They’re coming with baggage. Grief. Tension. Worries he carries alone.
And I’m here to help with the holiday—but I’m not sure I’m ready for the emotional load he’s been shouldering for years.
When the call ends, he sets the phone down and presses both hands to the edge of the counter, head bowed.
I step toward him. Slowly. Softly.
“Calder?”
He lifts his head.
His eyes are shadowed, distant.
“They’re arriving tomorrow,” he says. “Early. Roads are clearing faster than expected.”
“Oh,” I say, heart thudding. “Okay. That’s fine. We’re prepared.”
He shakes his head. “No. We’re close, but—not ready. Not for all of them.”
“We will be,” I promise. “I’ll help you.”
He looks at me then—a long, searching look.
Not grateful.
Not relieved.
Something deeper.
Something that feels dangerously like need.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I know.”
He steps back before the moment can stretch into something neither of us is prepared to manage.
“Let’s finish the tree,” he says roughly. “We don’t have much time.”
But the way he says it feels like he’s talking about more than decorations.
And the way my heart answers terrifies me just a little?—
Because I want more time too.
TWELVE
CALDER
We finish the tree, but not because either of us is focused—more because working keeps our hands busy while our heads do circuits around everything wearen’tsaying out loud.
Natalie loops ribbon around branches with a concentration that looks fierce enough to bend the laws of physics. Every so often she pauses, adjusting a bow or tucking a sprig of faux berries into place, and I swear my chest tightens a little more each time.
She’s making my cabin look like Christmas again.
She’s making it feel like Christmas again.
And that… is something I don’t know how to deal with.
When she steps back to survey the final effect, her hands press together in front of her chest.
