“Do you always get up at dawn to shovel snow?”
A small smile crossed his face. “Only when it snows.”
“Which seems to be every day in December.”
His smile widened slightly. “Welcome back to Sweet River Falls, where winter is a commitment, not a season.”
The familiar local saying surprised a laugh out of her. “I’d forgotten about that.”
He collected their empty mugs. “Good night, Tessa.”
“Night, Beckett.”
She watched as he carried the mugs to the kitchen, his footsteps quiet and measured. After he disappeared down the hallway to his room, she remained on the couch, staring at the dying fire.
Fifteen years in prison for a mistake made in grief. It seemed an impossibly harsh punishment. Yet Beckett didn’t seem bitter or angry. He just seemed determined to move forward, to rebuild his life one careful step at a time.
Tessa pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders. She’d come back to Sweet River Falls expecting to find her father unchanged and the town frozen in time like her memories. Instead, she’d found everything altered. Her father was softer, more connected to the community. The town was thriving and welcoming. And now there was Beckett, with his quiet strength and unexpected honesty.
She thought about what he’d said about grief, about pushing away the people you need most. Had she done that? Had her father? They’d both been so wounded by her mother’s death that they’d retreated into themselves.
Maybe they’d been more alike than different all along.
Outside, the snow continued to fall, covering Sweet River Falls in a blanket of white that muffled sound and transformed the familiar into something new and beautiful. She watched it through the window, feeling something shift inside her. Not forgiveness, not yet. But perhaps the beginning of understanding.
Chapter 10
Tessa woke to the soft sound of voices drifting down the hallway. She blinked at the ceiling, momentarily disoriented by the familiarity of her childhood bedroom. The pale winter sunlight filtered through the curtains. She sat up and stretched.
Fourteen days. She’d been back in Sweet River Falls for two whole weeks now. The realization startled her. Somehow, the time had slipped by in a rhythm that felt both foreign and strangely comfortable. Each morning, she checked her father’s vitals and medications. Each afternoon, she found herself either helping with small tasks around town or reading in the quiet of the living room. And each evening...
Each evening, she and Beckett ended up by the fireplace, talking until the embers died down.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, surprised at how easily she’d fallen into this pattern. In Denver, her life had been a constant rush of emergencies and overtime shifts, collapsing into bed only to wake and do it all again. Here, time moved differently. The pace was slower, but somehow she felt more awake than she had in years.
She found her father and Beckett at the kitchen table, the paper spread between them.
“Morning,” she said, heading for the coffee pot.
Her father looked up, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “There you are. Been wondering when you’d join the land of the living.”
The comment might have stung a week ago, but she’d begun to recognize the gruff affection beneath her father’s words. “It’s barely eight o’clock, Dad.”
“Eight-fifteen,” he corrected, tapping his watch. “Beckett’s already fixed the loose step on the back porch and cleared the walkway.”
“Sorry, I missed all the excitement,” she said, but without the edge that would have colored her words when she first arrived.
Beckett glanced up from the paper, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Don’t worry. I saved some excitement for you. The kitchen sink is still dripping. And we need a five-letter word for happy.” He motioned to the crossword puzzle in the paper.
“Jolly.”
Her father shook his head.
“Merry.”
“That works.” Her father scribbled the answer on the puzzle.
She found herself smiling as she poured her coffee. This too had become part of their routine, the gentle teasing and the way Beckett deflected her father’s occasional sharpness.
