He sat up gasping, sheets tangled around his legs like they were trying to hold him down. Cold sweat covered his skin despite the December chill in the room. His heart pounded like he was still running across that desert, still trying to get back in time, still failing.
For a moment, he couldn’t orient himself. Didn’t know where he was, when he was.
Then the details filtered in. He was in the Christmas Inn room. Christmas decorations were visible in the dim light from the window. There was a faint scent of pine from the wreath on the door.
Gabe reached for the water bottle on his nightstand, his hands shaking. He drank deeply, trying to slow his racing heart and breathe normally again.
He set the water bottle down and scrubbed his hands over his face. He knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep. Never could after the dreams came. As he settled back against the pillows, his phone screen lit up with a notification. An unread message from earlier that evening.
From his father.
“We need to talk.”
Gabe stared at the message for a long moment, then deleted it without reading any further. His mind went back to the scene in the lobby just hours earlier. The look on Simon’s face when he’d seen Holly. Something possessive in that expression that had made Gabe’s skin crawl.
Gabe and his father hadn’t been close in years. The rift had started when Gabe was a teenager, when he’d told Simon he didn’t want to study law or follow in his father’s footsteps.
Simon had been furious. He’d seen it as a personal rejection rather than a young man trying to find his own path. He’dlectured Gabe about throwing away opportunities, about not living up to his potential, about disappointing the family.
Gabe had wanted to join the military. He wanted to be a Navy SEAL or a Marine. Wanted to serve his country, wanted that sense of purpose and brotherhood. It was his calling, the thing that made sense to him in a way law never had.
Simon had called it a waste. He’d told Gabe he was making a mistake he’d regret for the rest of his life.
But the real rift, the one that had severed whatever fragile connection remained between them, had come six months ago. Gabe had been deployed. The call came through during a rare moment of downtime. His mother’s voice was shaking in a way he’d never heard before. Then she’d told him that she and his father were getting a divorce. His mother hadn’t told him why. It had been his aunt that he’d called after the call from his mother. It was Aunt Charlie who had told him the truth about what had happened. The world had tilted even thousands of miles away. Terry. Terry, who’d been at every birthday party, every family dinner. Terry, who’d helped his mother plan Gabe’s high school graduation, who’d been there when Abi died, who Holly had trusted like a sister.
Terry, who’d apparently been having an affair with his father for years. Gabe had wanted to come home immediately. He wanted to be there for his mother, wanted to confront his father, wanted to do something other than sit helplessly on the other side of the world while his mother’s life fell apart.
But he couldn’t leave his mission. Couldn’t abandon his team. The work was too critical, too time-sensitive. So he’d been forced to stay deployed while his mother dealt with the devastation alone. Well, not entirely alone, she’d had Aunt Charlie and, apparently, an awesome divorce attorney his aunt had found for his mother. They’d rallied around her. But Gabe should have been there. He should have been able to protect her.
Gabe hadn’t spoken to his father in nearly two years. It was always his mother and Trinity who wrote to him or called. Any messages to or from his father were routed through them. But not long after Aunt Charlie’s call, his father had called a few times to talk to him. But Gabe had ignored the calls.
Now Simon was here with Terry, and according to Jane, he’d call Terry his fiancée. Coming after the inn that had given Holly sanctuary, threatening Jack’s family legacy, showing up like some kind of conquering force.
Gabe’s hands clenched into fists where they rested on the blankets.. His father and Terry had put his mother through enough. And now his father was here, ready to tear into the happiness his mother had started to find here and probably to ruin Christmas.Simon and Terry, who ruined Christmas.Gabe should write that book!
He didn’t know what he was going to do about it yet. But he was going to find a way to make his father and his new fiancée back down.
His phone alarm went off. It was 5:30 AM, his usual wake-up time. Gabe reached over to silence it, his hand knocking his wallet off the nightstand in the process. It fell open on the floor, and Gabe’s breath caught. It had fallen open to reveal the photo inside it. The one he kept in the front pocket, protected behind clear plastic.
It was a picture of Abi holding Trinity, both of them smiling at the camera. Trinity was six in the photo, missing her front tooth, her gap-toothed grin making her look even more adorable. Abi was in her uniform, her arm around their daughter, both of them looking so happy.
The photo had been taken the day before Abi’s final deployment.
Emotion crashed over Gabe like a physical wave. He picked up the wallet carefully, as if the photo might shatter if he moved too quickly. Studied it the way he’d studied it a thousand times before.
Abi looked so alive in this picture. So vibrant and strong and beautiful. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, her expression proud in her uniform but soft when she looked at Trinity. She’d been excited about this deployment—a training mission at a secure base, routine work, nothing dangerous.
Trinity looked so small beside her mother. Still a baby in so many ways, even at six years old. She’d been devastated when Abi had to leave for that deployment, had cried and begged her mom not to go.
But Abi had explained, the way she always did, about duty and service and protecting people who couldn’t protect themselves. Trinity had understood, or tried to. She’d been brave when they’d said goodbye at the airport.
Neither of them had known it would be the last goodbye.
Gabe ran his finger over Abi’s face in the photo, his throat tight with grief that never fully faded. It just became familiar, like an old injury that ached when the weather changed.
“I should’ve been there,” he whispered to the image.
His eyes dropped to Trinity in the picture. She looked so innocent, so full of joy. No idea that in just a few days, she’d be answering the door to military officers with devastating news.
