Had someone had told him six months ago when he’d been lying in a hospital bed in Germany, alive but wishing he wasn’t, that in December, he’d be in a horse-drawn carriage driven by a man who looked a lot like Santa, with a beautiful, smiling woman cuddled up in his arms and a dog he owned sleeping beside her, well, he’d have thought them delusional.

If someone shook him right now and he awakened to find this was all just a dream, that wouldn’t surprise him at all. Maybe he’d never awakened from the hospital bed and this alternate world only existed in his head.

“It’s like a dream come true,” Sarah said, cuddling up against him as her words echoed his thoughts.

Only this, riding in a sleigh with her and Harry, wasn’t his dream. Never had been.

His dream was being a soldier. Of fighting against bad guys for freedom and justice for all.

Unbidden, he was hit with flashes of the day his Humvee had exploded around him and his unit as an IED went off. The jolt of remembered terror and pain hit him like a body blow, threatening to rob the moment of everything good.

He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight against the ebb of darkness that he expected to engulf him.

“Bodie?” Sarah reached up, touched his face. “Are you okay?”

Through her glove he could feel her warmth, could feel her concern, could feel a lifeline to reality. This reality. A reality where he was in a quaint little town in a horse-drawn carriage with a woman as sweet as the fudge they’d eaten earlier.

Bodie opened his eyes.

Glancing down at her, she came into focus and the darkness left as quickly as it had snatched at him.

“I’m fine,” he said, grateful he was telling her the truth and hating that his murky thoughts had invaded this precious moment. He wouldn’t let them.

Apparently, neither would she, because her gloved hand palmed his cheek in what could only be called a caress as she smiled up at him. “I’m glad.”

“So am I.”

With that she snuggled back into the crook of his arms and he held her close as the sleigh pulled them along the small river that ran through the park. The moonlight dabbled light off the water. The falling snow sprinkled the ground.

Bodie reminded himself again that this wasn’t his dream, but it was hers, and he was so glad he could give it to her. In exchange, he’d allow himself for the moment to relish the warmth and goodness Sarah so freely gave.

The ride only lasted twenty or so minutes. Bodie had cared nothing about going on the sleigh ride, but by the time Mr. Harvey delivered them back to the drop-off point, he admitted he wasn’t ready for the ride to end.