Home for Christmas
Tatum West

I do facts and figures, logic and reason, dividends and bank accounts and holidays spent alone.
That’s what I keep telling myself when I wake up in a shabby bed, in an unfamiliar life, next to a man I haven’t seen for twenty years—with a daughter I never had.
I must be dreaming… or I’m losing my mind. I didn’t stay in Abingdon. I didn’t stay with Van Narron, the love of my life. We gave up on that dream a long time ago.
But Van’s lips on mine, the warm touch of his fingertips, the Christmas carols and the decked out tree, Frozen II on repeat, and holiday cards lining the dusty mantle… and this sweet little girl calling me ‘Dad’… it feels far more real than the hard, cold life I lead.
I must be going insane. Things like this don’t happen. And they sure as hell don’t last.