“I can want two things,” Frank said with the unshakeable confidence of a five year old.
Alexandra laughed, the sound surprising herself. It loosened something tight inside her chest, like a knot coming undone.
For the first time in weeks—months, maybe—she felt a spark of something that wasn’t duty or exhaustion. Here, in the swirl of snow and shrieking children and Vic’s ridiculous hat and Erin’s steady presence at her side, it was easier to imagine that the rest of the world might fade to a manageable distance for a while.
That they might really get the chance to breathe.
Vic led the way toward the great front doors, still talking at speed about Christmas timetables and emergency contingency plans and a minor crisis involving a shipment of organic cranberries.
Erin fell into step beside Alexandra, close enough that their shoulders brushed. Alex let their arms touch, casual and unremarked, feeling that point of contact all the way down to her toes.
She looked sideways at her wife.
There was tiredness there, yes. Tension in the set of her mouth. She was already scanning the entrance hall ahead, noting exits and shadows and potential hazards. But when she met Alexandra’s gaze, something softened. For a heartbeat, it was just them again, two women walking into yet another situation together, braced for whatever came next but together.
Snow clung to Erin’s lashes. Alexandra reached out and brushed it away with a gloved fingertip.
“Welcome to Balmoral, Sergeant Kennedy,” she murmured.
Erin’s mouth quirked. “Glad to be here, Mrs. Kennedy.”
Alexandra smiled, letting the old familiar address settle between them, an echo of the past carrying them into this new, chaotic, beloved present.
As they stepped over the threshold, into the warmth and light and inevitable pandemonium of Christmas at Balmoral, Alexandra made herself a promise.
Somehow, between the snow and the spreadsheets and the children and whatever madness Vic had concocted, they would find time.
Time to talk. Time to touch. Time to remember who they were to each other beneath the titles and the routines and the constant interruptions.
Time to reconnect.
She glanced up at the high, vaulted ceiling, the ancient beams decked with greenery and ribbons, the portraits of stern ancestors peering down from their frames, and almost laughed.
“Well,” she thought, as Frank immediately slipped on a melted patch and Vic dropped her clipboard into a decorative urn. “Let’s see what you’ve got for us this year.”
We’ll find our way, she promised herself again, more fiercely this time.
This Christmas, we get us back.
2
ERIN
Erin had forgotten how quiet snow could be, even with three small children screaming in it.
Or maybe it wasn’t quiet at all. Maybe her brain had just short-circuited somewhere between London and Scotland and was now selectively editing out stimuli in a desperate attempt at survival.
Either way, as soon as they were through the front doors and coats were shrugged off and staff had scattered to take luggage and boxes and an alarming number of stuffed animals upstairs, the triplets broke formation and made a coordinated dash back out into the courtyard.
It was like watching a security exercise go spectacularly wrong in slow motion.
“Matilda—Frank—Florence?—”
The heavy oak door hadn’t even swung shut behind them. One second they were clustered around Vic’s legs, clamouring for biscuits and stories about glitter, the next they were streaks of colour against the white, boots slipping, hats askew.
Erin didn’t think so much as move.
“Doors!” she snapped over her shoulder, the word pure reflex, and then she was after them, boots biting into packed snow, the cold hitting her cheeks like a slap.
