chapter 1
Mara
The first Sunday in December, for as far back as I could remember, my grandfather would gather me on the couch, VHS tapes in hand, and press play on old recordings of Mistletoe Bay’s tree lighting.
I sat in awe as the town square twinkled with lights.
Carolers shuffled past the gazebo. The massive tree in the center of town, waiting for Santa’s arrival.
No matter how many times I watched, I always gasped in excitement when the tree would burst into light.
“I’ll take you there one day,” he’d whisper, voice full of promise. “You’ll see it in person. The snow, the lights, it’s something else.”
When Papaw Kensington passed away, I vowed to myself that I would make it here.
Live it. Embrace it.
Stand in the snow, breathe in the pine-sweet air, feel the magic. And now, ten years later, after countless remodels, missed holidays, and one too many late nights, I finally am.
I missed the tree lighting thanks to my previous project running over, but I’m here now, and plan to soak in as much of the magic as I possibly can while I restore what was once a family home.
Snow crunches under my tires as I drive up the small hill to Candlewick Lane and the house comes into view.
An old Colonial sits up on a small hill and looks dignified beneath a dusting of snow.
Two stories of clapboard siding, a steep gabled roof crowned with a central chimney, symmetrical windows framed in white.
The front door, centered and inviting, is flanked by narrow sidelights.
A small porch, supported by square pillars, wraps just slightly around the facade, its rail iced with frost.
This house was once my great-grandfather’s and his father’s before him, and so on. It dates back to the 1600’s when they landed in Mistletoe Bay and helped build the town.
According to my late grandfather, one day his parents packed up and left without explanation. Never returned. Never spoke of why.
I step out of the car and into the snow, taking a long breath. The cold bites at my cheeks, but it feels like a cleansing fire through my chest. This is the place my grandfather loved. The house that holds decades of unspoken stories. The town he walked away from, yet somehow never forgot.
Every room carries history. The parlor, with its simple mantel, must have hosted countless family gatherings and quiet evenings.
The dining room, its wide, worn floorboards speaking of heavy footsteps and hurried breakfasts.
Upstairs, bedrooms with narrow windows and faded wallpaper waiting for new life.
The kitchen is small but full of potential.
Every corner of the house feels alive, like it’s breathing slowly, holding its stories close, just waiting for me to bring them back to their former glory.
“Why didn’t you ever come back?” I whisper, voice trembling.
The house answers only with the soft groan of settling wood and the whistle of winter wind.
I wander through the parlor and brush my hand over the dusty mantle.
When I pass the doorway to the library, something in me stills.
There—on the shelf built into the wall—is a narrow band of lighter wood where a portrait used to rest. My fingers find a nook and pull at a sliver of yellowed paper wedged behind the molding.
A name. A date. A boy’s handwriting that looks a lot like one I know all too well.
My breath catches in my throat. The tiny knot under my sternum tightens.
Papaw was here. The idea of him living in this very house, celebrating Christmases and birthdays, opens me up in a way I hadn't expected. I’m not just here to restore wood.
I’m trying—stubbornly, painfully—to touch a place my grandfather loved and that our family left behind.
A door slams behind me.
The sound throws the dust and the quiet into a chaotic stutter.
I spin and find a man in the doorway like a cameo from a very particular fantasy: coat buttoned, boots clean, hair messy like he’s just trekked through a storm. His jaw is taut. His eyes are the kind of green that can make a woman weak in the knees. And he’s holding a clipboard.
“You can’t do that,” he says.
I open my mouth to snap back a witty retort but I stop myself.
He does not sound amused. His voice is surprisingly laced with concern. If that concern is for me, or the house, I’m not quite sure.
“You can’t remove those bookcases,” he adds, nodding at the shelves behind me with the authority of someone who has memorized the list of this house’s most critical features.
I cross my arms. “I haven’t removed anything. I literally just got here.”
“You were eyeballing it like a robber,” he says primly. “Like you intended to tear it out.”
“Maybe I’m admiring it,” I say, though I can’t hide the edge in my voice. “Besides, I’m here to restore this place. I don’t make a habit of tearing things out that don’t need to be. Is that okay with you, Captain Heritage?”
He doesn’t smile. “What did you just call me?”
“Captain Heritage. Since it seems like you think you’re in charge here.”
“I am the town historian and president of the Mistletoe Bay Preservation Society,” he says sternly, but holds out his hand. “Graham Whitlock.”
Of course, the town has a historian. And of course, he happens to be the kind of man who shows up to a house built by the town’s original settlers, set on defending its past glory.
“My grandfather grew up here,” I say before I can stop myself. “My family built this place.”
The clipboard dips. For a beat—one single breath—that tidy mask on his face cracks. Recognition? Surprise? And then he blinks as if what I just revealed rearranged his map of the world in a small, inconvenient way.
“You’re—” He checks the clipboard like it will confirm this new fact. “Mara Kensington.”
“I am,” I confirm. “I had no idea that my grandfather still held the deed to this place after all these years. I only found out after he died.”
Information spills out of me faster than I mean for it to—the letters I found, the photograph of my grandfather on the porch, his grin crooked. The words are a raft I cling to to stay buoyed above the sudden undercurrent of grief and all the unexpected, raw hope.
Graham listens, perhaps in the same way he listens to a history lecture—attentive, respectful, a faint, guarded interest on his face. When I finish, he blows out a breath and nods.
“This changes things,” he says finally, voice low like he’s intrigued by everything I’ve just said.
“How?” I ask.
He flicks his eyes to the staircase, to the paneling going up the stairs, to the dust that refuses to lie flat in the corners.
“When a house has lineage—actual family lineage—we treat it differently. It becomes a living archive. There are rules. Procedures. We’re not trying to make it impossible for anyone to renovate, but there are guidelines to ensure important features aren’t lost.”
“So you want paperwork,” I say, because I can hear the texture of bureaucracy through his words.
“We want preservation,” he corrects.
We stand in the middle of the library like two opposite poles, both of us convinced we’re doing the right thing.
I could grit my teeth and order materials from a million online places and manhandle my way into demolition permits and get the kitchen gutted until it’s an album of modern trends.
Or I could take a breath and let someone who’s lived in this town be my guide.
“You could also—” he adds, softer now, “—have talked to me or someone in the Preservation Society before you started poking around.”
“I barely had the keys,” I defend. “I wanted to see the bones before the contractors got here.”
“Heating. Wiring. All that matters,” he says. “But so does history.”
I stare at the banister outside the library. I’ve removed worse things; I’ve also saved better things. I know when to be violent and when to be careful.
“Okay,” I say finally. “How about this? You bring me the paperwork. You show me the items you care about. And I’ll promise to do right by the house. I restore what matters. Improve what’s necessary. Compromise.”
He blinks. The clipboard rests at his chest like a shield lowered.
“That’s not a terrible opening,” he says, and there’s the faintest twitch at the corners of his mouth that could be the ghost of a smile. “We’ll walk the house together tomorrow. I’ll bring the forms.”
“And you’ll try not to treat me like a criminal?” I venture.
“I’ll try,” he says dryly. “No promises.”
He walks out and the front door closes with a careful click behind him. In the space he leaves behind, there is a weird, flaring warmth like something lit inside me.
I laugh—half despair, half the kind of thrill you feel when a story begins burning.
***
By the time I make it to The Hollis House Inn, I’m ready to settle in for the night.
Cleo Hollis, the owner, is behind the desk. She smiles up at me the moment I walk in. “Welcome. You must be Mara.”
“How’d you know?” I reply with a smile of my own.
“You’re the last guest due to arrive tonight.”
“Ah. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
“Not at all. Were you able to find your family’s old house?”
“I did. And its gatekeeper, too.”
Cleo’s eyes narrow, her expression momentarily confused, but then it clears. “Oh, you must mean Graham?”
“You know him?” I ask without thinking.
It’s a small town. How wouldn’t she know him?
“Everyone knows Graham. He’s a good guy.
A bit high-strung at times, but I don’t imagine I’d fare much better.
” She chuckles lightly and shakes her head.
“In a town as old as this, historic preservation can be a touchy subject. We see a lot of developers coming in looking to make a quick buck by tearing down beautiful old homes and replacing them with boring, boxy McMansions. There’s a whole commission in charge of dealing with that sort of thing, but Graham …
well, he tends to view himself as the first—and last—line of defense. ”
“Charming.”
Cleo cocks her head. “He can be. He cares, truly. But if he thinks you don’t, he has no problem stopping you.”
“I don’t want him to stop me.”
“He won’t if you treat the house respectfully,” Cleo says. “It also wouldn’t hurt to bring him a sweet treat when you meet to go over your permits.”
“Isn’t that bribery?”
“It’s hospitality,” she corrects with a lift of her shoulder. “You didn’t hear this from me, but he especially loves the peppermint mocha from Dockside Cafe.”
I laugh, because the thought of Graham Whitlock being undone by peppermint mocha s is almost worth the rest of whatever this is going to be.
“Thank you,” I say, because I mean it.
Cleo slides a key across the counter. “Room four. I put extra blankets on. It’ll snow tonight.”
As I climb the stairs toward my room, I reel a little at the enormity of what I’ve committed to.
This house is a conversation—between what was and what will be—and I’m suddenly part of the argument.
I came to Mistletoe Bay to start over; to take a break from the hustle and bustle.
I hadn’t expected to come home to a family corridor I knew so little about.
Tomorrow Graham will bring forms. Tomorrow I’ll show him the photographs I found. Tomorrow, maybe, we’ll both discover there are parts of history worth saving that aren’t in the archives.
For now, though, I allow myself to collapse into the bed in my room.
I sleep like someone who’s finally used up the last of their excuses. When I wake, the windowpanes are rimed with frost and the town outside looks like a half-remembered postcard.