Natasha finally opened her presents from Matt on Christmas morning, while he proved he could make a mean cafe au lait and wicked cinnamon French toast.

“I could get used to watching you cook,” she said from her perch at his tiny table. “Although the kitchen space leaves something to be desired. Of course, I’m not one to talk.”

“What do you want to do with your kitchen—eventually?”

“I’d knock out the wall between the kitchen and the living room, and make it one big eat-in space. The long-term plan would be to turn my side of the house into a bed and breakfast, and I’d live somewhere else. I don’t feel comfortable with Emily coming home alone to a house with short-term tenants, honestly. Is that too paranoid?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“So by the time she’s old enough to walk home on her own from school, I’d like to have a different house of my own, and be using the current house as a mini-inn. Practice for a full-fledged inn property in the country.”

“Amazing. So the big eat-in kitchen would be for the two rooms upstairs?”

“And open to the self-contained units, too.”

“Genius.” He pointed to her presents. “If you don’t open them soon, I’m going to think you don’t want to open them at all.”

She picked at the paper. “We just got you a used leather passport wallet.”

“Which I love. And Emily filled it with drawings which will one day be worth millions, so…honestly, my gifts will be dismal disappointments.”

She laughed.

“Open them,” he said warmly. “Or there’s no French toast for you.”

Taking a deep breath, she peeled the paper off the first present, a thin rectangle that weighed more than it looked like it would. Inside she found a plain grey-blue cardboard box. She wiggled the lid off, and inside that found a dark black-brown leather-bound book.

“What is this?” She asked as she picked it up. It was heavy but slim. Quality paper, excellent construction.

She opened the cover and gasped at the embossed inscription on the first page.

“You…”

He grinned. “I took a chance that you’d go with your heart’s true desire over what was practical.”

“I thought you were asleep that night.”

“I was drifting off. But it stuck with me. It’s a good name.”

“Wow.” She ran her fingers over the letters. “Well, I guess I can’t sell the place now.”

“I hope you don’t.”

Oh, Jeez, there was a big lump in her throat now. She swallowed around it and blinked hard. “I love this.” She set it aside and crossed the tiny kitchen to kiss him. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

“Merry Christmas,” he murmured. “One more to go.”

“’Kay.” She topped off her coffee, then reached for the second gift. This one was light as a feather, even though the box was bigger than the first. She ripped the paper away and found a cardboard box, clearly recycled—unless Matt was giving her a box of protein supplements.

And he wasn’t. Inside that, there was a soft bit of fabric.

Two bits.

She burst out laughing as she held them up. Matching underwear, his and hers, pink with avocado dancing across the fabric. “For you and me?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Indeed. You already saw my intended Christmas underpants, so…I ordered these. And they had women’s styles, too. We don’t ever need to tell Emily that the matching apron gift gave me such an inappropriate idea.”

There wasn’t any part of him that was inappropriate. She stood up, peeled off her panties, and pulled on the new pair.

She twirled around for him, and when she stopped, he was right in front of her.

“They’re amazing,” she said softly. “And so are you. Thank you, again, for turning my blue Christmas around.” She laughed as she threw her arms around his neck. “You really are something, you know that?”

He hugged her back. Simple, loving, kind.

“I…” She choked up again, because this wasn’t easy. It was nearly impossible. But he was the best thing to happen to her since Emily, and he needed to know that. “I love you, too, you know,” she whispered against his cheek. “And it’s scary for me, just like it’s scary for you.”

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be scary anymore, if we’re in this together,” he said, his voice warm and sure.

Wouldn’t that be something?

After breakfast, they piled back into Matt’s truck and headed south. Away from Pine Harbour, away from his bachelor pad, and back to real life.

The house was cool but not uncomfortable with the sun streaming in the windows. With steaming take-out coffees in hand, they walked through the rental units as Natasha reviewed her plan and tried to figure out how she could get them up and ready as fast as humanly possible.

“The thought of buying beds right now makes me want to throw up,” she admitted. “I can’t skimp there, but they’re so expensive. All of the furnishing stuff is going to quickly add up.”

“Can’t you go minimalist? Only buy half of it at first and sell the places as Spartan?”

She laughed. As if.

But wait.

Half.

“Oh, Matt, maybe that’s it.” She pressed her lips together, trying to quickly do the math. It was too complicated for her head, so she grabbed her notebook. “If I only finish one of the units…” She scribbled the costs on a new sheet of paper. “Some of the contracting costs will be higher since I’ll have to start the other side as a separate project, but the furnishings are literally half the expenses, so if I can space those out while I get some revenue coming in…”

He leaned on the other side of the kitchen island, looking at her sheet. “I don’t get it.”

“Half. I only need to rent out one of these spaces as soon as possible. The other one can wait a bit. So that’s just one bathroom I need to renovate, not two, and there’s the money for a new furnace.” She wrote a big flourishing line under the numbers. “Right there. It affects my income projections for the next…six months? Maybe even a year, but I can break even on one unit and pick up more hours once Emily starts school. Even do some bartending again. Malcolm would have me back. Yes.”

“This is a good plan?”

She leaned across the island and kissed him. “This is a great plan. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner, but it doesn’t matter.” She clapped her hands on the butcher-block counter. “Amazing. Of course the answer isn’t all or nothing. The answer is to keep moving forward with something.”

He rubbed his knuckle against her chin as he gave her a look that warmed her right to her soul. “Smart.”

“Thank you. I don’t know that I would have figured this out without your support and positivity. I might have collapsed into a weeping, despondent pile.”

“But you’d have been a cute despondent pile,” he murmured. “And then you’d have picked yourself up and found the solution in the end.”

His love was such a gift. She smiled at him. “Okay, now I need to find a contractor who can do a simple, single bathroom as soon as humanly possible.” She took a deep breath. “But that can be tomorrow’s problem. Let’s go build a blanket fort in my room so we’re cozy tonight.”

The day after Christmas, when everyone else was sleeping off turkey or snagging Boxing Day deals, Natasha did the grown-up thing and spent a painful chunk of her savings on a new furnace. It would be installed two days later, and the sun was shining enough to keep the house habitable until then with the occasional anemic push from the failing blower motor.

This was a decision that was immediately tested when David returned with Emily mid-afternoon.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said after she’d hugged Emily and their daughter sprinted upstairs to introduce her new stuffies to the rest of the gang.

Natasha regretted having let him inside, but the last thing she wanted to do was stand around with the door open when her house barely had any heat to hold on to in the first place.

“Not really necessary,” she said. Maybe snarky. Maybe she didn’t care.

“Hear me out.”

She took a deep breath. “What?”

“Emily could come and stay with us for a few months.”

“No.”

“While you fix this place up.”

“No.”

“Because—”

“I said no, and that’s final. This is not a discussion I’m going to have. Not now, not ever.”

“We had a great visit.”

She knew their daughter was upstairs and could hear them, so she grabbed his hand and dragged him—possibly with more strength than she’d ever mustered before in her entire life—into the kitchen.

“There is so much wrong with this idea I don’t even know where to begin,” she whispered in a hiss. “Did you say anything to her? She’s three.”

“No. I thought we should discuss it first.”

“We are not discussing this. You’re suggesting something I am not okay with, on any level. It doesn’t matter that she’s living in a fixer-upper. It doesn’t matter that my furnace blew up. I provide for my daughter, and you never have, in all the ways that count. You had a nice visit. Get it? Visit. That word is key, and you are fucking insane if you think—”

“She’s my daughter, too.” And there it was. The glint of danger she’d feared since he’d popped back into their lives.

The blood in her veins turned icy cold. “What are you suggesting?”

“I could sue for custody.”

Five words, and her entire world spun on its axis. Blood pounded in her ears and she actually saw red.

“Try it.” She’d burn his misguided idea to the ground. “Go ahead and sic your lawyer on me. But by the end of it, the court will make you cover every single last penny of my legal fees, because you have abdicated your responsibility from day one. Day one, David. I wanted you to be her father. I wanted you to be there for all the dirty diapers and middle of the night feedings. I wanted someone—anyone—to hold my hand as I pushed your daughter into this world, but you were nowhere to be found. So fucking try it.”

He blinked at her.

Good. She was fucking done with not being crystal clear on this point. “I’m glad you are learning to love Emily, but we both know that you do not want to be a full-time parent to her. I do. I always have. So back off.”

Another blink.

She kept going. “You will always be her father, regardless of how much time you spend with her. And you have a choice to make about how you want to live that role. Do you want to be fighting her mother? Do you want her to grow up knowing you judge me and my decision-making skills? Or do you want to be grateful for the time you get with the most beautiful little girl in the entire world, who is that way because of how I raise her?” She paced away, then stalked back. “Well?”

He cleared his throat. “You make some valid points.”

Oh for fuck’s sake. “No fucking shit.”

“Stop swearing, Natasha. It’s not necessary.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not fucking sure it’s not. Will you just be straight with me? What’s going on?”

“Sable wants a family.”

That knocked the wind out of her. “What?”

“I mean, she wants a baby. Of her own. Our own.”

“Oh.”

“She doesn’t want to take Emily from you. Neither of us do. But you’ve been right all along. I don’t know how to be a single dad. She’s had to push me to step up, and…”

He trailed off. But she could see it now. If he had a child with Sable, she would do all the parenting.

Good lord, Natasha had dodged a bullet.

She took a deep breath. “Are you sure…It is none of my business what you and Sable decide to do as a couple. But you cannot use Emily as a trial run. You cannot use her to prove to Sable that you’re Dad of the Year when you aren’t.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” But his cheeks darkened.

“Maybe it’s not the whole thing, but it’s part of it.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” His jaw flexed. Great, now he was defensive.

“I like Sable,” Natasha offered more softly. “She is genuinely kind and good with Emily. If you are serious about having a full-time family with her, take some time to think about what that would mean. She deserves a full-time partner who wants the same things she does.”

“I’m doing my best, which you may not think much of, but—” He cut himself off this time, more decisively. “I’m not going to sic my lawyers on you. You’re right.”

She took a long, wary inhale. She knew this stage in a David argument well. He’d try to save face by doing something reasonable, in the hopes of sweeping his offensive behavior under the carpet. “Good.”

“I’m going to offer them up instead. Let’s craft a clear custody agreement about Emily. All in writing, so there’s no doubt about how much Sable and I respect you as a mother.” He stumbled on those words, and she wasn’t sure he meant them. “I’ll foot the bill, of course.”

That wasn’t how good legal representation worked. She shook her head. “I’ll have my own lawyer work on it, too.” Dignity was damn expensive, but she’d make it work.

After David got home he would surely send a silky email, using all the right words, and pretend he hadn’t threatened her with a custody battle.

Pure bullshit.

But she didn’t care, because she’d stuck up for herself and her daughter. She was slaying dragons left and right.

The day after her furnace was installed, Emily went back to daycare and Tasha went to work at the lumber store.

The Patels were happy to hear she’d be open to more hours, and told her to use any of the contractor connections through the store to get a good deal on the bathroom installs she needed. So she told herself she’d ask the next contractor who walked through the door about their availability.

She was not expecting that person to be Jake Foster. Apparently the universe was committed to throwing a third dragon in her path this week to slay.

Everything happens in threes, she thought.

“Hey,” he said, stopping a few feet short of the counter. He looked older than the last time she’d seen him, but happier. The few lines on his face looked good on him.

She smiled, because she could. She’d wondered what this moment would be like, seeing him again, and it turned out it was almost nothing. A whisper of regret from her past, that was all. And now that he was in front of her, the sharp contrast between him and Matt—and the intense connection she’d only ever had with Matt, from day one—was so stark it physically pained her that she’d let Jake ever be an issue. “Hi,” she said softly. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize you were working here.”

“Started earlier this month.”

“I don’t come in that often, I guess. I’m usually further up the peninsula.”

“Makes sense.” She suddenly remembered the Christmas decorations. “Hey, I should say thank you for the Christmas tree. That was a fun surprise. It meant a lot to Matt.”

He shrugged. “It was a fun assignment. Sean took the lead. He even stole my fruitcake.”

“Ah, that was yours?” She grinned. “It was delicious.”

He laughed and rubbed his jaw. “I guess I deserve that.”

She shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“I’m here to pick up an order. I called it in first thing this morning and spoke to Raj.”

She pulled out the stack of contractor orders, and there was Jake’s, third from the bottom. “Got it. Here you go.” He handed over his credit card, and she swiped it, then handed over the invoice and stamped it as paid. “It’s palleted up for you, just pull around to the side and give them this order number.”

“Thanks.” He stopped, then glanced around.

They were alone, but this was her job. Whatever he wanted to say could probably wait. She searched for a non-rude way to push the conversation to a close. “I’ll see you soon, maybe?”

“That would be good. Dani has been bugging Matt for your number.”

Natasha laughed. “He’d said something about that. He gave me cookies she baked, but I didn’t know if she was just being nice.”

His eyes went soft. “Dani doesn’t do anything just to be nice. She, uh, has some thoughts about how I could have been kinder to you. Back when you were pregnant.”

That was not what Natasha had been expecting to hear. “Really?”

“Yeah. I think…” Okay, they were doing this now.

She took a deep breath, bracing herself.

But he shook his head. “No, never mind. Now is not the time or place, but just know, she’s definitely Team Natasha. Womanhood and sticking together, that sort of thing. Which of course, I’m fully supportive of.”

Natasha burst out laughing. “Okay. That’s the weirdest pitch for me to hang out with your wife, but it worked. I’ll get in touch with her. Matt says she likes girls’ nights.”

“Yeah.” He grinned widely. “She does. Even more so since becoming a mom.”

“You have a boy, right?”

“Calvin.” He pulled out his phone. “He just turned one before Christmas.”

“Cute.”

She grabbed her phone. “Here’s Emily. She’ll be four in June.”

“She’s adorable.”

And that was that. He headed back outside to pick up his order. She didn’t realize until after he left that there was zero weirdness for her about him having a child with another woman. He’d never been hers to lose, and she’d known that for ages, but it still felt good to have it confirmed.

Third and final dragon slayed, and it wasn’t even lunch yet.