CALDER
The cabin is louder than it’s been in years, and somehow that feels exactly right.
It’s Christmas Eve again—snow drifting steady outside, the tree glowing warm in the corner, dinner dishes soaking in the sink—and every inch of the place is filled with people I’ve known forever and people I didn’t know I needed until they showed up in my life.
Rhodes sits on the rug with Jovie leaning against his side. Their little girl toddles between them, clutching a wooden reindeer she refuses to let go of. Rhodes, who once claimed he wasn’t good with kids, is now letting his daughter smear cookie frosting across his flannel like it’s an honor.
Near the stove, Brenton is swinging his son gently back and forth, humming something off-key while Greer sits beside him on the hearth, rubbing her belly. Their daughter—their second child—will be here by spring, and Brenton looks equal parts overwhelmed and ready.
And Natalie is right beside me.
Our daughter—a tiny, dark-haired menace who learned to walk far too early—is currently determined to climb my leg likeit’s a mountain training exercise. I hook an arm under her and lift her easily, her giggles bursting warm against my ear.
She has Natalie’s smile. My eyes. And a streak of stubbornness that she no doubt gets from both of us.
Natalie leans into my side, looking around the room with an expression that makes something in my chest loosen every time I see it.
“This is chaos,” she murmurs.
I kiss her temple. “Good chaos.”
“It is,” she agrees softly. “The best kind.”
And it is.
Everyone settles into their own version of comfort—Greer convincing Rhodes’s kid to try a new ornament on the bottom branch, Brenton and Troy comparing hot cocoa recipes, Mia reading a picture book with two children climbing her like determined squirrels. Mom is knitting in the rocker, smiling each time she looks at the tree Natalie and I decorated earlier this week.
This isn’t the first Christmas the cabin has been full.
And it won’t be the last.
I’ve always loved this mountain, always felt steady here—snow and storms and all. But having Natalie here, having our daughter toddle between the rooms, having these people crash through the door with laughter and noise and warm boots—it doesn’t change what Wilder Mountain is.
It just adds to it.
Layers of memories.
Layers of family.
Layers of joy that fit right into the life I already loved.
Natalie turns to me then, her smile small and private, her hand brushing my arm in a way that still turns my pulse warm.
“You’re quiet,” she says.
“I’m thinking.”
“Big thoughts?”
“Good ones,” I answer.
She rests her head against my shoulder. Our daughter leans forward, patting Natalie’s cheek before settling herself between us, tiny hands curled in our shirts like we're the only two anchors she needs.
Natalie looks up at me with eyes that still undo me, no matter how many mornings I wake up beside her.
“Merry Christmas, Calder.”
My throat tightens—not with sadness, but with a kind of fullness I don’t have words for.
