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Her grandmother looked down at the necklace, then laughed. “Oh, this? George got it for me. He knows I’ve always dreamt of spending Christmas in Florida. You know, warm beaches, sunshine, no snow to shovel.” She glanced toward the window. “Looking at this weather, I have to say, Florida sounds even more appealing than usual.”

Vanessa followed her gaze to the window, where snow was now piled nearly halfway up the glass. The temperature had to be well below freezing, and the forecast called for the storm to continue through the night.

“I can’t say I blame you,” Vanessa admitted, although she couldn’t deny the winter scene outside was beautiful in its own way. Yes, it was cold, and inconvenient, and they were trapped in town with no way out. But there was something magical about it too, the way the snow transformed everything into a winter wonderland.

This was her life now. This was her home. And she wouldn’t trade it for all the sunny beaches in Florida.

She stood, collecting their empty plates. “We’d better get back to work. That soup won’t make itself, and there are a lot of people counting on us.”

“That’s my girl,” Mabel said approvingly, sliding out of the booth with surprising grace for someone who’d just claimed to be feeling her age. “Let’s show this storm what we’re made of.”

They carried their dishes to the kitchen, where Jackson was still monitoring the soup. He looked up as they approached, his expression softening when he saw them.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Much,” Vanessa confirmed, setting the plates in the dish bin. “Thank you for the pie. And for making us take a break.”

Then they were back to work, falling into the rhythm they’d established over the past few hours. Vanessa returned to her chopping station, where a fresh pile of vegetables awaited her attention. Mabel resumed her position at the adjacent counter, now working on dicing potatoes. Jackson moved between the stove and the prep areas, checking that everything was running smoothly.

Vanessa looked at Jackson across the kitchen, smiling at him as he smiled back. She felt her heart swell with affection.

She wondered what sort of plan Mabel had in mind. What grand gesture could possibly convince Jackson that she was truly, completely, irrevocably happy in Fir Tree Grove? What could show him that she’d found everything she’d been searching for in this small town?

Whatever it was, she trusted her grandmother.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The morning light filtered through the frost-etched windows of the B&B’s front room, casting patterns across the hardwood floor. Layla sat curled in the oversized armchair near the largest window, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, her hands cupped around a mug of coffee that had long since gone lukewarm. She should have refilled it—the carafe was still hot in the kitchen—but she couldn’t quite bring herself to move, not when she was so comfortable.

The world outside had been transformed. Snow blanketed everything in sight, softening the edges of the town, muting all the colors into whites and greens and browns. The street in front of the B&B was still unplowed, marked only by a single set of tire tracks from Christopher’s truck.. It was beautiful, like a snow globe scene come to life.

She finally had a cell signal, and she needed to make a call to her mother. It wasn’t that she was dreading it, exactly, but she had the feeling that somehow she was going to be left feeling as if it was her fault she’d gotten stuck there. And, underneath that, there was the lingering feeling that she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted a solution to her situation just yet. As long as she was snowed in, she didn’t have to face the fact that she was either going to have to go home, or do something completely out of character on a whim.

Layla took another sip of the lukewarm coffee, grimacing slightly at the temperature but drinking it anyway. The caffeine was more psychological at this point. She glanced at her phone—she couldn’t put it off any longer.

She picked up her phone and pulled up her mother’s number. Her thumb hovered over the call button for just a moment before she pressed it, listening to the ringing with a feeling of mounting dread that felt disproportionate to talking to her mother, who she had a fairly good relationship with.

Her mother answered on the third ring.

“Layla? Finally! I’ve been worried sick. Your father and I have been trying to reach you since yesterday evening.”

“Hi, Mom.” Layla shifted in the chair, pulling the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, the cell service has been really unreliable. The storm knocked out a lot of the infrastructure here.”

“Storm?” Mary’s voice sharpened with alarm. “What storm? Where are you?”

“I’m still in Fir Tree Grove. That little town in Maine I told you about? The one where I was doing the feature story?” Layla watched a cardinal land on the snow-covered railing of the front porch, a brilliant splash of red against all that white. “We got hit with a pretty significant snowstorm.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “You’re snowed in?” Mary’s tone had shifted from worried to something that sounded close to horror. “In a small town? Layla, for how long?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Layla kept her voice even and reasonable, the way she always did when she could feel a conversation starting to go in an uncomfortable direction. “The roads are impassable right now. They’re working on clearing the main routes, but it could be a few days before it’s safe to travel.”

“A few days?” Now Mary’s voice had risen half an octave, taking on that sound that Layla knew meant she was catastrophizing. “That’s just unacceptable. We have a Christmas dinner out planned Wednesday night; we were supposed to meet you in Portland. And what about your apartment? Have you arranged for someone to water your plants? And your mail⁠—”

“Mom.” Layla closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips against her temple where a headache was beginning to form. “I can’t control the weather. The roads are literally impassable. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t.”

“Well, surely there must be something they can do. Can’t they send a plow? Or—I don’t know—can’t you hire someone with one of those big trucks to drive you out? There has to be a way. You can’t just be stuck there.”

The way her mother said “stuck” made it sound like Layla had been imprisoned, like Fir Tree Grove was some kind of punishment rather than simply a place where she happened to be when the weather turned. Layla felt her chest tighten with frustration.