For the second time in a row, Natasha woke up because Matt had jerked awake beside her. But unlike the last time, when he’d rolled out of bed without saying a word, this time he grabbed his phone and, before answering it, whispered to her that he had to take the call.

“Hello?”

She listened to his side of the conversation, trying to figure out if she should get up and start coffee for him.

“Understood. I’m close by, I can respond. I’ll find someone to meet me there, no need to call the OPP.”

The police? That had her attention. She sat up as he ended the call.

“That was the military police. The vault alarm went off at the armouries. I just need to go over there and check it out.” He grinned. “Convenient that I’m close by. Usually it takes a few calls down the list before they find someone.”

“Where are the military police?”

He named a base a few hours away. “The sensor just pinged. Old building, new technology, it doesn’t always work well together.” He kissed her fast on the mouth. “Go back to sleep, I’ll be back for breakfast.”

A bleary examination of her bedside clock said it was barely three in the morning.

She tried to drift off again, but it was no use.

She grabbed her phone and went downstairs. While her coffee was brewing, she checked social media. Her sister’s profile showed a green dot for chat, so she clicked on that.

She hit voice dial. “Long story,” she said when her sister answered.

“A good one or a bad one? I feel like we haven’t talked all week.” They’d texted the day before about the new job, but Natasha had kept it brief.

She hadn’t felt like talking when she didn’t know what was going on with Matt. Now all these thoughts were bubbling up inside her, fast and furious. “I know. I tried to bury myself in the job hunt, but there was other stuff going on and I didn’t want to burden you.”

In the background, Tasha could hear her sister running water. “Are you making tea?”

“Of course I am. You should do the same.”

“I put coffee on.”

“Not quite the same, but okay.”

“I wish you were here.”

“We’re going to have to get used to doing this over the phone. Tell me what’s wrong. What did David do?”

“It’s not David this time.”

“Oh no, what did the cute firefighter do?”

“He has a name.”

Meredith laughed. “I’m aware. What did Matt do?”

“Nothing, really. We had a…non-fight? Just a thing that happened.” She considered how much of Matt’s story to share with her sister. “He has some job stress, like a lot of first responders do. And he didn’t know how to share that with me. He’s just…not perfect. And apparently that’s hard for him to realize.” She laughed out loud. “Actually, I’m more fine with it than he is.”

“None of us are perfect.”

So far from it. “Right? And all of us have scars, isn’t that what you said?”

“Yep. You know, I like the guy, but I’m glad to know he’s been knocked around a bit, too. It puts you both on an even keel. You live life harder than anyone I know, and you deserve someone who does the same.”

“I’m not sure I am at the moment.”

Meredith clucked her tongue. “Okay, your coffee is clearly not inspiring you to have faith in yourself. Make tea. I’ll wait.”

She put her phone on speaker. “I haven’t even had the coffee yet.”

“Fine, pour that, give it a go.”

Natasha laughed and grabbed a mug. “Shouldn’t you go to sleep?”

“In a bit.”

“Are you okay?”

Her sister sighed. “I am. You know how excited I am about the move. But this is the house I brought my babies home to from the hospital. I just scrubbed seven years of fingerprints off the trim around the kitchen door, and I thought…what am I doing?”

“Showing up for the fight?”

“Shut up. Do not turn my advice around on me.”

They talked for another fifteen minutes, and just as Meredith announced her tea mug was empty, Matt knocked at the front door. “I have to go,” Natasha said as she went to open it for him. “I’ll see you tonight for dinner.”

“Your sister?” Matt asked as she hung up the phone.

“She was packing and I couldn’t sleep, so…yeah. Middle of the night sister chat. Everything okay at the armouries?”

He nodded. “I gotta say, it was nice dashing over there from here.”

“You can stay here more often,” she murmured. “If it’s convenient.”

He unzipped his winter coat and cupped her face in his hands. “I want to stay here a lot. And not because it’s convenient. I want to stay here even when I have to work at the other end of the peninsula the next morning.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Well, Emily’s going to be gone for two nights around Christmas, if you’re interested in an extended sleepover—no pyjamas allowed.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He hung up his coat. “Do you want to go back to bed? Or should we make an early breakfast?”

“I’m not tired,” she said quietly.

“And we have a lot to talk about still, too.” He gestured to the kitchen. “Lead me to the coffee.”

“I’m not sure you’ve finished your story about your brothers,” she said after pouring him a cup.

“My brothers?” He barked a laugh. “Oh, last night. Yeah, I, uh, may have lost the train of thought there. Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve realized I have a complicated relationship with my brothers. With my father, too. Him first, then with them. We’re best friends in theory, but we keep secrets from each other. I was thinking about you and your sister, and how close you are. We aren’t close like that. It took me forever to tell Jake about you, and not because I didn’t want to. It just didn’t need to come up.”

She nodded slowly. “And by comparison, I told Meredith about you at the first opportunity.”

“Right.”

“Wow, that’s kind of a heavy realization.”

“Yeah. We want to have a good relationship with each other, you know? So it’s weird. And it was the same, frankly, when Jake was going through his thing with you—we had no idea.”

She winced. “Yeah?”

“He didn’t tell us anything. He told Dani’s brothers, because he thought he owed them an explanation. But confiding in each other for emotional support?” He snorted. “Yeah, that’s not a Foster thing. But on the other hand, when Sean was hurt, there was no question about the fact that Jake, Dean, and I were all in that together. Jake and I drove Dean to the airport and he flew to Europe not knowing what he’d find, but he knew he had to go and sit with Sean, or bring his body home.”

“You guys can’t talk about your feelings, but you’ll carry each other’s bodies?”

“That’s it in a nutshell.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” He glanced at his watch. “Deep thoughts for five in the morning.”

“We need pancakes to go with this conversation, don’t we?”

“Extra syrup. And maybe bacon.”

She pointed to the fridge. “Get on it, mister.”

The rest of December swept by in a blur. Natasha found a local daycare provider who would take Emily three days a week, starting immediately, so she started working at the lumber store. On her second day, she used her employee discount to place a big order, everything she’d need to put in the kitchenettes in the apartments, and tile for the bathrooms, too. It ate a big chunk of her budget, but once she had the kitchens built, she could take pictures of the studios and get her listings live online.

---

---

She couldn’t wait.

The cashier job proved more similar to bartending than she’d first expected. Because they primarily served contractors, she saw a lot of regular customers—and it paid off in a big way that she could remember what they’d come in for before. Plus she learned a lot about renovation trends from their conversations with Raj, which he happily included her in. She’d been agonizing over how to refinish the staircase to the second level on the apartment side until a contractor dropped a tip about his favourite wood paint. “A quick sand, then primer and two coats, and voila, you’ve got a brand new staircase that will look good for a decade.”

Done. She picked up the paint before she left that day.

In general, her shifts went by quickly, and left time for her to do work at the house as well before she picked up Emily from daycare.

Matt slept over twice, and came for an early dinner before his Wednesday night parades at the armouries.

It was all in all an exhausting but rewarding routine she’d stumbled into.

But she was still looking forward to a few days off around Christmas, especially because a wicked winter storm was brewing out there.

As the temperatures dropped overnight the night before Christmas Eve, the wind howled and seemed to hammer the house from all sides. Tasha tucked Emily into bed, then took the baby monitor to the apartments. She’d already assembled the cabinets for the kitchenettes, and her countertop chunks had arrived earlier that day.

It was pretty straightforward—one piece of butcher block for the cabinet beside the sink, another to turn into a high island with legs she’d found at a recycling store. She finished the downstairs unit, then headed upstairs, where it was colder, and her fingers stiffened up as she got the screws and drill ready.

As she worked, she realized it wasn’t just cool up there—it was pretty damn cold, and getting colder.

She ratcheted the last screw into place, then crawled out from the lower cabinet and ran her hand over the ancient register.

The air coming from the furnace wasn’t hot at all. It felt like the air conditioner was on—except she didn’t have AC.

Something was wrong.

Damn. She looked at the still-to-be-assembled island parts and decided that was as much as she could do tonight. She collected the baby monitor, her phone and her keys, and made sure the back side of the house was locked up before she went through the interior door into her own kitchen.

It was just as cool on this side of the house.

Double damn. Wincing at the thought of an emergency repair visit, she searched for the name of an HVAC guy and placed the call anyway.

“Lot of calls tonight,” the guy who answered the phone said. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take for her to get there. Would you rather wait until the morning, or be on the overnight list? It’s a bit cheaper to have a daytime call.”

“Okay, let’s do that.”

“Bundle up under blankets,” he said cheerily. “She’ll call when she’s leaving the previous customer.”

Great.

Natasha knew what call she had to make next, and it physically hurt her. Be brave, she told herself. Be fearless. Hmmphf. When it came to her judgemental ex, she wasn’t there yet.

David answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, sorry for calling so late.” It wasn’t that late. Barely ten. He was probably still drinking wine after a lovely dinner in his always-perfectly-heated condo.

“What’s wrong?”

Damn it, that was not how this conversation was supposed to start. “First of all, everything is fine. But I might not be able to drive Emily to Collingwood tomorrow to meet you at the cottage. My furnace just decided to act up, and now I need to wait for a repair person to come on Christmas Eve, so…”

“Act up?”

“It stopped working.”

“You don’t have heat right now?”

“Uh…” She wiggled her fingers in the air. “I mean, I did until like an hour ago, so the house is fine. I’ll put Emily in my bed and we’ll be fine under the blankets together.”

“You don’t have any heat?” He repeated the question, which was unnecessary. She’d answered it.

“This literally just happened, and you were my second call after the furnace people. So—”

“We’ll pick her up first thing.”

“You don’t need to come that early. Or I can bring her after the appointment.”

“First thing, Natasha. I don’t want my daughter to be cold.”

Oh, he did not just say that. “Obviously, I don’t want her to be cold either. We have warm clothes and blankets. It’s fine.”

“Is it? The weather is terrible up there right now. What if your pipes freeze?”

Jesus, could that happen this quickly? “The repair person is coming as soon as possible.” Except that was a lie. Natasha had pushed it back until tomorrow to save a few dollars. Her stomach sank. “Look, I just wanted to give you a heads up. Let’s not make this into a thing.”

“A thing like, my daughter needs a home with reliable heat and real furniture?”

She hung up the phone. She was shaking with rage as she switched to text messaging.

He didn’t reply.

She wasn’t surprised. She stomped upstairs, carefully picked up her beautiful baby, and carried her down the hall to her own room.

It didn’t take long to get warm under the covers. It took much longer to fall asleep, her mind racing with what challenges the next day might bring.

For the first time in a year, Matt’s partner on a shift was his sister-in-law, Dani.

Which meant he had to field a hundred inappropriately nosy questions in between calls. But it also meant he had lots of food to eat as she bugged him about Natasha while they stretched their legs in the break room of the station in the early hours of Christmas Eve.

“I’m just saying, I think I should invite her out for a girls’ night,” Dani said.

He stabbed his fork into a bowl of meatballs. “These are great. What spice did you use?”

“Can I have her number?”

“No.”

“It’s not like I’m a complete stranger.” Dani had been the first responder when Natasha had wiped out in a snow storm—the same night everyone had found out Jake’s former fling was pregnant and the big question was, might he be the father? “I want to meet her again, properly this time.”

“And I want you to leave her alone.”

“I bet she’d like to share a bottle of wine with me.”

Natasha probably would—at some point. “Can you give me space to explore this relationship in privacy, first?”

“Of course.” Dani tried to look hurt, but failed. “Come on, we have so much in common.”

Matt choked on his next bite of meatball. Yes, they did.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.” He sighed. “Soon. Okay? I’m going to her place for a couple of days, and we’ll talk about it then. But I don’t know when she’s going to want to start hanging out in Pine Harbour, and frankly, I’m in no rush either. I like having her all to myself.”

“Don’t be creepy and controlling. Girls’ nights are essential to life.”

That was a fair point. And with Natasha’s sister moving away, maybe Dani’s forceful brand of love might be an entertaining alternative to sister time. Not a replacement, but… He held up his hands. “How about this. I’ll give her your number, and we’ll see what she does with it. Deal?”

“Deal.” Dani grabbed another Tupperware container from her bag. “And give her these cookies.”

“Who’s trying to woo her here, you or me?”

“Maybe you should bake her cookies.”

Actually, maybe he should.

He’d already bought both Emily and Natasha more Christmas presents than Tasha would probably think is appropriate. But if he made her something, that would be her favourite gift of all—and soften the reaction to the spoiling he was going to do no matter what.

He should have thought of that before Christmas Eve.

Dani eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to tell her you made these cookies?”

He opened the container and grabbed one. He shook his head after tasting it. “No way would she believe I made them. But I am going to make her something. Anyway, enough about me.”

“Never.”

“Let’s talk about—” The radio squawked to life, and they were both spared the rest of that conversation. They shoved their food away and headed for the ambulance bay.

They were flat out until the end of their shift.

He went to his apartment, and before he got in the shower, he sent Natasha a text.

His heart sank as he watched the bubbles appear on the screen.

He was already pulling on his coat.

When he arrived, the house was cool, but not freezing, and Natasha’s smile was bright if a bit forced. “Hey,” she said as he gave her a quick, one-armed hug.

“Merry Christmas no matter what,” he murmured.

She nodded.

He held up the bag in his other hand. “I brought presents. I thought I’d leave Emily’s here for her, but since she hasn’t left yet…”

Natasha’s face softened completely, even as she gave him a reproachful look. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

“We got you a little something too, but it’s a token. I hope you didn’t go overboard.”

“Let’s focus on the cookies. Which are, by the way, from Dani, who is desperate to invite you out for a girls’ night, and I need to get that bit of news out of the way before we focus on making a chilly Christmas super awesome.”

Natasha laughed. “Okay.”

“The cookies are really good. We worked together last night and she made them just for you. But I ate two because I’m a terrible person.”

“You are anything but.” She held out her hand and he passed over the tub of cookies. She took a bite out of one immediately. “Delicious,” she pronounced.

He leaned in and kissed her. “Yes you are.”

That got him a real smile.

He followed her into the kitchen where Emily was colouring in a notebook on the floor. He liked that his coming and going was now so normal to her that she just looked up and gave him a big grin before going back to her work.

The oven was on, which gave the kitchen some warmth.

“I’m making a big breakfast, since for once the fact that this ancient oven spills out heat is a good thing.” Natasha said. “Bacon is on, and I’m about to do up some scrambled eggs and toast, too. Are you hungry?”

“Always.” He sprawled out on the floor next to Emily. “I can source electric heaters if need be, too. Jake has a bunch for work sites, and he won’t be using them this week.”

“I hope it won’t come to that.” She frowned. “But thank you.”

He tapped his finger beside the colour book. “Hey, Miss Monkey… Merry Christmas.”

Emily flashed him another quick look. “Merry Christmas,” she repeated.

“I hear we’re having a big breakfast.”

“Mm-hmm.”

They coloured together while Natasha finished cooking, then they ate picnic-style, right there on the kitchen floor. Once they finished, he quickly did the dishes while Natasha wiped Emily’s hands and face.

Then he crouched in front of the three-year-old. “Do you want your present?”

“A present?” She clapped her hands. “For me?”

He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And I have one for your mom, too.”

Emily leaned in, eye to eye with him. “We have a present for you.”

“Where is it?”

“Upstairs.” She disappeared, rounding the corner in a flash before he heard footsteps flying on the stairs.

He got up from the ground and grabbed his bag of gifts.

Emily returned with a small, square box.

He held out one of her presents. “You go first.”

She set his aside and ripped into the paper. This one was for her to share with Natasha. Matching aprons, and Emily held up her mother’s first. “This is too big for me,” she said solemnly. Then she spotted the matching fabric, now on the floor. “Oh! This one is little!”

Natasha, silent beside him, reached out and took her apron—pink, like Emily’s, with Kitchen Boss stamped on the front. “Oh, Matt, these are awesome.”

“Emily’s says Kitchen Boss in Training,” he explained.

“We need to get you one, too.”

“Kitchen 2IC?” He grinned as she gave him a blank look. He tapped on his chest. “As a sergeant, I’m second in command of a platoon. 2IC.”

Her eyes lit up. “Yeah, you could be my Kitchen 2IC.”

He’d order an apron as soon as they had her furnace sorted out.

“Next present,” he said, handing over the next one for Emily. She ripped into this one with even more abandon, and hugged the stuffed moose tight to her chest.

“Now it’s your turn,” Natasha said. She swiped the small box Emily had brought downstairs. It wasn’t wrapped, just secured together with ribbon, and the box itself was beautiful—a faded, vintage world map print all over it. “This is something we saw and we thought of you immediately.”

She handed it over. Her hands were shaking, and he caught her fingers with his. A little squeeze to say that he saw her, that he knew this was a weird first holiday together, and he didn’t have any expectations.

He carefully worked the ribbon open, then lifted the lid.

They’d found him a leather passport wallet.

He lifted it out of the box and realized it wasn’t empty. Inside was a notebook, carefully trimmed to be exactly the size of a passport. He paged through it.

Each page was coloured by Emily, and Natasha had written neat, careful words on some of them. Paris, said the first page. Peru, said another. South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong…

He kept flipping until his eyes blurred.

Then he cleared his throat. “I…” He lifted his head and looked at Natasha, who searched his face, her eyes wide. “Can I kiss you in front of Emily?” he asked under his breath.

She laughed and nodded.

He swept her into his arms and pressed a hard, grateful kiss to her lips. She curled her fingers into his shirt, right against where his heart was pounding a mile a minute.

“We haven’t talked about travel again,” she whispered against his mouth. “But I saw the wallet and wondered if maybe you wouldn’t have one, and might like one…”

“I love it. And I love what’s inside it more.” I love you, he wanted to add, but a knock at the door interrupted them.

He let her go, and while she was answering the door, he crouched down to show Emily how much he liked the present.

“I drew this,” she said as she pointed to the pictures. “And this is a tree.”

The green squiggle was the most beautiful drawing he’d ever seen in his life. “I’m going to keep this forever.”

Natasha returned with an HVAC tech in tow. “It’s in the basement,” she said, “This way.”

He glanced up. “Do you—”

She gestured to Emily. “Can you?”

He nodded. Of course he could. He’d do whatever she needed here.

They disappeared, but they weren’t gone long. And when they came up, there was no hiding how devastated Natasha was.

She took a copy of the invoice from the tech. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch after Christmas.”

“Don’t let it go too long,” the other woman said, and Natasha jerked her head in acknowledgement.

Shit.

She glanced at Emily. “Baby, can you go and grab your stuffies for the trip to your dad’s?”

Emily scurried off, and Matt waited until the tech let herself out before instinctively taking a step closer to Natasha, wanting to at least give her his touch in comfort. “What’s the verdict?”

She bounced up and down on her toes, anxiety rolling off her in waves. “Well, the current issue is the internal thermometer. She cleaned it off and said it should start up again in a few minutes. But I have a much bigger problem. She says the blower motor needs to be repaired, and given the age of the furnace, that might just be pouring money down the drain and I should consider replacing it entirely.” She shook her head, her face crumpling. “I thought the furnace was fine when we moved in, but there’s no way around it, I need a new one, and before winter is over. Fuck, Matt, I can’t afford that.”

He pulled her into his arms. No, he imagined that she couldn’t. “We’ll figure something out,” he said softly into her hair.

She stiffened. “No, I can’t—”

Shit. “You will figure something out,” he corrected. “And I’ll be here for you, as a sounding board. A friend.”

Her chest shook against his as she dragged in a ragged breath. “This is the worst Christmas ever.”

“You haven’t opened your presents yet,” he said lightly. “And even though I haven’t slept yet, and my girlfriend is distraught, selfishly, this is the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

“What?” She jerked her head up and looked at him, her forehead knitted together in concern. “No.”

“Yep.” Which was a super fucked-up realization. “We never really did Christmas in a sentimental way growing up.” He made a face. “I haven’t told you a lot about my dad. He leaves much to be desired in the care and affection categories of parenting.”

“Those are the primary categories.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Tonight, after a nap and once we’re well into a bottle of wine, I’ll tell you more about my rough and tumble formative years in the Foster house. But the point right now is that while the furnace news is shitty, you did something amazing for me. So, let me try and salvage the day for you.”

Emily came hurtling back into the room. “I have my bears. And Daddy’s here.”

“What?” Natasha whirled around.

From the entranceway, a male voice called out. “The door was ajar.”

She leapt out of Matt’s arms and he took a big step back, too. He hated that they both had the same reaction but he flashed her a reassuring smile anyway.

So he was about to meet the asshole who left Natasha alone and pregnant. Great. Maybe it was going to be the worst Christmas ever, after all.