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“Speak for yourself. Ours is going great, isn’t it, Caity-cat?” I ask Caitlin as we attach the last chimney panel to our gingerbread house. When she concentrates, she gets the same look as my dad when he does his morning crossword, and it’s adorable. “I guess we can add gingerbread construction to the very short list of things you don’t immediately excel at,” I add.

“Oh là là,” Killian grumbles in what I think is supposed to be a French accent.

Instead of getting one kit for the four of us to work on, he got two—because “How hard could it be?”—and seemingly every kind of candy they had in the store. We couldn’t even fit it all on the table.

I set down my piping bag and push back from the table. “Let me help you.”

He smells like sugar and spice as I lean over him to help him prop the walls of his house up. James has very little interest in the structure of the house, which is understandable, considering he’s four and there’s a table full of candy in front of him.

“Okay, you hold it there and I’ll add the icing.” The angle as I bend over him is reminiscent of a pool scene in a movie, but I’m armed with a bag of royal icing instead of a pool cue. “Almost there,” I say, and Killian shivers as my breath touches his neck. He manages to keep the house still, though. I drop the roof on top and hold it for a second.

“Looks good, love.”

“It’ll take a while to set fully, so be gentle when you’re decorating,” I say.

Killian looks up at me over his shoulder. “I can be gentle.”

His voice coils around me, sweet and smooth as butter, and knocks the breath right out of my lungs. I swallow, losing myself in the depths of his eyes for a moment.

Until Caitlin says, “Are you two gonna kiss?”

We pull away from each other so fast, it’s a wonder the gingerbread house doesn’t come crashing down.

“Why would you ask that?”

Caitlin shrugs, looking down at the pile of candy in front of her that she’s sorting into piles of each color. “That’s what happens in that movie Grandma likes, about the bakers in the mountains. When they’re making the pumpkin pie together.”

“Well, this is a gingerbread house, not a pumpkin pie. And no, we’re not going to kiss,” I reply, wiping my hands on the towel by the sink and taking my seat beside her again.

“Good. Kissing is gross.”

“So gross,” Killian agrees.

“The worst,” I say, meeting his gaze and trying not to laugh.

I help Caitlin stick the candies she’s sorted onto the roof of our house, alternating the colors, as Killian does his best to encourage James to stick some candy on the house instead of in his mouth.

“That would make a really good wreath, Bug. Don’t you think?” he says, nodding at the apple licorice that James is pulling apart.

James frowns at the house. “Are we going to eat it?”

“Later, yeah. When it’s all finished.”

“But I can just eat the licorice now.” He bites off the end and Killian presses his lips together, smiling.

“Can’t argue with that logic.” He grabs a handful of marshmallows, passes a few to James, and lays the rest out around the house, like a fence. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done this before?” he asks me.

“I have. Pretty much every year while I was growing up. I’ve always wanted to do it with the kids. Thank you for thinking of it.”

“How come you’ve never done it before?”

I shrug, passing Caitlin a shaker of edible glitter to sprinkle on the roof. “Too tricky for one set of grown-up hands.” Sure, I could’ve made it a whole-family thing and asked my parents, Landon, and Piper, but when I was younger, I dreamed of doing this with a partner. I wanted to be like my mom and dad, stupid in love, watching our babies get covered in icing but not caring, because that’s just what you do at Christmas.

When Caitlin was two, and I was only just starting to see through Dom’s promises of love and family, he came to Clover Pines for Christmas and I told him about my dream of building a gingerbread house with my kids.

“Maybe when she’s older, sweetheart. It’s awful messy,” he’d said, before rushing outside to take a “work call” that I now know was probably Carrie.

All I’ve ever wanted is for Caitlin and James to experience family like I did growing up. I know it’s never going to be exactly the same, but this feels pretty close. And they seem happy, which is all I really want.