Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Megan woke to the smell of coffee and winter light filtering through her bedroom curtains.
For a moment, she lay still, disoriented. Memory flooded back. Holden appearing in her living room, the card burning, everything he told her about Murray and the sacrifice he made to save Evergreen Springs a second time.
He was here. For real.
Megan stopped at the edge of the kitchen, her robe pulled tight around her.
Holden stood at the stove, turning eggs onto two plates with the kind of focus he brought to everything. Toast waited on the table. Coffee steamed in her favorite mugs. He found the Christmas china as well, the ones her mother saved for holidays.
Christmas morning.
He turned and caught her watching him. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” she said. “You made breakfast.”
“Figured we shouldn’t start the day hungry.”
He pulled out her chair. Waited.
She didn’t step forward. Not yet.
The room felt different.
For a year, she had sat at this table like she was trespassing in her own life. She and Holden had eaten breakfast here, but even so, she kept her shoulders tight, her breath measured, never letting herself peer at the exact spot on the floor where everything ended last Christmas morning.
She used the kitchen, sure.
She functioned in it.
But she never felt present in it. Never breathed all the way to the bottom of her lungs.
Now Holden stood there turning eggs onto plates, warm light catching the steam from the coffee, and suddenly the room felt lived-in instead of haunted. Possible instead of painful.
“Megan? You okay?”
She shook her head. Couldn’t speak past the tightness in her throat.
He didn’t push. Just stood there, spatula still in hand, giving her space to decide.
Her mother’s voice echoed in memory: Be bold, sweetheart. Take up space. Don’t apologize for existing.
Megan glanced at the spot by the sink. The place where her mother died. It was just linoleum her mother picked out fifteen years ago because the pattern hid dirt well.
The ghost was gone.
“My mother died in this room. Last Christmas Day. Right there by the sink.”
Holden’s expression shifted. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“How could you?” She wrapped both hands around herself. “But this morning—”
The kitchen still held the memory; she could feel it hovering at the edges. But the crushing weight lifted. The space felt like a kitchen again instead of a mausoleum.
“I feel like I’m reclaiming it,” she said. “Making new memories in a place that’s only held grief for a year.”
Megan pulled in air and let it out slowly. Then she stepped across the threshold.
One step. Another. Her legs shook but held.
She crossed to the table and sat in her chair facing the window—the one her mother always insisted she take so she could watch the bird feeder.
He brought the food to the table, sat down beside her, found her hand, and held it gently.
She stared down at their joined hands, his calluses rough against her skin.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For making breakfast. For being you.” She squeezed his fingers.
“You’re stronger than you think.”
“Maybe. Or perhaps I figured out what my mother was trying to tell me all along.” She pulled in a breath. “That being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means going forward anyway.”
They sat in the quiet. The kitchen didn’t feel haunted anymore. It felt peaceful, like at last, she let herself grieve properly by learning to live again.
She picked up her fork. The eggs were still warm, soft curds, the way her mother used to make them. That alone made something loosen in her chest.
“These are good,” she said.
“Learned cooking over campfires.” He shrugged. “A stove’s just a fancier fire.”
A laugh slipped out before she could stop it. “I’m glad you’re adaptable.”
“Have to be.” He ate another bite of toast, brows lifting. “This world’s still strange. But I’m getting the hang of it.”
She watched him for a few breaths, the way he sat in her kitchen, in her home—real and solid and somehow belonging. This man who chose her century, chose her, gave up the story she fought for because it was the right thing for everyone.
Gratitude overwhelmed her.
Megan gathered the courage to speak before she lost it. “I have something for you. Come to the living room.”
He followed, quiet as always, watching her like she was the one miracle he couldn’t quite trust yet.
The Stetson box waited under the tree. She picked it up, pulse thudding, and held it out to him.
“It’s just one thing,” she said. “But it’s yours.”
Holden took the box, more carefully than she expected. He lifted the lid.
For a moment, he didn’t breathe.
The hat sat in tissue paper, deep chocolate felt, crown shaped with clean lines, brim curved just right. Inside the band, embossed in silver:
Hometown Hero.
His fingers brushed the brim. Slow. Reverent. He didn’t speak.
Megan’s heart kicked. “If it’s too much or not the right size, or—I know you’re stuck on your hat, so if you don’t like it…”
He touched his hat where it hung on the back of the chair, the battered felt soft and misshapen from years of weather and hand-shaped habit. “That one stays.”
“Of course.” She nodded. “I know. I’m not trying to replace it. I thought if you and I ever went dancing or something…”
His eye met hers. “You wanna go dancing with me?”
“I sure do.”
“You probably think it’s silly I was so attached to a battered hat.”
“Not silly, really. Set in your ways, maybe, but not silly.” She smiled.
He glanced back at the new Stetson. “I wore the old one when I rode out in the blizzard. Had it pulled down hard over my face against two days of ice. Lost nearly everything else by the end of it. My coat ripped. Boots ruined. Fingers damn near frostbit. But that hat stayed on my head.”
Goosebumps fled up her arm. “So it’s not just a hat.”
“No.” He glanced up at her. “It’s the one thing that made it through with me. That and my horse.”
She stepped closer. “I’m not trying to replace it.”
He shook his head once. “I know that. This one—” He touched the new Stetson again, his thumb brushing the felt as if he were learning its texture. “This ain’t a replacement.”
“Really, I can take the other one back.”
He lifted it from the box and turned it in his hands. “This is what a man wears when he starts a new life.”
Her breath caught.
He traced the inside band and stopped on the words.
His throat moved, a rough swallow. “Hometown Hero,” he read, soft, as if he weren’t sure he deserved to say it.
“You are.”
Holden glanced at her, eyes dark and full of something that went straight through her.
“That hat is who I was. This one’s who I am now.” He paused. “Who I get to be because of you.”
She felt the air leave her lungs.
Holden eased the new Stetson onto his head, a slow, deliberate gesture, like accepting something sacred.
“How’s it look?” he asked.
“Like it belongs to you,” she said.
He grinned big. “Feels that way.”
He tipped the brim enough to touch her forehead. “Megan, thank you.”
And for the first time since he appeared in her living room in a blaze of light, she felt the future shift open like a door unlocking.
Then he kissed her for the longest time.
He broke the kiss. “Your turn.”
“Aww, you got me something?” She didn't expect that. He had no money that meant anything in her century, and it wasn’t like he’d had time to make anything between getting yanked across time and saving a town.
Holden reached into his pocket and pulled out a small buckskin pouch. “For you.”
She caught it in both hands and held it to her chest, savoring the weight of it. His first gift. From any century.
“Go on,” he said, a little shy about it. “Have a peek.”
She loosened the drawstrings and peered inside.
An arrowhead. Dark through the center, pale at the chipped edges. Weathered from a lifetime in the earth. A loop of green leather cord threaded through the top, knotted with deliberate care. Old stone, new cord. Their worlds sharing the same small space.
“Holden, where did you get this?”
“Found it right here.” He tapped the floor.
“Here?”
He nodded. “Under your house. In 1878, that is.”
Her fist closed around the arrowhead.
“Last night, after the meeting, I was thinking about you so hard I couldn’t stay still. So I walked. Didn’t notice where I was headed ’til the moon came out and I realized I was standing on this exact patch of ground.”
Had his subconscious mind sent him to the spot? Imagine, while she’d been on the couch in 2025, he’d been standing in the same spot in 1878. Heady stuff, that kind of connection.
“The road cut right through here,” he said. “Snow packed down from wagon wheels. I looked down, and the arrowhead was sittin’ there plain as can be. Like it’d been waiting on me.”
“Fate."
His gaze held hers. “Fate.”
“Oh, Holden…”
“I kept thinking of you,” he said. “How you’re like the point of that thing. Straight toward whatever needs doing. Sure of your aim, even when you don’t think you are. Figured if I didn’t make it back, at least I had a piece of your land in my pocket.”
That undid her. She lifted the cord and slipped it over her head. The stone settled against her skin, cold at first, then warmed by her body heat.
“Last night, after I came back, I got to thinking Christmas ain’t Christmas without giving something. And I ain’t got much. So I searched around that guest room and found that green cord. Matched your eyes. Thought it’d suit you. I’m good at knots, so I turned it into a necklace for you.”
It suited her so well she had to blink to steady herself.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s perfect. A piece of 1878 and a cord from Walmart tied together. That’s us, isn’t it?”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“I’m wearing this when we go dancing.”
His smile pulled slow and warm. “Yessum. We’ll cut a fine sight out there on the dance floor. You in your necklace and me in my hat.”
She touched the arrowhead again, brushing her thumb against the worn stone. “Thank you. This means more than anything you could’ve bought.”
Holden touched the arrowhead where it rested at her collarbone, his fingers gentle. “It kept me pointed your way. Got me back home.”
Her breath caught.
And then she kissed him again, the arrowhead warm between them.
From the coffee table, her phone buzzed.
They both stared toward it.
It buzzed again. Insistent.
Megan straightened. She picked it up to see who it was.
Braxton Buffington
Ugh. Her stomach dropped.
Christmas morning? He was calling on Christmas morning?
She hit “accept.” “What is it, Braxton?”
“We need to talk.” Clipped. Professional. The tone he used when he was about to deliver bad news.
Megan sighed. “What is it this time?”
“Hillary Paige has been calling board members since yesterday. She’s got half the PTA convinced you’ve lost your mind.”
Megan put the phone on speaker so Holden could hear. “What did she say?”
“That you’re romantically involved with a drifter who is scamming you.
That you’ve abandoned your mother’s legacy and disrespected the Murray family.
” He paused. “Dr. Kinsey called me at seven this morning. Max Turner before that. On Christmas morning. I tried to smooth it over, but they want you out, Megan. You’re not your mother after all. ”
She looked at Holden. He’d stood, moved closer.
“When’s the board meeting?” she asked.
“Monday, December twenty-ninth. Nine a.m.” Braxton’s tone softened. “But between us? It won’t go well. Hillary’s organized. She’s got parents lined up to testify. She’s even got the historical society involved. Apparently they’re upset about ‘revisionist history.’”
Megan pulled in a breath. Let it out slow.
A year ago, this news would have destroyed her. Would have sent her into a panic spiral. Would have made her grovel and beg and promise to fix everything.
Now? She felt calm. Clear.
“You don’t have to do this,” Braxton said, his tone carrying something that might have been regret. “You could reverse course. Say you made an error in judgment. Apologize to the board, apologize to Hillary, go back to the original script for next year’s pageant.”
“No.”
Silence on the other end for a beat, then, “Excuse me?”
“I’m not apologizing. I didn’t make an error in judgment. I told the truth, and I’m not attending that board meeting.”
“Megan, if you don’t show up, they’ll vote to terminate you in absentia—“
“No, they won’t because I resign.”
“You what?”
“I resign. Effective immediately.” She looked at Holden. He nodded. “You can tell the board they don’t need to meet on Monday. Tell Hillary she won. Tell them whatever you want. But I’m done.”
“Megan, don’t be rash. You’re upset—“
“I’m not upset.” And she wasn’t. She felt lighter than she had in months. “I’m clear. For the first time since I took this job, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“You’re throwing away your career.”
“No. I’m choosing something else.” She fondled the arrowhead. “I’m choosing to stop performing and start living.”
“This is about him, isn’t it?” Braxton’s voice hardened. “The cowboy. You’re throwing away everything for some guy you barely know.”
“This is about me. About finally figuring out that my worth isn’t tied to a title or a job or living up to my mother’s legacy. But you’re right about one thing: I wouldn’t have figured that out without him.”
Braxton made a frustrated sound. “When you change your mind—and you will—don’t come crawling back.”
“I won’t.” She meant it. “Merry Christmas, Braxton.”
She ended the call, set the phone down, and turned to Holden. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
“You quit your job.”
“I did.”
“On Christmas morning.”
“Seemed like the right time. You sacrificed your name. I sacrificed my title. We’re even.”
“You okay?”
“I’m better than okay.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I’m free.”
He held her close. She breathed him in, the scent of soap and coffee.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She pulled back to look at him. “But we’ll puzzle it out.”
She leaned up and kissed him. Soft. Sure. A promise made without words.
When they pulled apart, Christmas music drifted from a neighbor’s house. Snow fell past the window. The future stretched ahead—uncertain, complicated, full of questions neither of them could answer yet.
But she wasn’t afraid anymore.
And that was the best gift of all.