Jack exhaled.

“Yes.”

Sarah stared at the photograph strangely.

“She was beautiful.”

“She was trouble.”

Jack’s mouth almost smiled.

“The worst kind.”

“What kind?”

“The kind who knows you love her.”

Sarah smiled.

Jack looked away before she could see the tears.

Christmas Eve arrived beneath a sky the color of iron.

Snow began before breakfast.

By afternoon the ranch had disappeared inside white.

The four ranch hands Jack had canceled on appeared anyway.

“Mrs. Parker said there was pie,” one explained.

Jack glared.

They removed their hats.

Gracie laughed.

Jack let them stay.

So did Reverend Hale.

Then Mrs. Parker arrived carrying preserves.

By supper there were nine people around Jack Callahan’s table.

Nine.

For six years, Jack had eaten Christmas Eve alone.

Now conversation filled the room.

Forks touched plates.

Someone told a terrible joke.

Gracie dropped potatoes on the floor and blamed the dog, though Jack did not own one.

Reverend Hale offered a prayer.

Jack kept his eyes closed longer than necessary.

For the first time since Mary and Lucy died, gratitude hurt almost as much as grief.

After supper the storm worsened.

The guests left before roads became impassable.

Sarah and Gracie remained.

“There’s no sense risking the road,” Jack said.

Sarah accepted.

Jack gave them the west room.

Hours later, he sat beside the tree staring at the paper stars.

He had been thinking about Mary all evening.

Not the dying Mary.

That was unusual.

For years, sickness had swallowed every earlier memory.

Tonight he remembered her dancing barefoot in the kitchen.

He remembered flour on her nose.

He remembered her stealing blankets.

He remembered the sound of her laugh.

Jack stood.

He entered his bedroom and pulled a cedar chest from beneath the bed.

Inside lay the pieces of his former life.

Mary’s wedding ring.

A lock of Lucy’s baby hair tied with blue ribbon.

Letters.

Photographs.

A tiny wooden whistle.

Jack lifted their family picture.

Mary sat in a chair with Lucy standing beside her while Jack rested a hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

Lucy’s blue eyes seemed alive.

“I miss you,” he whispered.

His voice broke.

“I thought loving anything again meant leaving you behind.”

Snow tapped the window.

Jack closed his eyes.

“I was wrong.”

That was when exhaustion finally took him.

He returned to the sitting room.

Sat in his rocking chair.

And fell asleep.

Then Gracie came.

Then one word changed everything.

Daddy.

And now Sarah stood before him, pale and trembling.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Jack carefully lifted Gracie and placed her on the sofa.

He pulled the blanket around her.

“What is it?”

Sarah looked frightened.

“I didn’t come to Pine Hollow by accident.”

Jack’s expression hardened.

“What does that mean?”

She hurried toward the west room.

When she returned, she carried an old leather satchel.

“I found this after Matthew died.”

She opened it.

Inside were mining documents, a pocket Bible, several folded letters, and a sealed yellow envelope.