Epilogue
Grady
Christmas Day
Morning comes slowly. First light slips through the frost on the window, painting the cabin in quiet gold. Angel’s still asleep beside me, tangled in the blankets, her hair a wild halo against my arm. Outside, the snow lies smooth and bright and untouched.
For a long minute, I lie there and listen. The soft tick of the stove. The distant creak of pines. Her steady breathing is soft and sure and feels more like home than anything I ever knew before her.
When she finally stirs, she blinks up at me, a sleepy smile curving her mouth. “Merry Christmas,” she murmurs, her voice scratchy from sleep.
“Merry Christmas, Shortcake.”
We don’t rush. The day stretches ahead like blank parchment—ours to fill however we want. Cocoa on the stove, the promise of snow angels later, maybe sledding later. But right now, it’s just us and a quietness that feels like a gift.
Angel sits up, tugging the blanket around her shoulders as she peers out the window. “It’s beautiful out there.”
“So are you,” I say, because it’s true and because she still blushes every time I do.
I get up before she can protest and stoke the fire, then pour coffee into mismatched mugs we rescued from Mistletoe Mug’s overflow box. She takes hers with too much sugar, makes a face at how hot it is, then curls back against me on the couch, toes tucked under my thigh.
“I’ve got something for you.”
She tilts her head. “A present?”
“Maybe.” I go to the closet and pull out a flat, wrapped bundle I hid last night under an old quilt, because I’m a man who plans.
Her brow furrows, and the corner of her mouth tilts in that curious way I’ve come to love. “What—”
“Open.”
She tears the paper carefully—because of course she does—and finds a brushed metal panel the size of a book cover, etched clean:
MISTLETOE MUG—ANGEL TILSEN, PROPRIETOR
Below it, a smaller line: If lost, return to Silver Bell Hollow.
She gasps like I’ve handed her a piece of her own heart made solid. “Grady.”
“It’s a sign for the shop,” I say—the practical explanation. Then I add the real one. “And a reminder. So nobody ever forgets whose place it is.”
The tears come fast. She bites her lip, but one escapes anyway. I catch it with my thumb before it reaches her mouth and kiss the spot, because I’m weak for her in every way a man can be.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Don’t thank me. You built it. I’m just making sure your name’s on it.”
She sets the sign on the table, then climbs into my lap, looping her arms around my neck. She kisses me long and slow until the world fades out to the sound of the fire crackling and the snow shifting on the roof.
Later, we’ll drive into town and hang the sign where it belongs—above the door of Mistletoe Mug, so it catches the light just right when people walk in. But for now, we stay here.
Her fingers trace lazy circles over my chest. “You really hid it under a quilt?”
“Had to. You strike me as the type who'd unwrap presents and re-tape them just to check.”
She laughs, head against my shoulder. “You may be right.”
Outside, Silver Bell Hollow wakes to Christmas—distant bells, kids shouting, smoke curling up from a hundred chimneys. Inside, the cabin glows warm, and I realize this is the life I never knew I wanted: simple, steady, and ours.
I look down at her, and she smiles up at me like she already knows what I’m thinking.
Home.
Always home.
Thank you for reading!