“Maybe we should,” Christopher said, meeting his eyes. “You volunteer for the high-risk assignments every time. You’ve been doing it for six years, Gabe. Ever since Abby died.”
Gabe’s jaw tightened. He gave a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. The truth in Christopher’s words struck too close to home. He had been trying to save everyone he could, because he hadn’t been there to save Abigail and...
He swallowed hard and shook off the thought before it could fully form. Before he could respond, the girls came running back.
“Can we go play in the snow?” Maddy asked, her eyes bright with excitement.
Christopher raised an eyebrow. “This is Florida.”
Maddy grinned. “Yes, but in this part of Florida, we have fake snow!” She pointed to an area where someone had set up a winter play zone. Families were gathered there, children laughing as they threw fake snowballs that didn’t quite pack right but worked wellenough for fun.
“Let’s do it,” Gabe said, grateful for the distraction from the direction their conversation had been heading.
The fake snow area was exactly what it promised. Some kind of foam material that looked like snow and could be formed into loose balls but disintegrated on impact. Not ideal for building, but perfect for snowball fights.
The girls immediately started making snowballs. Trinity launched one at Gabe, hitting him square in the chest with surprising accuracy.
“Oh, it’s on now,” Gabe warned playfully, already forming his own snowball.
A full fake snowball fight erupted. Christopher and Gabe against the girls. Laughter and shouting filled the air. Pure joy radiated from all of them as they ducked and dodged and threw foam snow at each other.
Gabe couldn’t remember feeling this free in years. The weight that usually pressed on his chest lifted slightly. For these moments, he could just be Dad. Just be Gabe. Not the Marine who’d lost his wife. Not the man carrying secrets that ate at him in the dark hours of the night.
Just a father playing in fake snow with his daughter.
After the snowball fight wound down, they attempted to build a snowman. The fake snow didn’t pack particularly well, but they made it work through sheer determination. The resulting creation was lopsided and somewhat sad-looking, but the girls declared it perfect.
Christopher pulled out his phone and took a photo of the girls with their snowman creation.
“Send that to Mom!” Maddy said immediately.
“Already on it,” Christopher promised, his thumbs moving across the screen.
Finally exhausted, the girls agreed they were ready to head back to the inn. As they walked toward the car, Trinity slipped her small hand into Gabe’s, and his heart squeezed almost painfully.
“Best day ever, Dad,” she said softly, looking up at him with Abigail’s eyes.
His throat tightened. “Yeah, sweetheart. It really was.”
Maddy took Christopher’s hand unselfconsciously on his other side, and Gabe saw the expression that crossed his friend’s face. A mixture of tenderness and something like wonder. Like Christopher was discovering something he hadn’t known he’d been missing.
Christopher drove on the way back, navigating Charlie’s car through the late afternoon traffic. The girls chattered in the back seat about the inn’s old Christmas traditions and all the plans they had to help Jane revive them for next year.
Gabe’s heart squeezed when Maddy asked, “Will you guys be back for Christmas next year?”
Trinity’s eyes found his in the rearview mirror, hopeful and hesitant at the sametime. “Can we, Dad?”
“We’ll see, sweetheart. We’ll see,” Gabe promised, and the words felt heavier than they should.
He glanced at Christopher, who gave him that look. The one that said it was time to put family first. Time to stop running. Time to stop using the Marines as an escape from grief and guilt.
The guilt doubled, pressing down on his chest with familiar weight. He glanced back at Trinity, at his baby girl who’d already lost so much. He knew it was time to leave the Marines. He knew he needed to be there for his daughter instead of halfway around the world taking assignments that got more dangerous every time.
But he was torn between emotions he couldn’t quite explain. Guilt over having lost Abigail. Guilt over not being there for Trinity these past years. But the biggest guilt, the one that drove him to volunteer for the most grueling assignments, was the secret he hadn’t told anyone.
The secret about why Abigail really died. The secret that had eaten away at him for six years like acid dissolving him from the inside out.
As they pulled into the inn’s parking lot, Gabe’s gaze automatically went to the ballroom windows. And there she was. Jane Christmas, standing framed in one of the tall windows, watching them arrive.
