Page 84 of A Pen Pal for Christmas

“Yeah, I was. That place—it’s not just about the house. It’s what I saw for us. A fresh start. A home. I couldn’t wait to share it with you.”

She licked her lips as she stared at me. “But now…?”

I hesitated, the words catching in my throat. “Now it feels different. Tainted.” My jaw tightened, the admission tasting bitter. “It was supposed to be ours, but after what happened… I don’t know if it can ever be that.”

Sofia shifted on the bed, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. “It doesn’t have to be the place where something bad happened, Hudson.”

A dark chuckle escaped me. “How can it not be?”

“That’s up to us. Instead, it can be the place where you came for me. Where you showed me,again, how safe I am with you.”

I let out a shuddering breath, and I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“It can be a place that represents our strength,” she went on. “Yours, mine, and ours together. We can choose not to let Rex take it from us.”

For a long moment, I couldn’t speak as I dragged my gaze back to hers. After all she’d been through tonight, I couldn’t believe she still had the energy to pull me out of my own head—to remind me of what mattered.

Finally, I nodded, my throat tight. “You’re right.”

She smiled faintly, and for the first time since we left the station, it reached her eyes. “Of course I am.”

I let out a short laugh, the sound surprising both of us. “And humble, too.”

“Always,” she said, her smile widening just a fraction.

I stood, crossing the small space between us to sit beside her on the bed. She leaned into me, her head resting on my shoulder, and I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close.

“You amaze me, you know that?” I murmured.

She didn’t respond right away, but when she did, her voice was quiet and steady. “I think we amaze each other.”

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, closing my eyes. She was right. About the house. About us. About all of it. Rex might have tried to take something from us tonight, but he failed.

For a long moment, everything else fell away as we held each other. The tension, the danger, even the faint hum of the inn’s decrepit heating system—it all faded into the background.

Her voice broke the silence, soft but steady. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh oh.”

She dug her elbow into my side. “I’m serious.”

“Okay.” I shifted slightly, shifting so I could see her face. “What’s on your mind?”

She let out a soft breath. “I’ve been through a lot,” she said, her voice low but sure. “And for a long time, I thought I’d handled my relationships so far in a way that made me… weak. Like how I stayed with Dane only to literally run from my problems with him? I worried it made me some kind of… failure.”

“Sofia—”

“Wait,” she said, cutting me off. She reached for my hand, her fingers threading through mine. “But tonight, when I was running… when I was hiding, and then fighting to get away… I didn’t feel weak. I felt scared, yeah, but I also felt strong. Like I could survive. Like I had to.”

“You are strong,” I said, my voice rough. “You always have been.”

Her lips twitched into a small, self-deprecating smile. “I didn’t feel that way until tonight. But now… I don’t know. It’s like something shifted. And I think part of that is because of you.”

I frowned, shaking my head. “Sofia, you’re the one who got out of that house. You’re the one who fought.”

“Yeah,” she said, squeezing my hand. “But you’re the one who helped me believe I could. And plus… I didn’t want you to show up in the house only for him to shoot you.”

I couldn’t breathe. I’d spent so much of the night feeling like I hadn’t done enough. Like I’d failed her by letting this happen in the first place. But hearing her say that…

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