PROLOGUE
**CALEB**
Dear Christmas,
I despise you.
Harsh? Maybe.
But why must your snappy anthems and heartwarming magical stories about family and togetherness follow me around?
Why are there twinkling lights, shiny baubles, and joyous children everywhere I look?
Why must we spend hours standing in the frigid cold to watch one single tree be lit up by a town mayor? We all know what a tree looks like with lights on it at this point—there’re over a dozen scattered along the white picket fences lining Main Street.
And most importantly, why must your devoted admirers—in their ugly Christmas sweaters with their fresh-from-the-oven, poorly decorated gingerbread men—follow me around town asking who I’ll be kissing under the mistletoe this year?
The answer is no one.
NO ONE!
That ship sailed many years ago, when I messed up the one good thing in my life. So, if anyone is listening, if anyone wants to offer some temporary relief from this cheerful and uplifting merriment, also known as my own personal purgatory, it would be most appreciated.
Sincerely,
Resting Scrooge Face
“Whatcha writing?” Arden asks as he steps into my hardware store.
My head snaps up to see the seventy-year-old mailman wearing a red-and-green-striped turtleneck under his bowling shirt.
Yeah, not even my closest of friends—despite the forty-year age difference—can stay away from the pressures of having a holly jolly time.
“Nothing,” I answer as I crumple up the letter and toss it in the trash. Why did I think writing out my disdain for the holiday season would be helpful? “Are you ready to go?”
He holds up his bowling bag and smiles. “Ready. But it seems as though you’re not. Where’s your bowling shirt?”
“In my truck. I’ll change when we get there.”
“It would look nicer if we showed up to bowling night already dressed. More intimidating.”
I heave a heavy sigh and place both my hands on my register counter. “Arden, I just suffered through two hours of helping curly-haired grandmas in festive yuletide vests asking me what Christmas lights I thought would look best wrapped around them for some sort of Christmas parade that’s going down at the senior living community this week. Excuse me if I just need a freaking second.”
“You know, ‘bah, humbug’ would have been less wordy.”
“Noted,” I answer. “Let me close out the register, and then I’ll drive your wrinkled ass over to Port Snow.”
As I pull my till and start to move it to the back office, he calls out, “This boorish antijoy attitude you’ve been wearing recently—it doesn’t have anything to do with Nola Bisley coming back into town, does it?”
I pause, my back muscles tensing as my grip on the till grows tight. Does my piss-poor attitude—including my insane letter to Christmas—have anything to do with the one that got away, the woman who just so happened to move back to our small, wintery town in the heart of Maine?
Absolutely, it does.
Chapter One
**NOLA**
Look at these chesty-men ornaments,” Grandma Louise says as she paws through the many decorations displayed in the Forever Christmas shop.
We drove into Port Snow this morning to visit the Lobster Landing, a beloved tourist shop in our corner of the world, for their sale on peppermint fudge. Being huge fans of their fudge, we had to be first in line—well, Grandma Louise had to be first in line. And thanks to her cane, which is decorated like an actual candy cane for the holiday season, she knocked people out of the way and just played the grandma card—basically giving her the right to defy society’s standards of “keeping her cane to herself” without receiving any sort of retaliation.
I glance over in Grandma Louise’s direction and catch her running her index finger over the well-carved six-pack gracing a glass man ornament, a novelty the Forever Christmas shop carries every year. And every year, Grandma Louise marvels at them.
“Are you going to finally break down and buy one?” I ask.
“Don’t be absurd.” She sets the ornament back down. “Thirty-two dollars is outrageous for an ornament. Plus, I’m the kind of woman whose decorations consist of class and opulence. There is no room for such heathen Christmas decor in my living room.”
“What about your bedroom?” I ask, nudging her with my shoulder.
She smirks, the pink of her bright lipstick stretching along her lips. “Now, that is another story.” Together, we laugh, and she hooks her arm through mine. “What a beautiful sound, that laugh of yours. I don’t think I’ve heard it since you moved back here.”
“Haven’t had much to laugh about,” I answer.
And that’s the truth. After Chris kicked me out of our quaint apartment on the Upper East Side when we realized our future goals were different—spoiler alert: I wanted a family; he didn’t—I had nowhere to go. Out of options, I came back to my hometown of Bright Harbor, Maine. With a population of roughly eight hundred cheerful busybodies, Bright Harbor neighbors Port Snow, one of the most famous towns in the Northeast. Being back has had its challenges. For one, I’m living in my gutted childhood home and helping my parents renovate it. Currently on vacation in the Florida Keys, they’ve handed over the reins to me since they’ve moved into a smaller cottage right off the coast. I know I shouldn’t complain—and as a freelance designer, I can work from anywhere—but now that I’m back in town, I’m having to dodge and dive questions from everyone asking why I’m back in Bright Harbor while ignoring the holiday cheer that seems to surround me with every corner I turn. Grandma Louise is the only one I can’t avoid, because she won’t let me. But the worst of all, and I mean the absolute worst, is being in a constant state of panic that I’ll run into Caleb Butler, the unofficial heartthrob of Bright Harbor and the boy who broke my heart.
Grandma Louise pats my hand as I guide her out of the store and toward Main Street. “We will get you back to normal in no time. If anything, the Christmas spirit should liven you up.”
“I don’t know, Grandma,” I say as we navigate a crowd of shoppers getting in their last-minute purchases before the big day. “Not sure there’s much of the holiday that will cheer me up, more like remind me that I was dumped by a pompous city boy—who I thought was going to propose to me on the twenty-fourth.”
“Now where did you get an idea like that?”
“You,” I say. Grandma Louise is a romantic. “You called me up earlier this month and told me you had a dream that I was going to forever be bonded with the love of my life on Christmas Eve.”
“Yes, and that is to be loosely interpreted. I didn’t name names.”
I roll my eyes. “Want to go into Snow Roast and grab some hot chocolate?”
“Would it be a trip to Port Snow without Ruth’s heavenly hot chocolate?”
“It would not,” I say as we set off toward the coffee shop, just a few doors down, each shop window on the way displaying its version of Christmas. A bookstore has even made a tree out of old pages with tangled lights around it from stump to tip.
These shops are just a small glimpse of the community’s cheerful spirit. Known for its picturesque small-town feel, Port Snow is decked out in twinkle lights and green garlands, with holiday music pumping through speakers that are placed up and down Main Street, giving the coziest feel. It’s the kind of ambiance that should warm the soul of every person who strolls down the streets.