Page 26 of Mountain Daddy
His shoulders sag with relief. He stands, pulls me into his arms, and kisses me — deeply, fully — right there in the middle of the square as cheers rise around us.
Elsie jumps up and down. “I told you! I told you you were in love!”
Her classmates gather around her, joining hands, and begin singing the song they rehearsed at school, voices rising bright and sweet into the snowy air.
Wells cups my face between his hands, foreheads touching, breath warm against my lips.
“Merry Christmas, Celia.”
“Merry Christmas,” I whisper back.
And then he kisses me again, slow and certain and full of promise, as the lights of the town shimmer around us.
Everything finally feels exactly, perfectly right.
EPILOGUE
NEXT CHRISTMAS EVE
WELLS
“Daddy, you’re not hanging them straight,” Elsie announces from the hearth, hands on her hips like a tiny foreman.
I adjust the nail one more time. “I’m hanging them perfectly fine.”
“Mommy?” she calls. “He’s not.”
From the couch, Celia laughs. She’s curled up with a mug of cocoa, hair loose around her shoulders, wearing one of my oldest flannels over soft leggings. She lifts her gaze from the book in her lap and pretends to study my work.
“They’re a little crooked,” she admits, eyes dancing.
I press a hand to my heart. “Traitor.”
She grins, and it hits me the way it always does now. How lucky I am that I get to see that smile every day. That she’s here. That she stayed.
We got married over the summer, up on the ridge where you can see half the valley. It was small—just family and a few close friends. Elsie scattered wildflowers down the path and told everyone she felt like Cupid.
It fits. She kind of is.
“Come on, Daddy,” she says now, tugging the edge of my shirt. “The stockings have to be hung by the chimney with care. They need to be perfect.”
I chuckle. “Yes, ma’am.”
I straighten the last hook, making sure it’s solid in the old wood beam over the mantle. The stockings we picked out this year are lined up in a row—thick, knit pieces Celia found at the craft fair in town a few days ago.
The first one is deep green with my name stitched in white across the cuff.
The second is red, embroidered with Celia’s name. My wife. I still haven’t gotten tired of saying that in my head.
The third is smaller and bright blue, with snowflakes and Elsie’s name in loopy letters. She made sure the snowflakes were “scientifically accurate,” whatever that means for a seven-year-old who’s decided she’s going to be either a teacher, a baker, or a moose doctor.
The fourth stocking is brown with little paw prints—Bear’s stocking. He’s the mutt we adopted in September, currently sprawled under the tree, snoring like he chopped all the wood himself.
The fifth is white with tiny gray paw prints—Gigi’s. She’s the gray tabby cat who showed up at the cabin in June and decided we were hers. She’s now curled in a ball on the back of the couch behind Celia’s shoulder, tail flicking lazily.
I hang the fifth stocking and step back to admire the line.
That’s when I see it.
