She nods. “You know… like planning ahead? Just in case?”
I shake my head, amused despite myself. Ten years and she’s still Holly. “We’ve got five. I think that’s plenty of?—”
“Ash?” Lucy’s voice cuts through the cold.
Soft. Nervous. Something in it pulls my attention like a hook in my ribs.
She’s standing by the snowman family. Her hands folded together in front of her stomach. Eyes wide, shimmering.
The kids keep bickering. The fire crackles. Snow drifts. But for me, the world narrows to her.
I walk toward her, boots crunching in the snow. “Everything okay?”
She swallows. Looks at the tiny extra snowman. Looks back at me.
“It’s… not a mistake.”
My heart slams into my ribs. Hard. “What do you mean?”
Her breath fogs in the air. Snowflakes cling to her dark lashes as she whispers, “We’re adding to our little brood.”
The river keeps flowing behind us. The fire snaps. The kids yell about who stole whose marshmallow stick. But those words—our brood—echo like a heartbeat in my skull.
I stare at her. “Lucy.”
She nods once. Soft. Wordless. Full of emotion she can’t hide.
“I just found out this morning,” she says, voice trembling with excitement and nerves. “I was waiting for the right moment but… then I saw that little snowman and thought… maybe this was it.”
My breath leaves me in one harsh exhale. Our sixth. Another baby. Another piece of Lucy. Another tiny human who’ll call me Dad.
Emotion hits me like a collapsing roof.
I close the distance between us in three strides, grip her waist, and lift her clean off the ground as she laughs and squeals into the snowy air. I spin her once, burying my face against her neck, breathing her in like oxygen.
“Lucy,” I rasp, voice breaking on her name. “You’ve made me the happiest man alive. Happier than I ever thought I’d be allowed to be.”
She holds my face in her gloved hands, laughing through tears. “I wanted to tell you by the river. Or by the fire. Or maybe after dinner. But Holly’s snowman was too perfect.”
“I don’t care how you told me,” I say into her hair. “I just care that it’s true.”
She sniffles a laugh. “It’s very true.”
I kiss her. Right there in the falling snow. Slow at first, full of awe and disbelief. Then deeper. More urgent. Because even after a decade of marriage and five kids climbing us like jungle gyms… this woman still destroys me.
When we finally pull apart, our foreheads touch. Snow kisses our skin.
She whispers, “Merry Christmas, Ash.”
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” I whisper back. “And thank you.”
She rubs her thumbs over my cheeks. “For what?”
“For giving me a life I never dreamed of. For giving me everything.”
Her smile breaks something open in me. “You gave me everything too.”
Behind us, Pine shouts, “Dad’s kissing Mom again! Ewwww!”
