For a brief moment, their eyes met across the distance. Something passed between them. Recognition of shared pain, perhaps. An understanding of loss that went bone-deep and changed everything about how you moved through the world.
Jane’s expression shifted, something vulnerable flickering across her features before she caught herself. Then she turned away, disappearing into the ballroom’s interior.
Gabe sat in the car a moment longer, even as the girls piled out excitedly, their voices carrying in the evening air as they talked about getting ready for the carriage rides.
“You coming?” Christopher’s voice pulled him back.
Gabe looked at his friend and saw the knowing expression there. Christopher had seen the moment between him and Jane. Of course he had. Christopher saw everything.
“Yeah. Coming.”
But as he followed his family into the inn, his leg aching and his heart heavy with secrets and guilt and the ghost of his dead wife, Gabe couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted today.
Not just for Christopher and Isabella.
For him too.
And he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. Wasn’t sure he deserved it. Wasn’t sure he could open that door without everything he’d been holding back for six years comingcrashing out.
But as Trinity grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the ballroom, chattering about what to wear tonight, Gabe realized that maybe, just maybe, it was time to stop running from the pain and start learning to live with it.
Even if that terrified him more than any combat mission ever had.
6
JANE
Jane stood on the small ladder, her back aching slightly, but she ignored the pain, securing another strand of garland across the ballroom’s upper windows, trying to keep her attention focused on the task at hand. The afternoon light slanted through the tall windows, casting warm patterns across the polished floor below. She’d been working steadily since the group had returned from their morning outing in St. Augustine, grateful for the distraction of physical labor.
Except she couldn’t quite manage to stay distracted.
Gabe sat in the corner of the ballroom, his injured foot propped up on a second chair that Holly had insisted he use. A table beside him overflowed with tangled strings of Christmas lights and boxes of replacement bulbs. Holly and Julie had given him the task of unknotting the massive strings and testing each strand for burnt-out bulbs before they could be hung.
Jane kept admonishing herself not to glance in his direction. She failed repeatedly.
Something about him unsettled her. Not in a bad way exactly. Just unsettling in a way that made her chest feel tight and her hands slightly unsteady on the garland she was draping. He made her feel things she’d buried three years ago. Things she’d promised herself she’d never feel again.
It was safer not to look. Safer to focus on the garland, the decorations, and the endless list of tasks that still need completing before Christmas Eve.
“Jane, should these go with the silver ornaments or the gold ones?” Trinity’s voice pulled her attention back to the present.
The two girls sat at one of the round tables they’d pushed against the wall, sorting ornaments by color and size with the kind of earnest concentration that made Jane’s heart squeeze. Their chatter filled the ballroom with warmth, a pleasant background noise that made the space feel less cavernous and more alive.
“The silver ones go on the tree by the entrance,” Jane said, climbing down from the ladder carefully. “The gold ones are for the tree by the stage.”
“Got it!” Maddy made a note on the clipboard they’d been using to track their organizational system.
These girls were remarkably organized for twelve-year-olds. Jane found herself relaxing slightly around their enthusiasm,their genuine excitement about reviving traditions they’d only just learned about. They asked questions constantly. How did the inn use to celebrate? What did the decorations look like? What songs did people sing?
Jane answered as best she could, drawing on memories Gran had shared and old photographs she’d found in the family archives. It felt good to talk about the inn’s history, to honor what had been while working to restore it.
Christopher worked near the stage, hanging lights along the proscenium arch with steady hands. He whistled softly as he worked, some tune Jane didn’t quite recognize. He seemed content, energized even, despite having spent the entire morning out with two excited pre-teens.
Jane noticed how he kept glancing toward the ballroom doors, like he was waiting for someone. Isabella, probably. Everyone could see what was developing between those two except maybe them. The way Christopher’s entire face softened when Isabella entered a room. The way Isabella’s cheeks flushed pink whenever he smiled at her.
It was sweet. Terrifying, but sweet.
The ballroom doors opened, and as if Jane’s thoughts had summoned her, Isabella appeared. She looked harried and apologetic, her hair slightly disheveled and flour still dusting one sleeve of her shirt.
