Chapter 55
SYLVIE
The main room of Northwood Lodge was alive with Christmas magic.
Santa—Wesley—was holding court in his designated armchair by the fire.
A gaggle of children gathered at his feet as he distributed carefully selected gifts from our donation pile.
His ho-ho-hos were perfectly timed. His ability to remember each child’s name and something special about them never ceased to amaze me.
I was pretty sure he studied all year for this event.
The idea it might be the last was just too depressing to think about.
Unless I took Kent up on his offer. An offer I wasn’t sure I believed. I had been fooled once before.
A child laughing grabbed my attention and pulled me back to the present. Mrs. Claus sat in the chair beside Mr. Claus with a stack of Christmas picture books, her gentle voice weaving tales of reindeer and snow angels while the littlest guests curled up on cushions scattered around her feet.
The woman was a born storyteller. Her costume was perfect, wire-rimmed glasses, gray hair in a neat bun, and a red dress with white apron that looked like it had come straight from the North Pole. She was better than any Mrs. Claus from my childhood.
Christmas music played softly from the speakers, just loud enough to create atmosphere without drowning out conversations.
The fire crackled merrily in the hearth.
The smell of pine filled the room. The entire scene was perfect.
It made my heart hurt to think we might never get to make these memories again.
Staff wove through the crowd carrying platters of appetizers—bacon-wrapped scallops, stuffed mushrooms, mini quiches that disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
It was all very fancy, but as a family, we had collectively decided to go big.
The kids were getting the night of their lives, and we were making sure the parents got to enjoy the evening as well.
Wine glasses never stayed empty for long, and the hot chocolate station was constantly surrounded by guests of all ages warming themselves with Emmy’s special recipe.
I stood near the back of the room, watching it all unfold with the kind of bittersweet joy that came from knowing you were witnessing something precious and finite.
This was what I’d grown up with and something I had helped create and maintain for years.
The warmth, the connection, the sense of belonging that turned strangers into temporary family.
It was all stuff that I wanted to pass along to future generations.
But as nice as the night was, it was nowhere near as packed as it would have been five years ago.
Back in the day, this night used to be so busy you could barely move in the main room.
Every chair would be filled, every inch of floor space occupied by families sprawled on blankets or children playing with their new toys.
The wait list for Christmas week had been long. We used to turn away dozens of families who wanted to experience Northwood Lodge during the holidays.
Now there were empty seats throughout the room. Not many. We still had a good crowd. But enough to notice. Enough to serve as a quiet reminder that nothing gold could stay.
I pressed my lips together, pushing down the nostalgia and loss.
The memories I had made here would stay with me forever, regardless of what happened to the lodge itself.
Perhaps Kent was right about change being good.
Maybe there was something that rang true about one door closing so another could open.
The thought felt like I was trying to convince myself of something I wasn’t quite ready to believe. But standing there, watching children’s faces light up as Santa handed them gifts and watching their parents relax into the comfortable chaos of family life, I felt something shift inside me.
Maybe holding on so tightly to the past was preventing me from seeing the possibilities of the future.
Change was inevitable. It didn’t have to be bad.
I could go into the change kicking and screaming or I could embrace it and try to steer it in a way that I want it to go.
Or at the very least do my best to influence the direction of the change.
I was lost in that thought when something outside caught my eye. A flicker of color that didn’t belong. At first, I thought it might be a reflection from the lights around the windows. But I realized the lights were in the center of the window beyond the room.
Curious, I moved closer to the window and gasped.
The entire tree farm was lit up in Christmas lights.
Not the neat, efficient LED strands we already had up, but big, colorful bulbs that cast pools of light through the snow-covered branches.
Row after row of Fraser firs and Douglas firs were outlined in red, green, blue, and gold. It stretched as far as I could see.
It was like someone had taken a childhood memory of Christmas and made it real.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, pressing my face closer to the glass.
I hurried to the coat closet, grabbed my heavy winter jacket, and pushed through the front door into the cold night air. The temperature hit me hard enough to make my eyes water, but I barely noticed.
The view from outside was even more stunning. The tree farm had been transformed into something timeless, each row of trees creating pathways of light that seemed to lead into the very heart of Christmas itself. The bulbs cast pretty colors across the snow, creating a carpet of sparkles.
And there, hunched over a cardboard box at the edge of the display, cursing up a storm as he tried to untangle what looked like another strand of lights, was Kent. More Christmas goblin than elf, the ridiculous man brought a smile to my face.
Even from a distance, I could see the frustration in his posture and hear the creative swearing. He was way less concerned with polite language than I had been all season. I was hearing a lot of “sugar honey iced teas” in there, along with a few “if you see Kays.”
I made my way toward him through the snow. He was so focused on his task and his storm of profanity that he didn’t notice me approaching until I was practically on top of him.
“You kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?” I asked.
He startled so violently that he tripped over his own feet and fell backward into the snow. Kent let loose a string of curses that I didn’t have fun euphemisms for.
“Shit, Sylvie,” he said, one hand pressed to his chest. “You scared the tinsel out of me.”
“Sorry,” I said, though I was still smiling. “I saw the lights from inside and had to come see for myself. What have you been up to, Mr. Bancroft?” I gestured to the wonderland he’d created around us. “This is beautiful, Kent. Just wait until the kids see it in the morning.”
He got to his feet and looked around at his handiwork. I could see exhaustion and satisfaction in his gaze. His face was red from the cold, his hands were clearly frozen, and there were pine needles stuck all over him. He looked like he’d been wrestling with Christmas trees for hours.
Which, apparently, he had.
“You did all this tonight, you crazy man?” I asked.
“Found a bunch of old lights in the cabin,” he said, his breath forming clouds in the frigid air. “Thought maybe… I don’t know. Thought maybe you’d like it.”
Silence settled around us, that heavy, muted quiet that only came when you were surrounded by fresh snow. The world felt quiet, like it was holding its breath waiting for something important to happen.
Standing there in the glow of thousands of vintage Christmas lights, looking at this man who’d busted his buns in the snow to make my family farm a more magical place, I felt the sun come out in my heart, thawing some of the ice that had settled in there as of late.
“I forgive you,” I whispered, the words coming out before I’d consciously decided to say them.
Kent went very still, his eyes searching my face like he wasn’t sure he heard correctly.
“And I don’t blame you,” I continued, the words flowing now like they’d been waiting inside me all along. “For what you did before. You saw a failing business. Your family saw an opportunity. It’s time my family and I accept what’s coming.”
The admission hurt, but it also felt like setting down a weight I’d been carrying for too long. We couldn’t keep pretending that everything was fine, that we weren’t struggling, that we didn’t need help.
“No,” Kent said, stepping closer and taking my gloved hand in his frozen one. “Accept my investment offer. Don’t accept failure. I don’t want this place to fail.”
I looked down at our joined hands, then back up into his eyes. His expression was full of honesty and hopeful and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen it.
“We can do this together,” he said. “I want to do this with you.”
“Together?” I searched his eyes, looking for the catch. I wanted to know what the angle was. There had to be a corporate strategy hidden beneath the romantic gesture. “What does that mean? Here? In Northwood? For how long? How long before you get bored and leave?”
The questions tumbled out before I could stop them.
I had to be smarter this time. As much as I wanted to believe everything was all sunshine and sugar plum fairies, I refused to take anything at face value.
He must have been able to hear my thoughts, because his expression softened with understanding.
“With my money and your heart, we can restore this place to what it once was. Your family can stay and keep doing what they love. We can stay. You don’t have to leave.”
“We?” The word came out as barely a whisper.
He nodded, and the heat in his eyes made my breath catch. “I don’t want to go back to New York and pretend none of this happened. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been if I’d been brave enough to choose happiness over my father’s approval.”
He squeezed my hand, and heat blossomed in me. “I like the sound of that.”
“Good.” Kent smiled. “I want to wake up every morning and see these mountains. I want to help families create memories that will last forever. I want to argue with you about Christmas decorations and watch you turn every guest into a believer of magic. I want you to make me nauseated with all of your crazy Christmas decorations.”
I laughed. “Challenge accepted.”
“We can build a life here. If you’ll have me.”
The words hung in the air between us. My heart felt like it was going to bounce right out of my chest.
I stared into his eyes, searching for any hint of doubt or deception. But all I saw was love and hope and the kind of raw honesty that came from someone who’s decided to bet everything on a single moment.
I believed him. I didn’t know if that made me a fool, but I truly believed what he was promising.
The practical part of my brain whispered warnings about trust and risk and the possibility of getting hurt again. But my heart was already reaching toward him, already believing in the future he was painting with his words.
“We?” I asked again, needing to hear him say it one more time.
“We,” he confirmed.
And then I was kissing him like I needed his lips on mine to breathe.
His arms came around me immediately, pulling me against him as we melted into each other in the snow-covered wonderland he’d created. The kiss was desperate and sweet and hot. I finally gave into all the possibilities I was finally brave enough to reach for.