Friends’ kids.
Fans’ children during charity events.
But this feels different. Not performative. Not temporary. Needed.
That realization scares me enough that I almost hand her back immediately.
Then Jillie sighs softly against my chest and settles deeper into my coat. And I can’t do it.
***
Outside, Briar Cove glows silver beneath fresh snow. Sadie walks beside me quietly as we leave the community center together.
Neither of us speaks much. The town feels hushed this late.
Streetlights reflect on snowbanks. The frozen lake glimmers beyond the downtown buildings. The bakery windows glow faintly ahead.
And Jillie sleeps through all of it curled against me, one tiny hand clutching my coat zipper.
“She trusts you,” Sadie says softly after a while.
The words feel less like praise and more like responsibility.
“I’m trying to deserve that.”
She looks at me then. Really looks at me. And whatever she sees there makes her expression soften in a way that completely wrecks my ability to breathe normally.
We reach her front porch. Snow crunches beneath our boots. Warm yellow light spills across the steps from inside the house.
I adjust Jillie slightly in my arms, preparing to hand her over carefully without waking her.
Then her sleepy voice murmurs against my chest.
“So warm,” she whispers. Sadie smiles tiredly. “Bug, we’re home.”
Jillie barely opens her eyes. Then, softly enough to break something clean through the center of me:
“Can you stay tonight?”
Silence. The porch light hums quietly overhead. Snow drifts around us.
And suddenly I understand exactly how dangerous this has become.
Chapter eleven
Sadie
This Feels Dangerous
“Can you stay tonight?”
The words settle softly into the snowy dark between us.
Colby stills completely, and so do I.
Jillie remains curled against his chest half asleep, one mitten dangling from her hand. The porch light spills gold across the snow while cold air swirls around us in soft white clouds.
For one impossible second, the world feels suspended, like everything is waiting on the answer. My pulse stumbles hard. Because this right here? This is exactly what I was afraid of.
