His frown is deep, bordering on a scowl. “What check?”

“Remember? Liz sold the octopus a few weeks ago. I told you about it.” The elaborate wood carving—one of countless Roy has carved over the years of living his best hermit life—was the last one on consignment at the Anchorage art shop. It fetched a mint, too. The owner is already asking me for more pieces.

His frown somehow grows deeper, his steel-gray eyes drifting over the plastic bag dangling from my fingertips. An extra loaf of banana bread I made during my baking frenzy. “Right.”

“The woman who bought it is looking for a dolphin sculpture. She asked if you’d consider carving one for her. I guess she has a thing for marine animals? Anyway, she offered to pay half down in a deposit.”

I expect Roy’s usual refusal, his bark of “I don’t do custom!” But he shakes his head and says, “I can’t remember what’s on the shelf. I might have one already. I’ll take a look later.”

It’s my turn to frown. “You feeling all right?”

“Yeah. Fine. Why?”

“You seem … distracted.”

“Just busy,” he mutters, rubbing his brow before looking at his soiled hands and then at the clutter of tools and dust, as if searching for something.

“Okay. Well, I’ll leave the check on your counter. I’m heading into town for some last-minute groceries. You need me to pick anything up for you while I’m there?”

“No. Thank you.”

Roy uses that word sparingly and always as an afterthought, as if he has to prompt himself to remember his manners. He’s definitely off today.

I’m at the door when I decide to give it another shot. “You sure you don’t want to come to Christmas—”

“No.”

It’s not the first time I’ve invited Roy to Christmas Day dinner over the last few weeks. The answer is always the same. I don’t let that deter me. “We have plenty of room and food. And a huge turkey. I told Jonah twenty pounds, tops, and he went and ordered a twenty-five pounder. And you’d get to see us try out that table you built.” A true piece of live-edge art that competes with the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace as the focal point of our main floor.

Roy rifles through his toolbox but doesn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular. “I’m good here.”

“Alone?”

“I’m not alone. I’ve got the goats and the chickens, and the hounds. They’re all the company I need.” He pauses in his tinkering to cast a cutting look my way. “At least they won’t talk my ear off.”

I make sure he sees me rolling my eyes. “Suit yourself.”

“Don’t let the cold in behind you!”

I use all my strength to pull the barn door closed, hoping it’ll shut with a bang, but the door isn’t built for theatrics and it glides smoothly into place. I settle for stomping up the porch steps, pausing only long enough to fish out the miniature potted Christmas tree from my Jeep.

There was a time when Roy didn’t allow anyone inside his rustic one-bedroom cabin. While he’s still guarded, he no longer flinches at me coming in and out as I please, delivering food and perusing the wooden carvings that line the beautiful custom bookshelves.

I set the loaf of banana bread next to his stove and prop the check next to the can of beef stew he’s set out for that night’s meal. At least I know he won’t miss it that way. With that done, I search for the ideal spot to set the tree. The old trunk by the window, next to the framed picture of Roy’s daughter and ex-wife, seems the most ideal. I plug in the strand of white twinkle lights and then step back to admire it. I doubt this place has seen any festive joy since Roy moved here from Texas, thirty-three years ago.

Hopefully he doesn’t toss it out.

A Christmas card on the kitchen table catches my eye, next to a small pile of unopened bills. My curiosity over who might send the curmudgeon holiday greetings gets the better of me. With a quick glance out the window to ensure Roy isn’t on his way in, I peek inside.

My heart skips a beat at the flowery signature on the bottom.

Delyla.

His estranged daughter sent him a Christmas card? Roy told me, on one of the rare occasions he’s ever mentioned his family, that they weren’t on speaking terms. Was he lying? How often does Delyla send him a Christmas card? Does she do it every year?

A picture and a note lay atop the torn-open mailing envelope. I check the picture first. It’s of a stunning blonde, perhaps in her thirties, dressed in black jeans and a white cable-knit sweater. Her arms are wrapped around two young children, a boy and girl, each in matching black pants and white sweaters. All three are wearing festive red cowboy hats to mark the family holiday photograph. They look the part of a perfect, happy family, though I don’t miss the absence of a husband or father figure.

With another glance at the barn door, I unfold the handwritten note.

Chapter Two

“She wants a relationship with him, Simon. Why else would she have contacted him? Why would she send pictures of his grandchildren to him?”

“I’m not suggesting she doesn’t have good intentions.” Simon’s words, delivered in his smooth, Hugh Grant–esque British lilt, sound distant on the speakerphone as he putters around the kitchen. The clang of metal against porcelain tells me he’s fixing himself a chamomile tea to help him sleep. The man is as predictable as Bandit around an unattended plate of food. “Roy may be a curiosity to her more than anything else. Or maybe there’s a need for closure that’s been lingering all these years. Losing a parent tends to prod us into actions we might not have planned on taking.”

I sped-read through two pages of floral handwriting, afraid to get caught invading Roy’s privacy. I quickly confirmed that Roy’s ex-wife, Nicole, passed away from breast cancer four months ago; Delyla found her father’s address while cleaning out her mother’s filing cabinet and this is the first time she’s ever reached out to him.

The letter seemed cordial enough—an introductory note between two strangers, a “Dear Roy”—and yet between the lines, I sensed hours, if not days, of personal toil in choosing her words as she updated her father on the past thirty-three years of her life.

Delyla divorced three years ago after almost ten years of marriage to her high school sweetheart. Her mother, a widow after thirty happy years with a man named Jim, was complaining about being lonely, so Delyla and her children—outgoing, football-loving, seven-year-old Gavin and reserved nine-year-old artist Lauren—moved back into Delyla’s childhood home. They’re still there, in the same town outside Dallas where Roy and Nicole once lived together.

The kids don’t see much of their father, who has already remarried, with one child and another on the way. All that in just three years? That makes me think that relationship started long before the ink dried on the divorce papers, but there’s no hint of animosity hidden in Delyla’s explanation to suggest an affair.

Delyla didn’t ask any questions of Roy. No “Why?” or “Do you ever think about me?” No “What have you been doing for the past three decades?”