“Yeah.” She tilted her head up to kiss my jaw. “Even with the alpaca rescue.”
“Especially with the alpaca rescue.” I pulled her tighter against me, even as both our eyelids were getting heavy. “You’re never going to be alone on a Christmas Eve again.”
“Merry Christmas Eve, Beck.”
“Merry Christmas Eve, my love. Next Christmas you’ll be Mrs. Sinclair.”
We fell asleep tangled together, Jet snoring at our feet, the storm howling its fury at a world that had stopped listening.
I woke to silence.
For a moment, I didn’t move. Just lay there, feeling Audra’s warmth against my side, her breath slow and even against my chest. The wind had stopped. The rattling had stopped. Everything had stopped.
I eased out of bed carefully, trying not to wake her, and crossed to the window.
The world had been transformed.
Brilliant white, crystalline, unmarked. The snow had buried everything—the fence posts, the paths, the lower half of the barn—and now it lay still and perfect, glittering in the first light of dawn. The mountains in the distance were pink and gold, catching the sunrise, standing out sharp against a sky that had gone from gray to blue so pale it was almost white.
Montana at its most beautiful. Christmas morning.
“Beck?” Audra’s voice was sleepy, confused. “What time is it?”
“Early. But come look.”
I heard her push back the covers, pad across the floor to join me. When I wrapped my arms around her from behind, she leaned into me with a soft sigh.
“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. It is.”
Jet appeared at our legs, pressing against both of us, tail wagging. His face said he was ready to go outside and investigate this new white world.
We stood there, the three of us, watching the sun rise on our first Christmas together. No danger waiting in the wings. No fear lurking in the shadows. Just this: warmth, light, love, and a future full of mornings exactly like this one.
“Merry Christmas,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to her hair.
She turned in my arms, that smile—unguarded, real, the one I’d fought so hard to see—spreading across her face.
“Merry Christmas, Beck.”
Outside, the snow sparkled like diamonds. Inside, I was already home.
•••
