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Layla watched the exchange, and felt an unexpected pang in her chest. There was such easy affection between them, such obvious love and joy. It was the kind of scene she would normally dismiss as saccharine, but watching Mabel hold her great-grandson, watching Vanessa’s tired but happy face as she looked at them, Layla found herself feeling genuinely touched.

They weren’t performing for her, she thought. It was real. This was a family living close together, enjoying the season together, finding joy in a baby’s Christmas sweater. It was simple, but there was something sweet and nostalgic about that simplicity, something that made Layla’s usual certainty about what mattered and what didn’t feel suddenly less solid.

“The family needs to stop giving Philip his Christmas gifts early,” Vanessa said, although her tone was more amused than reproachful. “At this rate, he won’t have anything left to open on Christmas morning.”

Mabel adjusted Philip in her arms, making faces at him that caused the baby to gurgle happily. “Oh, you have no right to point fingers, young lady. I know for a fact that you and Jackson haven’t been able to resist giving him gifts early either. I saw that new stuffed bear in his crib last week, the one that wasn’t there before.”

Vanessa’s cheeks flushed slightly, and she laughed. “Okay, that’s true. You caught us.” She moved closer to her grandmother and son, reaching out to smooth down a tuft of Philip’s hair. “I just can’t help it. This is his first Christmas, and I want him to experience everything. I know he won’t remember it, but I will. And I want these months to be full of magic and joy and all those things that make the holidays special. I’ve hardly been able to step away from him, but I haven’t minded it a bit. I’ve been loving every second. Although—” she laughed. “Jackson is going to watch him for a bit tonight. I need to do some shopping. There’s just a few extra trimmings I want to put on the house. Some special ornaments I saw at the market, maybe some more lights for the porch. I want to make sure we have all the Christmas spirit this year—although maybe not as over-the-top as the first year we were in the house,” she added with a chuckle.

Mabel looked at Layla with a knowing expression. “Vanessa was rather resistant to the Christmas spirit when she first arrived in town. But it won her over, didn’t it, dear?” She smiled brightly at her granddaughter. “You just couldn’t bring yourself to leave.”

“Well, Jackson had something to do with that too,” Vanessa said with a laugh. “But the town did win me over too. It all seemed overwhelming at first, but there’s just something about celebrating here. It’s not like anywhere else.”

“That’s very nice,” Layla said automatically, scribbling in her notebook. She wouldn’t be there long enough for that to happen to her, she thought privately. She’d be as polite as she possibly could, but in three days, she was going to head back to Portland, back to her real life and her important work. Whatever spell Fir Tree Grove cast on people who stayed, it wouldn’t have time to affect her.

She looked up from her notebook, studying Mabel’s face as the older woman continued to hold her great-grandson, bouncing him in her arms. “Do you ever want to spend Christmas somewhere more exciting? Portland has amazing holiday events, or you could go to New York, see the Rockefeller Center tree, experience Christmas in a place where things are actually happening.”

Mabel considered the question for a moment. “No,” she said simply. “I can’t say I’ve ever wanted that.” She paused, then added with a small laugh, “Although I have always wanted to go to Florida someday. See the ocean, feel some warmth in the middle of winter. That’s on my bucket list.”

She looked down at Philip, then back at Layla. “But that’s just a wish, something to think about sometimes after all the holiday excitement, when it’s just cold and dreary. I wouldn’t trade a Fir Tree Grove Christmas for anything. Not for all the excitement in the world.”

Layla wrote that down, thinking it might be a nice quote for her article, a heartwarming sentiment that readers would eat up. But even as she scribbled on her pad, she didn’t really understand it. She couldn’t imagine feeling that way about any place so small and claustrophobic, not when there were so many things and traditions to see in the world. She’d rather have done an article about worldwide Christmas traditions than small-town kitsch.

All she could think about was returning to Portland. Getting this article filed, then moving on to her next assignment. That was where she belonged, in a city that moved and changed and demanded her full attention, not in a place where time seemed to slow down and people measured their days in family dinners and Christmas tree lightings and early Christmas presents for babies who wouldn’t even remember them.

But still, as she thanked Mabel for her time and headed back out into the snowy afternoon with her notebook full of quotes, Layla couldn’t quite shake the image of Mabel’s face when she’d said she wouldn’t trade a Fir Tree Grove Christmas for anything.

It was snowing again when she stepped outside, more persistently now. Layla pulled her coat tighter and headed toward her next interview, her mind already organizing her notes into the structure of an article.

Three days, she reminded herself. Just three days, and she’d be gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The wind hit Vanessa the moment she opened the car door, a sharp gust that sent the snow on the ground swirling up in thick drifts around her legs. She grabbed the shopping bags from the back seat—four of them, all stuffed full—and tried to juggle them while closing the door with her hip. The wind immediately caught one of the bags, threatening to rip it from her grasp, and she had to clamp down hard on the handles to keep from losing her purchases to the sudden gale that had sprung up.

“I should have parked closer to the door,” she muttered to herself, leaning into the wind as she made her way up the walkway toward the house, lighted candy canes flanking it on either side. Snow stung her cheeks, and her ponytail whipped around her face. She could see the warm glow of lights through the windows of their gorgeous old Victorian home, and the Christmas tree twinkling through the large window in the living room. The porch was wrapped with garlands and tartan bows, and white lights dripped like icicles from the trim around the roof of the house. They’d had Henry Cline out just last week to do the lights, just like they did every year now.

The front door opened before she could reach it, and Jackson appeared in the doorway, his tall frame silhouetted against the light from inside. He was wearing the gingerbread-brown and red flannel shirt she loved that brought out his eyes, and his dark hair was slightly mussed as if he’d been running his hands through it—or maybe as if the baby had, she thought with a laugh despite her struggle against the wind.

“Need some help there?” he called out, already stepping onto the porch in his socks, not bothering with shoes.

“Jackson, you’ll freeze!” Vanessa shouted back over the wind, but she was laughing even as she said it, relief flooding through her as he took three of the bags from her hands and turned back toward the house.

They stumbled inside together, the wind nearly slamming the door shut behind them before Jackson caught it and pushed it closed with his shoulder. For a moment, they just stood there in the entryway, breathing hard and grinning at each other like they’d just survived some great adventure instead of just a walk from the car to the house.

“That wind is something else,” Jackson said, setting the bags down on the floor and brushing snow from his hair. “If a little freshly falling snow were added to that wind, we’d have quite the storm going.”

Vanessa set down her own bag and unwound her scarf from around her neck, nodding in agreement. “I know. I hope it doesn’t get worse. The roads were already getting slippery on my way home.”

She glanced at her watch, realizing that it was later than she’d intended to get back home. “I’m sorry I’m late. I couldn’t help but get a bit carried away in the shops. You know how it is—I went in for a few ornaments and somehow came out with half the store.”

Jackson smiled warmly, making her heart skip a beat like it always did, even after two years of marriage and a baby. “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you had a good time. You needed an evening out.”

He moved past her toward the living room, and Vanessa followed, pulling off her coat. The house was warm and smelled like the pot roast she’d put in the crockpot earlier and warm apple cider, and she could hear the soft hum of Christmas music playing from the speaker in the kitchen. The Christmas tree in the corner of the living room was lit up, casting a twinkling, festive glow across the room, and she noticed that Jackson had built a fire in the fireplace. It was a picture-perfect winter night.

“Where’s Philip?” she asked, peering around as if her nearly-one-year-old son might be hiding somewhere.

“Fast asleep,” Jackson said, his voice softening and his eyes twinkling with amusement. “His grandpa took him on a sleigh ride through town this afternoon. George hitched up the horses and everything, took him all through the historic district. Philip loved it—was making all these little excited sounds the whole time, at least according to George. But it wore him completely out. He was down by seven and hasn’t stirred since.”