Page 20 of Snowed Inn For Christmas

“I need to grab the stuff from the garage, but while I do that, why don’t we put some Christmas music on?”Gage said, setting his coffee down on the island and walking with Daisy into the living room.

I stood there trying to pull myself together as I watched him pull Spotify up on the TV and search for Christmas music.Once it started playing, Daisy grinned as she danced around Duke, who didn’t seem bothered in the least.She picked up the stuffed unicorn and held it with her as she danced in circles, having the time of her life.

Gage walked over, smiling at her over his shoulder as he stepped into the kitchen and pinned me against the fridge.His hand rested on my hip as his other hand gently brushed against my cheek with a tenderness that made my heart ache.

“You’re not a terrible mom,” he said so matter-of-factly that it felt like my heart was going to crack inside of my ribs and shatter with everything else.

“How do you do that?”I asked with a heavy sigh, letting my shoulders fall.

“Do what?”

“Get inside of my head and know exactly what I’m thinking and feeling.”

“I just know you, Julie.I have for a while now.You can’t blame yourself for things that have been out of your control.Keeping you guys safe has been the most important thing, so give yourself some grace that you don’t have stuff ready for Christmas.We will figure it out together.”

“But I don’t even have a single gift,” I said, lowering my face as I tried to hide the tears that threatened to spill over.

“Julie, we will figure it out together,” he repeated more firmly as he gave my side a gentle squeeze and pressed a kiss to my forehead.“There are pastries on the counter.Eat something and have some coffee so we can get started with all of the fun we’re going to have with decorating the house!”

His voice got purposely louder as he grinned at Daisy, who was now holding the unicorn, pointing it at us as she swayed with the music.Her face was so incredibly beautiful, but it was the smile that radiated pure happiness that made my heart swell.Maybe I wasn’t doing everything wrong after all.

Twelve

Gage

Iwas on pins and needleswaiting for the big surprise to happen as we continued decorating the house.The tree that my grandmother loved so much was set up in the entryway of the house, where it always went every year.There was glitter everywhere from all of the ornaments and the strands of ribbon that Daisy insisted on using for the bottom half of the tree, but none of that bothered me when I saw how happy she was.

Julie hadn’t stopped smiling once we got started, and I loved watching her and Daisy as they laughed constantly and worked together to make the tree as beautiful as possible.What they didn’t know was that they could simply stand in front of the tree and it would be the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

We’d worked our way through putting out all of the Christmas knick-knacks, and Daisy squealed when we found the Santa and Mrs.Claus cookie jars.Julie promised that they would make cookies together soon, provided she had all the ingredients.While the roads hadn’t been cleared yet, there wasn’t anything that would stop me from putting my truck in four-wheel drive and making a run to the store to get supplies.

Just as they were finishing hanging the stockings by the fireplace, the doorbell rang.

Julie jumped and whipped around, pure terror on her face as she wrapped her arms around Daisy protectively while Duke barked loudly.

Fuck.I should have thought this through and told her about the surprise before it happened.I hadn’t stopped to think that she would think the worst was happening with an unexpected visitor, especially given that Joel seemed to know so much about where she was staying.