“Mommy…?” Chloe whispered, her voice filled with a disorienting, dream-like wonder. “Is this the North Pole?”
Eleanor sat up from the footwell, her eyes wide, staring at the vast, silent beauty of the estate with an expression of stunned, disbelieving shock that drained the last remaining trace of defensiveness from her posture.
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“No, sweetheart,” Eleanor choked out, her hand reaching up to touch her daughter’s cheek. “It’s… it’s Mr. Vance’s house.”
Arthur killed the engine.
He unclipped his seatbelt, stepped out onto the flagstone porch into the quiet snow, and opened the rear door.
He didn’t reach for Eleanor. He reached down, slipped his large, strong arms beneath Chloe’s sleeping bag, and lifted the eight-year-old girl into his chest.
She weighed almost nothing—a fragile bundle of small bones and cold fleece—but as he lifted her against his tweed jacket, her small head naturally nestled into the crook of his shoulder, her tiny, chapped hands clutching the lapel of his coat with that immediate, unreserved trust that only children and angels possess.
