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Layla doubted that very much, but she nodded anyway, trying desperately to hide the spiraling pit of despair in her stomach. “When do you need me to leave?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Kirkland said. “I’ll have Sarah reassign your other projects. Just focus on Fir Tree Grove. I want at least three thousand words, maybe more if the story warrants it. Photos, interviews, the whole package. Make it something special.”
He left before she could respond, his footsteps fading away. Layla sat in silence for a moment, staring at her laptop screen and the schedule that was now completely irrelevant. She felt a wave of frustration wash over her, followed quickly by resignation. This was the job. Sometimes you got the assignments you wanted, and sometimes you got sent to a small town to write about Christmas lights.
The salmon salad she’d been so excited about was no longer as appetizing. She ate it anyway, chewing mechanically while she pulled up information about Fir Tree Grove on her laptop. The town’s website was frustratingly outdated, with a homepage that featured a photo of the main street decorated for Christmas and a welcome message from the mayor. There was a section about local businesses, another about community events, and a page dedicated to the town’s history.
Layla clicked through the pages, taking notes and trying to find an angle that would make this story interesting. Small-town Christmas charm was fine, but it had been done a thousand times before. She needed something unique, something that would justify Kirkland’s decision to pull her off her other assignments and send her two hours north to a place she’d never heard of.
She found a few mentions of Fir Tree Grove in travel blogs and regional magazines, most of them praising the town’s festive atmosphere and friendly residents. One article mentioned that the town had won some kind of award for its holiday decorations a few years back, and another talked about a local tradition involving a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the town square. It was all very wholesome and picturesque, exactly the kind of thing that Layla found cloying and cringy. She didn’t like Hallmark movies and small-town romance novels. The entire place looked claustrophobic and banal, and the thought of living in a place where it was not only acceptable but encouraged for everyone else to know and have an opinion on your personal business made her skin crawl.
But she was a professional, and she would approach this assignment with the same dedication and attention to detail that she brought to all her work, she thought resignedly. If Kirkland wanted a feature on Fir Tree Grove, she would give him the best feature on Fir Tree Grove that anyone had ever written. She would find the interesting stories, talk to the right people, and craft something that would make readers want to visit this town for themselves.
Even if she personally couldn’t understand why anyone would choose a small town over the sophistication and culture of a city like Portland.
She spent the rest of the afternoon researching and making a list of people she wanted to interview. The mayor, obviously, and whoever was in charge of organizing the town’s Christmas decorations. Local business owners, particularly those who ran shops or restaurants that catered to tourists. Maybe a few longtime residents who could talk about the town’s history and traditions. She’d need to find a place to stay, preferably somewhere with local character rather than a chain hotel, so that she could write about that as well.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, Layla had a solid plan in place. She’d leave early tomorrow morning, spend Thursday and Friday in Fir Tree Grove conducting interviews and taking photos, and return to Portland on Saturday to write the article. It would be tight, but she could make it work. She always made it work.
She pushed aside her disappointment with the same fortitude that she’d used in all her early years when she didn’t get the assignments she wanted, and packed up her laptop before pulling on her coat and scarf. The newsroom had emptied out considerably, with only a few reporters still hunched over their keyboards, chasing deadlines or following breaking news. Layla said goodnight to the ones she passed on her way to the elevator, her mind already shifting to the logistics of the trip.
As she stepped out into the cold December evening, she looked out at the glittering lights of the city, already missing her usual routine before she’d even stepped away from it for a few days. This was where she belonged, in the heart of the action, writing about the things that mattered to people who lived sophisticated, cultured lives. She wasn’t the right person to do a feature on Fir Tree Grove at all, no matter what Kirkland thought.
She would do the assignment to the best of her ability, because that was who she was. But she couldn’t help feeling that a story on a small town’s Christmas decorations wasn’t worth her time, and wasn’t the kind of journalism she’d worked so hard to be able to do. It felt like a step backward.
Still, she told herself as she walked toward the parking garage, it was only three days. She could handle three days in a small town. She’d write the article, make Kirkland happy, and then get back to the work that really mattered.
How charming could one little town possibly be?
CHAPTER TWO
The fire crackled and popped as Christopher Holcomb added another split log to the stone fireplace, watching as sparks danced upward into the chimney. He used the poker to adjust the arrangement, making sure the flames had enough air to breathe but were contained enough to burn slowly through the evening.
The fireplace was the heart of Hearthside Cottage’s common room, and he’d learned over the years exactly how to tend it so that guests would always have a warm, crackling fire for as long as they were still coming in and out for the evening. He made an effort to keep it going all day, so that the room was always warm and welcoming as new guests checked in and existing ones stopped by to warm themselves from the cold after exploring or shopping.
He stood back, brushing his hands on his jeans, and took in the room with the practiced eye of someone who’d been running the bed and breakfast for the better part of ten years. The Christmas tree stood in the corner by the bay window, a seven-foot Fraser fir that he’d gotten from George Lowery’s Christmas tree farm just a week ago. It was decorated with a combination of vintage glass ornaments that had been collected over decades and handmade decorations that guests had contributed over the years—felt stars, cinnamon stick bundles, dried orange slices strung on twine, painted ornament balls, and plenty of others that gave it a festive, old-fashioned feel. White lights were woven through the branches, casting a warm glow that reflected off the ornaments and made the whole tree seem to shimmer.
Garlands of fresh pine and holly draped across the mantel, tied with deep red velvet ribbon that his late wife, Shelby had always insisted was the best color for Christmas decorations. More garlands wound up the staircase banister outside the room, interspersed with tiny white lights and clusters of pinecones that he’d collected from the property. The scent of pine filled the air, mixing with the woodsmoke from the fireplace and the sweet smell of gingerbread that lingered from the afternoon’s baking.
Christopher walked over to the sideboard where he’d arranged the evening’s refreshments for guests. Three plates of gingerbread cookies sat under glass domes—some cut into traditional gingerbread men with raisin buttons and icing smiles, others shaped like stars and Christmas trees and dusted with coarse sugar that caught the light. He’d made them using Shelby’s recipe, the one she’d perfected over years of trial and error until she’d gotten the spices balanced just right, the texture crisp at the edges and slightly chewy in the center.
Next to the cookies, he’d set up what guests had started calling the hot chocolate bar, although there was more than just that. There were three thermal carafes, one with regular milk, one with oat milk for the lactose-intolerant guests, and one with hot water for anyone who preferred tea. A basket held an assortment of tea bags, everything from English breakfast to chamomile to peppermint. But the real star of the setup was the chocolate powder from Artisan Chocolates, Imogen Blackwell’s shop on Main Street.
Imogen had been making small-batch artisan chocolates in Fir Tree Grove for years now, and her hot chocolate powder was legendary among locals and regular visitors alike. She made it from scratch, grinding cacao nibs and blending them with organic cane sugar and a touch of vanilla bean and sea salt. It was sold at every place in Fir Tree Grove that sold hot chocolate now, from the bookstore to the coffee shop to her husband, Lincoln Blackwell’s ice skating rink. Christopher bought it by the pound, storing it in glass jars that he kept on the sideboard with little scoops and handwritten instructions for the perfect cup. Next to the jars were bowls of toppings—mini marshmallows, whipped cream, cinnamon sticks, chocolate shavings, and crushed peppermint candy.
He adjusted one of the jars slightly, making sure the label faced outward, and then stepped back again. He was pleased with all of it—the decorations, the refreshments, the overall festive, warm, welcoming atmosphere that he always tried to provide. It looked like the kind of place where people would want to spend time, curled up in one of the armchairs with a book and a mug of cocoa, watching the fire and listening to the soft Christmas music that played from the speaker system he’d installed a few years back.
Christopher moved to the bay window and looked out at the early evening. Snow was falling, soft and steady, and he knew there would be quite a bit of it by the morning. The front yard of Hearthside Cottage was already blanketed in white, the path he’d shoveled that afternoon starting to disappear again under fresh powder. The lights he’d strung along the porch railing glowed through the snow, creating halos of golden light that seemed almost magical in the gathering darkness.
Main Street was visible from where he stood, just a few blocks away, and he could see the Christmas lights that lined the street, the decorated storefronts beginning to take shape as the owners and Henry, the town electrician, worked through the weeks up to Christmas to get them up and glowing. Fir Tree Grove looked like something out of a storybook in December, especially on nights like this when the snow was falling and the lights were twinkling and one could almost imagine that the world beyond the town limits didn’t exist.
As he stood there watching the snow, Christopher felt a familiar, bittersweet ache settle in his chest. It happened every year around this time, a mixture of nostalgia and sorrow that he’d learned to carry with him through the holiday season. Christmas had been Shelby’s favorite time of year. She’d loved everything about it—the decorating, the baking, the caroling at the town square, the way the whole community came together to celebrate. She’d thrown herself into it with an infectious enthusiasm, making everyone around her feel like they were part of something special.
The first Christmas without her had been almost unbearable. She’d died in August of that year, the cancer that had come on so suddenly taking her just as fast, barely giving them time to process what was happening before she was gone. By the time December rolled around, Christopher had been moving through his days in a fog of grief, going through the motions of running the B&B because he didn’t know what else to do with himself.
He’d considered not decorating that year, not putting up the tree or the garlands or any of it. It had felt wrong somehow, to celebrate when Shelby wasn’t there to celebrate with him. But it had also felt wrong to leave it bare and cold, to shut the place down just because he didn’t know how to deal with the festive cheer of guests or be a welcoming host during that time.
Shelby had loved Christmas and the bed and breakfast they’d started together so much. He knew she’d be crushed to see it lightless and empty, and the thought of making her unhappy, even after she was gone, had been more than he could bear. He’d forced himself to go through the motions. He’d put up the tree, strung the lights, made the gingerbread cookies. And somewhere in the process of doing those things, he’d found that they brought him a strange kind of comfort. Not happiness, exactly, not that first year. But a sense of connection to Shelby, a feeling that she was still present in some way through the traditions they’d built together.
