Page 6 of Decked By The Grumpy Golem
"Are we there yet?" Arwen asks for the fifteenth time in ten minutes, her breath fogging the window.
"Almost, sweetheart," Dad says, his voice warm with the kind of patience born of decades of parenting.
Isla bounces in her car seat. "Aunt Lucia, did you know horses can sleep standing up?"
"I did not know that," I say, turning to smile at her. "That's pretty cool."
"And they can run really, really fast," Arwen adds, not to be outdone. "Faster than cars sometimes."
"Faster than Aunt Lucia's little red car?" Isla asks.
"Everything's faster than Aunt Lucia's carin the snow," Dad mutters, which earns him a swat on the arm from Mom.
The parking lot at Hallowell Farm is packed with families, their voices carrying across the crisp air as kids dart between cars with sleds and parents juggle thermoses and camera bags. The whole place looks like a Christmas card come to life, complete with rolling fields of evergreens dusted with snow, a red barn strung with lights, and a hand-painted sign that reads North Pole Village in cheerful script.
The car crunches to a stop, and everyone climbs out in a heap of girl giggles and Mom’s fussing. I tug my scarf tighter as the cold bitesinstantly at my cheeks. The air smells like pine and chocolate and woodsmoke, and despite myself, something in my chest loosens.
Maybe this won't be so bad.
"Oh, this is perfect," Mom breathes, already pulling out her phone to take pictures. "Girls, stand by the sign so Grandma can get a photo."
Isla and Arwen dart toward the North Pole Village setup like heat-seeking missiles, stop halfway there, then come back and grab each of my hands and tug me along before I can protest. They're surprisingly strong for six-year-olds, and I find myself half jogging to keep up with their enthusiasm.
"Look, Aunt Lucia!" Isla points to a collection of painted elf cutouts arranged around a candy-striped sleigh. "We can take pictures with Santa's helpers!"
"They're not real elves," Arwen says with a world-weary air of sophistication. "But they're still pretty."
"Can we take silly-face selfies?" Isla asks, looking at me with a smile that shoots directly at my heart. "Mommy lets us make funny faces in pictures sometimes."
The request catches me off guard, and I burst out laughing. It feels surprisingly good to let myself go with the flow. I've taken exactly zero silly-face selfies in months. The prospect makes me happy.
"Absolutely," I hear myself saying, pulling out my phone. "But I want to see your silliest faces. We're talking full commitment here."
I kneel down between them, and they immediately press against my sides like little warm furnaces. For the first shot, I cross my eyes and puff out my cheeks while Isla sticks out her tongue and Arwen scrunches her nose. The camera captures us mid-laugh, and something in my chest does this unfamiliar flutter thing.
I really need to spend more time with them. Those girls are amazing.
"Another one!" Arwen demands. "This time, let's all be monsters!"
We take half a dozen more photos, each one sillier than the last. The girls dissolve into giggles every time they see themselves on my phone screen, and I find myself laughing with them. Really laughing, not the polite chuckle I usually deploy around people at social gatherings.
For a moment, it feels good. Like maybe I can do this. Like maybe I can belong here again, be the aunt these amazing little girls deserve instead of the distant stranger who's too wrapped up in her own problems to show up.
I'm still smiling when I glance up from my phone screen to show Mom the pictures.
That's when I see him.
Gideon.
He stands across the parking lot by the barn, but even from this distance, he's unmistakable. Tall and broad-shouldered, his head gleaming in the winter sun, wearing work clothes that emphasize the solid bulk of his frame. He’s even larger than I remembered, his arms and legs bigger and his neck thicker. His face is shadowed with the same brooding intensity I remember, all sharp angles and that permanently furrowed brow that used to make me want to smooth it with my fingers.
He looks like he's carved from granite. Literally, he is.
Our eyes lock across the lot, and the world narrows to just this moment, this connection that feels like touching a live wire. My heart does this stupid, traitorous thing where it forgets to beat for a second before hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
He's staring at me with an expression I can't read, his gray eyes dark and unblinking. For a heartbeat I think I see something flicker across his face. It could be surprise or something that might have been longing if I were the type to indulge in wishful thinking.
Which I’m not.
