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She went up on her tiptoes and then she jumped, because she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would catch her. And he did.

Then they stood like that, her legs wrapped tight around him with her ankles crossed. His arms around her, holding her up, so she could lace her arms around his neck and get her fingers in his hair.

“My suggestion is that we don’t wake up,” she said, kissing him on his temple. Between his eyes. The tip of his nose. “I think we should dream, just like this, forever. And maybe this time, figure out how to make it last. Figure out how to tell the difference between a healthy relationship and people who don’t spend enough time together to know what they need. Because as we’ve discovered, they’re not the same thing.”

“I don’t want to fight with you,” he said after a moment. “But I think maybe we can’t let sex be the answer to every damn thing.”

But even as he said it, his hand was moving restlessly on her, and they both laughed.

“Maybe not everything,” she said. “But some things.”

“At least a fifty-fifty split,” he said, grinning against her mouth.

And then, because it was a brand-new morning and they were finally them again—high above a pretty little mountain valley that was covered in snow and coming up hard on Christmas—they started working on that split right there.

Epilogue

Jenny couldn’t think of anything more magical than a Christmas wedding.

Unless it was a vow renewal. And especially a renewal of vows she hadn’t gotten to see live the first time around.

Montana had put on a show, snowing heavily over the past few days while a storm worked its way through the Gallatins. Christmas morning had dawned with only the faintest flurries, which meant that it was a spectacular time for the expanded Lisle family to gather, right there in Jenny’s living room and celebrate.

Everyone had enjoyed their Christmas mornings thoroughly and now it was well into the afternoon and already getting gloomy outside, but filled with light and happiness here in this old Victorian house that had stood for some one hundred and fifty years and would likely stand for one hundred and fifty years more. Hopefully with members of this same family right here in this gleaming old room, polished to shine.

When Peyton came and sat beside her as everyone took their seats, Jenny smiled. So brightly that she was surprised anyone could see her gorgeous Christmas tree sparkling beside it.

“What a magical Christmas,” Peyton said happily. “The best I can recall, if I’m honest.”

They grinned at each other, then looked over to where Dallas and Ruthie stood beside the tree, all decorated with ornaments the kids had made in school a thousand years ago. Because Jenny believed in sentimentality at this time of year. Dallas had his arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders and the smile Ruthie wore was almost too sweet to look at directly.

But it was Dallas’s face that Jenny couldn’t seem to stop staring at.

Her wounded, angry, numbed-out son. The child who had kept her up at night, worrying that he would never find any kind of peace. He hadn’t for years—but then, it had taken Jenny a long while to realize that his peace was a person. And from what the two of them had told everyone since they’d figured things out, he was her peace too.

If Jenny had wondered if that was true, well—all she had to do was look at them.

Jenny had always heard the saying that a person could only be as happy as their unhappiest child. Dallas and Ruthie moved directly in front of the Christmas tree, setting the rest of the room to a little hooting and hollering to support them. And she realized that she hadn’t actually known what it was like to not feel the weight of Dallas’s broken heart until now.

Because not only was his heart not broken any longer, he was filled with future plans—and not just restoration projects.

He had driven Ruthie and himself down in the middle of the storm yesterday so he could make sure that Jenny’s power was working and that her generator was in place in case it didn’t. The three of them had sat around in this very same living room while the storm carried on outside and talked about what came next.

In such tones of awe and wonder that Jenny felt inspired to think on her own future a little bit too.

I’ve worked a thousand jobs, Ruthie had told her, as if she was auditioning, which had made Jenny want to hug her. And a lot of them involved being a receptionist. It makes sense for me to help run the inn. I think I can help make it work.

I’m convinced, Jenny had said at once, and gave her that hug. And while she did, she remembered that this woman no longer had her grandmother—the only family who’d cared for her, by all accounts. You’re family, Ruthie. You help just by being here.

And she’d had to pretend that neither she nor Ruthie were looking a little glass-eyed after that.

We have a lot of time to make up for, Dallas had said later. He’d been talking to Jenny, but he couldn’t seem to keep from playing gently with the back of Ruthie’s neck, or looking at her with that soft gleam in his gaze. But we want to make sure we’re building toward something at the same time.

I realize I came here like some kind of refugee, Ruthie had said. So I want to assure you, and she had looked very intently at Jenny then, I remember everything. And Dallas and I are going to do what we can not to make those same mistakes again.

Everyone makes mistakes, Jenny had replied. It’s what you do after that that matters. Especially when it’s family.

And she didn’t know how she’d come to be quite this lucky, she thought now. There were times she’d thought that she was never going to get up from her bed again. When the crushing weight of the bad choices she’d made was so heavy that she thought it would define her forever.