She searches my face. Whatever she sees there makes her swallow. “We’ll talk later,” she says softly. “Promise.”
Then she’s gone again, pulled into a whirlwind of sponsors and mayoral announcements and a choir that apparently only knows one key.
The tree lighting is beautiful.
Of course it is.
Kids screaming the countdown. The flip of a switch. The huge evergreen exploding into color. People cheering, cameras held high. Bells ringing in the distance—other horses, other rides.
I watch from the edge of the square with Donner and Comet already hitched for the last official run of the night, streetlights fuzzing in the falling snow. It should feel like a victory.
Instead, all I can think is: This isn’t her world forever.
This isn’t mine, either.
She belongs in boardrooms and client meetings and brainstorms that go until midnight. She’s built for big campaigns and bigger cities, for late flights and early calls. This promotion means longer hours. More travel. More demand. Less time for… mountains.
For cabins.
For men who only look good on paper if you count axes and horses and a degree in making winter roads passable.
I could ask her to make it work.
Ask her to try splitting herself between here and there, between a career she’s bled for and a man who barely knows how to say I need you without choking on the words.
But I won’t.
I know what it’s like to lose yourself in something bigger than you. To give all you have and have it still not be enough. I won’t be the one who asks her to start dividing up pieces of herself just so I can feel less alone at the top of a mountain.
The last sponsor ride goes smoothly. Two reps from the city, cheeks red, clutching their branded travel mugs. They love the bells, the view, the “historic authenticity.” They talk about expansion, about packages, about coming back next year and bringing more people.
“That’s up to the mayor,” I say, because decisions that big don’t belong to me.
But the path I’m about to take?
That does.
I check on the horses, and give them an extra handful of treats. My mind is somewhere else. On the loft. On the couch. On Ivy’s head on my chest and her hand over my heart and the words I’ve started to want that feel too big for a man who still wakes up sometimes to sounds that aren’t there.
At eight on the dot, she comes.
She’s in that red coat again, the one that makes her look like she stepped out of every Christmas movie ever made. Hat pulled down over her ears, curls escaping, cheeks flushed. She’s bouncing on her toes a little, like she’s trying to contain a storm.
“Hey,” she says, breathless. “You ready?”
No.
“Yeah,” I say.
I help her into the sleigh. No sponsors this time. No blankets except the old quilt Mrs. Hadley insisted I take “for when you’re not working.” No noise but the faint echo of music from the square.
I climb up, take the reins, and click my tongue softly. Donner and Comet start forward, bells chiming in a slower, gentler rhythm than the one I’ve been running all day.
We don’t go far. Just the birch lane. The lower meadow. Enough distance that the town sounds fade and it’s just snow and breath and the two of us.
She watches me for a while, letting the silence stretch, trusting me to fill it.
That hurts more than anything.
