Page 13

Maggie knew he held another wish, a far heavier wish written in wobbly blue crayon, tucked safely inside her coat pocket, but watching his quiet, hopeful smile as he secured the paper tag brought a burning lump to her throat.

When Theo turned back from the tree, Maggie caught his eye and waved him over to the children’s activity table. “We’ve got pinecone ornaments, dried cranberries, and wooden stars waiting for glue,” she called out gently, pulling out a wooden chair beside her.

Theo moved over to the table, his face lighting up as he saw the bowls of supplies spread out on the butcher paper.

“Can I make a star for our porch?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the chair and pulling off his mismatched gloves.

Maggie handed him a small bottle of craft glue and a flat pine star. “You can make two if you’d like. One for the porch and one for the shop door.” She sat beside him and helped him run a line of clear glue along the carved wooden points. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben watching them from beside the iron bench.

He stood tall and rigid against the cold breeze, his broad shoulders squared, looking caught between his urge to retreat back to the sanctuary of Harbor Lane and his refusal to pull his grandson away from the holiday fun.

Over by the base of the fir tree, Arthur moved through the crowd, carrying two steaming paper cups of cocoa. He walked with a steady, measured stride, setting one cup carefully on the wooden side table beside Vivian’s armchair. Without a word, he reached down and adjusted the tartan wool blanket over her splinted ankle, his large hands tucking the thick edges around her boots with a practiced tenderness that contrasted sharply with his rugged appearance.

Vivian looked up, her eyes softening as she wrapped her gloved hands around the warm paper cup. “The choir’s starting early this year,” she noted, her voice barely carrying over the murmur of the square.

Arthur stood beside her chair, his broad shoulders blocking the cold harbor wind from her face. “They’ve got eighteen kids on the platform risers,” he replied, his low rasp calm and steady. “It’s a good turnout for November.”

His gaze drifted upward, settling on the carved oak heart that hung from its pine-green velvet ribbon. The afternoon sun caught the wood’s fine grain, highlighting the mighty lighthouse etched on one side and the three cresting waves carved on the other.

Someone had moved it up higher, placing it in its rightful spot, since Maggie had hastily hooked its ribbon on a random branch yesterday morning.

Arthur’s jaw tightened as he stared at the beloved ornament, a muscle flexing along his cheekbone. He didn’t touch it, nor did he speak of the reason it brought him so much vivid emotion, but the heavy silence between him and Vivian looked and felt charged with unspoken history.

Maggie watched the interaction from the craft table while helping Theo press a final dried cranberry onto his wooden star. The whole square was filled with connections, both old and new, threading through the cold afternoon air. Cranberry Cove was a town of untold secrets, but sitting beside Theo under the branches of the Wish Tree, Maggie knew that every secret was simply a way of protecting a heart that had been hurt before.

Theo held up his finished star with a look of genuine pride. “Look at this! Do you think it’ll fit on the shop doorknob?”

A true, adoring smile lifted Maggie’s lips, her heart swelling as she looked at the boy’s glowing face. “It’ll fit perfectly. Let me help you carry it over so we can show your grandpa.”

Theo gathered his pine star carefully by its edges, his small boots hurrying across the red brick path toward the iron bench. Maggie followed a step behind him, watching as Ben’s expression gentled when his grandson approached. The wall of solitude Ben had built around himself was still intact, but thanks to a little boy with a homemade Christmas ornament in his sticky hands, Maggie saw the first small crack in the timber.

Beaming from his grandfather’s simple words of praise, Theo ran over to where Susan stood near the chapel steps, holding his glitter-dusted wooden star high in the air to show Eli Caldwell. The two boys immediately crouched near the low brick wall, comparing their pinecone crafts with dramatically earnest concentration. Maggie watched them for a moment, her heart sighing at the sound of Theo’s laugh carrying over the crowd’s chatter.

She turned to where Ben remained near the iron park bench at the edge of the square, his hip leaning slightly against the cold metal rail. His hands were tucked deep into the pockets of his canvas coat, his shoulders squared and a bit rigid. He looked like a solitary lighthouse standing against a rising tide, watching the holiday crowd with a mixture of caution and deep, unreadable reflection.

“He’s having a wonderful time,” Maggie said, her voice carrying easily over the distant murmur of the church choir rehearsing near the gazebo.

Ben turned his head, his eyes settling on her with a slow intensity. He pulled one hand from his coat pocket and ran fingers through his dark gray hair. “He hasn’t talked this much about Christmas crafts since his mother brought him down for the lantern walk two years ago.”

“I think children know when a place feels welcoming,” Maggie replied, looking toward the children gathering near the chapel steps. “And Harbor Square has a way of holding onto people once they step onto the bricks.”

Ben let out a long breath, a faint cloud of white vapor rising in the cold evening air. He looked over the crowded square, where families and friends were gathering in small groups, drinking hot apple cider and admiring the fluttering paper wish tags tied to the low boughs of the Fraser fir.

“I haven’t stood in this square for a holiday event in so long. I used to think avoiding the crowd was easier. Fewer questions, fewer polite looks from neighbors who don’t know what to say.” Ben’s eyes swept across the square.

“The polite looks are one of the hardest parts,” Maggie agreed gently, spinning the smooth gold band on her right hand. “People mean well, but sometimes their sympathy feels like a glass wall separating you from the rest of the world.”

Ben’s gaze locked onto her, a flicker of genuine surprise straightening the hard lines around his eyes. He shifted his weight, his boots crunching slightly on a stray patch of sand near the bench.

“How do you manage it?” A fleeting look of admiration flashed in his eyes. “You run half the committees in town, you stand in the middle of every festival, and you never look like you’re searching for an exit door.”

Maggie let out a low, dry chuckle, shaking her head as she leaned against the black metal lamppost beside him. He couldn’t be more wrong about his observations.

“That’s purely an illusion. Last December, during the tree lighting ceremony, the town council spent a lot of time arguing over whether the velvet ribbon on the garland should be crimson or dark cherry.” Maggie swallowed, her throat feeling a little parched as she leaned in and cupped a hand beside her face to fake-whisper to Ben. “I sat in that back committee room for an hour, contemplating whether I could slip out the cellar window without anyone noticing.”

Ben stared at her for a second, his dark brows lifting in mild disbelief. Then, without warning, a deep, rumbling sound broke from his chest. It started as a low chuckle, expanding into a rich, spontaneous laugh that filled the crisp winter air between them. The sound was so warm, genuine, and completely unreserved, transforming his stern, guarded features in a single, breathless second.

Maggie smiled without thought, her heart leaping at the addicting sound. Ben Foster had carried himself like a man under a heavy wooden beam. Seeing his eyes crinkle at the corners and hearing the sheer, unburdened warmth of his voice was like watching a sudden beam of sunlight break through a dense winter fog.