was floating.

That was the only word for it.

Somehow, out of literally nowhere, I’d made a connection in the world that I never could have expected. It was new, it was oh so fragile, but it burned brightly in my mind.

As I turned the music up a little, sure that my girls were going to pass out in the back, I ruminated about how magical the whole night had been.

Except, like many things lately, it turned out that I predicted wrong because both of my girls werewiredat the idea of Max coming to our Christmas jamboree.

“We gotta show him the new playground.”

“We gotta show him the creek.”

“Oh, and the bathrooms in the main cabin with all those bars! For the old people!”

“They’re for people with disabilities,” Addy corrected. “Not just the elderly.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Okay.”

“We can show him that super tall tree too!”

“Yeah! He’d love that! And the book collection there.”

It went on like that all the way home, and not to be cliché, it was like music to my ears. There was something special about knowing my children were genuinely excited about an event that I was so intensely nervous about. A bonus was that we’d be giving Max a special holiday, and he and Jeannie really deserved it.

My heart broke a little when I thought of them sitting by themselves with no Christmas tree and just a few presents Jeannie no doubt had worked very hard to get. Obviously, the holidays weren’t about a giant mountain of gifts, or how much people got, but it was about family and community. So, it seemed wrong to just about every part of me that the two were spending the holidays alone.

It would be different if theywantedit to be that way, but from their reactions, it was clear that it was something they were used to rather than something they craved. So, since I had the means via a massive family and bear clan, why not use it for good? I doubted we’d be putting anybody out. Some of the smallest, two-man cabins were usually open because they were too small for couples even with one child.

It really all felt so meant to be.

No.

Stop that now.

The internal admonishment came fast and hard, reprimanding me for losing the plot. I was a widower who had already lost the love of my life. That was it. People didn’t gettwohappily ever afters—that wasn’t a thing. I needed to stop being greedy and stop disrespecting the memory of my wife.

As cold and harsh as that line of thought was, I couldn’t help but think of the smiles that had graced Max’s and my girls’ faces the entire night and the sheer amount of joy we had all shared. Surely such a lovely, beautiful time couldn’t bebad, right? If Zara had been there, she would have loved everything about the night, perhaps even raced wheelchairs with Max.

So maybe… maybe it was okay for me to float in the happy for a little while.

Yeah, just this once.

Having granted myself that permission, I continued riding the high all the way home, through getting the girls ready for bed, and then tucking them in. Both were too tired for stories tonight. I kissed their foreheads and was all set to text Jeannie the details she needed to know when Addy stopped me right before I left the room. She certainly had a knack for doing that.

“Daddy?”