Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Lucy
The knock comes soft and early, the kind of gentle, deliberate tapping that’s meant to wake someone without startling them.
I’m already half-awake—if you can call it that. I’m warm under my blanket, curled against the mountain of pillows I always swear I’ll scale back, blinking up at the ceiling while my heart decides it’s morning enough to beat again.
It’s my first Christmas on Devil’s Peak.
My first one in this tiny cabin with its crooked beams and mismatched charm. My first one with Ash just a few steps away. The knock comes again, quiet but unmistakable.
My pulse jumps.
I toss aside the blanket and hop into my fuzzy socks, pushing the hair out of my face as I pad across the wooden floor. The cold air seeps under the door, brushing my ankles with a shiver. I tug my robe tighter and crack the door open.
And there he is. Ash Calder.
Big, broad, impossibly attractive at six in the morning, standing on my snowy porch like he belongs there. Snow dusts his hair and shoulders. His breath clouds the air. His cheeks are pink from the cold. He holds two steaming cups of coffee in one large hand.
But it’s the smile that hits me. Not his smirk. Not his teasing half-grin. Not the rare, reluctant curve of amusement. This one is shy. And on him? God help me—it’s lethal.
“Merry Christmas, Sparky,” he says, voice warm enough to melt the icicles hanging off the roof.
My whole chest glows. “Merry Christmas, Ash.”
He holds up a cup. “Peace offering.”
“For what?” I ask, stepping onto the porch with him. The snow crunches under my socks and I immediately regret all my life choices. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He raises a brow. “You say that now. You haven’t tasted my coffee yet.”
I laugh, taking the cup. My fingers brush his, and the contact is a spark—immediate, visceral, impossible to ignore.
He notices. He always notices.
“Join us?” he asks, low and almost rough. “Me and Holly, I mean. She’s already up. She made ornaments out of the leftover ribbons from your float, and she’s insisting she saved the prettiest one for you.”
My chest tightens, warm and full.
“Always,” I say.
His eyes soften but he doesn’t move.
He just stands there, looking at me, snow falling around us, lights from my tree glowing through the frosted window behind me. Something shifts in the air—subtle, dangerous, beautiful. I sip the coffee to hide how intensely he’s staring. The heat pools in my stomach, slow and spreading.
“You okay?” I ask.
He steps closer. “Yeah. Just… didn’t think you could look more beautiful than you did last night.”
My breath catches. The robe suddenly feels too thin. The snow suddenly feels irrelevant.
I whisper, “Ash…”
He lifts a hand slowly, like he’s giving me time to stop him.
His fingers graze my jaw—barely—and I melt.
Actually melt. My knees soften, my breath hitches, my heart free-falls into something deep and terrifying and completely right.
The porch is silent except for the soft hiss of falling snow. His thumb traces the line of my cheek.
“Been waiting to do this,” he murmurs.
I rise onto my toes without thinking, chasing his warmth.
“Ash,” I breathe.
That’s all it takes. He leans in and kisses me.
Slow at first. Mindful. Testing. His lips press to mine with a kind of reverence that steals the breath from my lungs. He cups my jaw with one hand, the other sliding to my waist, pulling me closer, holding me steady as the world tilts under us.
I exhale into him, fingers curling into the front of his jacket. The kiss deepens as if something he’s been holding back for weeks finally snaps free.
His mouth moves against mine with a hunger that’s controlled only by the thin edge of restraint he’s clinging to. He tastes like coffee and heat and a man who’s finally letting himself want something. Want me.
My hands slide up his chest, over his shoulders.
I press closer, feel him inhale sharply against my lips.
He groans softly—low, rough, devastating—and the sound runs straight through me.
Snowflakes melt in my hair. Lights glow behind us.
Ash kisses me like he’s waited for this moment every day since the first one he saw me.
And then he breaks the kiss for half a second, forehead resting against mine, breathing hard.
“Lucy,” he whispers, his voice wrecked, “you have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“I think I do,” I whisper back. “Because you’re doing the same to me.”
His lips curve—just slightly—before he kisses me again, deeper this time, like he’s claiming the morning, the snow, the entire damn mountain.
I kiss him back with all the heat and longing and fear and hope tangled inside me. We lose track of time. All I know is his hands on my waist, his mouth on mine, the warmth of his body crowding out the winter cold, the sound he makes when I tug him closer.
We only break apart when–“FINALLY!”
We jump apart like guilty teenagers.
Holly stands at the bottom of the porch steps, decked out in Christmas pajamas and holding a stuffed reindeer like she’s been waiting all year to catch us.
Her grin is blinding. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU’D KISS!”
Ash scrubs a hand over his face, groaning. “Holly—”
“You’re welcome!” she announces, hands on hips. “I made this happen.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper into my hands, trying not to die from embarrassment.
Holly bounces up the steps and grabs my hand. “Did he kiss good? I think he kisses good.”
Ash chokes. “Holly!”
“What?” she shrugs. “Aunt Maggie says Uncle Ash looks like he kisses good. And now I KNOW.”
I look at Ash. He’s red. Flustered. Completely undone. I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s… adorable.
Holly squeezes my hand. “Miss Lucy?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you gonna be my—” She pauses, thinking hard. “—my Christmas? Uncle Ash says people can be Christmas.”
Ash and I stare at each other. The world goes quiet. The snow falls softly around us. Warm lights glow from inside both cabins.
I crouch to Holly’s height and brush her hair back. “Sweetheart, I’m… really happy to be your Christmas.”
She beams and throws her arms around me. I hug her back, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. Ash watches us, expression soft, full, almost reverent.
“This is the best Christmas ever,” Holly declares, stepping back and putting her hands on her hips confidently. “Now come on! We have presents!”
She grabs my hand and tugs. Ash steps closer and murmurs quietly, only for me to hear, “She may think she orchestrated this…”
His fingers slide gently along my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek again.
“…but I’ve been falling for you on my own.”
My breath catches. He leans in and kisses my forehead—soft, gentle, devastating in a totally different way. Then Holly yanks him toward the house, scolding him for “walking too slow.”
He shoots me a look over his shoulder as he goes—dark, hungry, full of promise. Christmas lights flicker behind him. Snow falls in glittering sheets. My lips still tingle. And for the first time in years…I don’t feel like I’m celebrating alone. I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
With him. With them. With this new beginning bursting open under a snowy Devil’s Peak sky.