Chapter 1
The first snow of the season was falling like it couldn’t quite make up its mind.
Big, lazy flakes drifted down from a sky the color of wool, landing on Sunnie’s scarf, her eyelashes, and the corner of her display table, then melting away as if embarrassed to be seen. Not the kind of snow that committed to staying. Not yet. The kind that tested the air, tasted the ground, and waited to see if it would be welcomed.
Sunnie shifted her weight on the cold cobblestones and tugged her gloves off with her teeth, stuffing them into her coat pocket before they could get any ideas about disappearing on her. She’d already lost a pen that morning. And a receipt. Possibly her patience. The gloves were non-negotiable. With frozen hands, she wouldn’t be able to pull inventory.
The town square was already alive.
It wasn’t loud, not yet, but layered. Holiday music floated through the air from somewhere near the fountain, something old and cheerful that had probably been played through too many speakers and too many winters. Sunnie didn’t hear it as a song so much as a structure: tinny notes stitched beneath the murmur of voices, the scrape of boots against wood, the low mechanical thrum of a generator powering the lights strung overhead.
The smell of pine hit first, sharp and clean, followed by cinnamon and sugar drifting over from the bakery tent two rows down. There were always a massive assortment of home bakers at the craft fairs, but Sunnie never tired of their offerings. Someone nearby was brewing hot cider, and the steam curled into the cold air like it was proud of itself, rising and vanishing and rising again.
Christmas buying season had officially arrived.
Sunnie reached into the crate at her feet and lifted out the first stained glass panel. She set it on its stand with practiced precision, adjusting the angle until it held steady.
A chickadee.
Small. Round. Determined-looking, despite the cold. She’d chosen the glass months ago—soft whites shot through with gray, a black cap sharp enough to feel intentional, the eye just bright enough to catch the light without looking startled or cartoonish. Too much shine in the eye always ruined it. Made it feel fake.
She stepped back and tilted the stand, then tilted it again, just a fraction of an inch. The bird shifted subtly, but enough.
There.
The light was good this morning despite the snow clouds. Soft and low, filtered through clouds and strands of white lights zigzagging overhead. It slid across the glass and caught on the soldered edges, warming the colors, deepening the blues, making the whites glow like fresh snow that hadn’t been stepped on yet.
Her booth wasn’t big compared to other vendors, but it was tidy. Panels of native birds hung along the back wall—cardinals, herons, finches—arranged in a pattern that made sense to her, even if no one else would have been able to explain why. On the front table, winter scenes of the reservoir shimmered in quiet blues and silvers. The entire city revolved around this body of water. Her pieces showed frozen water. Bare trees. The kind of stillness locals swore was prettier than summer’s foamy promises.
They always said it felt like home.
Sunnie hoped it still did. She could use a little of that emotion powering their pocketbooks today.
“Morning, sunshine.”
The voice came from her left. Sunnie turned to see Mirabel setting up the soap display in the neighboring booth, her table already bursting with color—rows of handmade bars stacked neatly, labels boasting things like Peppermint Bark and Evergreen Woods. She wore a red knit hat and fingerless gloves, and somehow always smelled like whatever season she wanted to sell. At first, Sunnie had found the soap booth to be overwhelming, the strong scents stuffing themselves up her nose like intruders. Now, she was able to shove that scent into a compartment in her brain and move on.
“Morning,” Sunnie said. “You’re early.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Mirabel replied, straightening a sign that didn’t actually need straightening. “Too excited. Or too cold. Hard to say.”
Sunnie nodded. Both were plausible explanations and didn’t require further comment. Mirabel had been setting up beside her for over a year now. She knew the silence wasn’t malicious.
She adjusted a price tag on one of her panels, aligning it so the corners were even. The number written in her own handwriting stared back at her. She looked away.
She didn’t need a banner day. She wasn’t greedy. She just needed enough.
Enough to keep her car from officially deciding it was done with her.
Mirabel came and leaned over the table, her elbows nestled just between two hung stained glass panels.
“Oh yeah,” Mirabel said. “First snow? People lose their minds. They’ll buy anything if you wrap it in brown paper and call it festive. This is going to be a good day for us, sugar.”
“That’s good,” Sunnie said. “My car is hanging on by hope and a very loud noise every time I turn left.”
Mirabel winced sympathetically. “Still doing DoorDash with that clunker?”
“Unfortunately,” Sunnie said. “My relationship with it is…complicated.”
She didn’t elaborate. Choose an artist life, and you choose to do something else on the side. Mirabel watched her sister’s kids. The bread maker who only came on Saturdays worked part-time at the clinic. The math spoke for itself.
Snow crunched behind them, and Sunnie looked up just as Hank from Holloway Auto wandered down the row, hands stuffed into the pockets of his oil-stained jacket. He moved like a man who knew exactly how many things in town depended on him and didn’t feel the need to rush about it.
“Well,” Hank said, stopping in front of her booth. “If it isn’t my favorite starving artist.”
“That’s a bold claim,” Sunnie said. “You don’t even buy soap, so I know you’re never going to purchase from me.”
Mirabel laughed. Hank grinned, unoffended. They had known each other for years, and this was just the warm-up banter that Sunnie had perfected and scripted so many times that she could read it from the notecard image in her brain.
His eyes drifted over the glass, lingering on a winter cardinal perched on frosted branches. “That one’s new.”
“Made it last week,” Sunnie said. “You see that little wingtip there? I broke the frame three times until I discovered a stronger way to set it. YouTube was my friend that day.”
“Huh,” Hank murmured. “Looks expensive.”
“Well,” Mirabel said, “you should buy it and save Sunnie the trouble of trying to sell it.”
“Us mechanics got to eat, too.” His gaze slid back to her, sharper now. “Transmission’s still holding. Barely. I need to put the thing up on slats and see it for sure to check.”
Mirabel sighed, an outward reflection of Sunnie’s silent dismay. “You’re killing the mood, Hank.”
“I’m preserving the car’s dignity,” he countered. “I brought her by so you can DoorDash the next few days. If she breaks down, I’ll come pick her up for free, but I know you can’t go without a ride. You sell a couple of these today, we’ll keep her running a while longer.”
“A couple?” Sunnie echoed, because numbers mattered.
He tilted his head. “Two. Maybe three if Christmas magic shows up.” He tapped the cardinal piece’s wingtip. “Definitely this little expensive piece.”
“I appreciate you believing in me more than my bank account does.”
Mirabel smiled softly. “Your work’s good, Sunnie. Folks know that.”
“Knowing and buying are very different hobbies.”
Hank chuckled. “Well, I’m going to grab a cinnamon roll and coffee and get back to the shop. You ladies stay warm, now.” He moved on, boots crunching away through the what little snow had accumulated in patche.
The morning settled into motion.
Customers filtered in—bundled couples, parents with mittened children, people clutching coffee cups like lifelines. A bell jingled somewhere. Someone laughed. The bakery tent closest to her sent out another warm wave of cinnamon.
Sunnie answered questions the way she always did. Clean facts. No garnish.
Yes, it was real glass. Yes, it could go in a window. No, she didn’t do commissions right now. No, it wouldn’t fade. Yes, it was soldered by hand. Yes, it would look different in afternoon light.
Some people leaned in. Some people nodded politely and drifted away. Both outcomes were expected. She had been doing local craft fairs for almost a year now. Nothing surprised her.
She was mid-conversation with a woman debating between the cardinal and the chickadee when she saw someone from the corner of her eye who seemed different.
She finished wrapping the woman’s purchase, slid it gently across the table, and smiled as the woman thanked her and disappeared into the crowd.
That’s when she saw him.
He stood just beyond the edge of her booth, hands tucked into the pockets of a dark wool coat, snow dusting his shoulders like he hadn’t noticed it was landing there. He wasn’t doing the casual craft-fair shuffle—no polite nodding, no half-glances meant to signal interest without commitment.
He was looking at her pieces.
Really looking.
His gaze moved slowly across the glass, pausing on the landscape reservoir pieces longer than most people did. People tended to like the birds’ motion better. He leaned in slightly, as if trying to understand how the light changed the colors, how the solder lines guided the eye instead of interrupting it.
There was something careful about him. Something unhurried.
Sunnie pretended to straighten a display stand while tracking his position through peripheral vision.
Tall. Silver at the temples. The kind of face that had settled into itself, like it wasn’t trying to impress anyone anymore. He looked solid. Like the kind of man who read instructions all the way through before starting a project.
He was probably looking for a gift for his wife. No wonder he was so careful. Here was a man who thought before he acted, a virtue of his age, no doubt.
He never picked anything up.
Never asked a question.
After a few minutes, he nodded once—almost to himself—then turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Huh.
Sunnie logged the moment where it belonged: interesting, but unresolved. She had expected him to buy something.
The afternoon passed in a blur of patron chatter, laughter, and the steady clink of glass as pieces were lifted, admired, and—blessedly—purchased. Mirabel sold out of peppermint soap before two. The bakery tent ran out of cinnamon rolls shortly after. Sunnie’s fingers ached from the cold, but her crate was noticeably lighter by the time the sun dipped low enough to turn the snow faintly pink. Still, there were boxes and boxes left.
She packed up just after four, the square beginning to glow with Christmas displays. Her breath puffed white as she hauled the last crate to her car, which sat at the edge of the lot like it was pretending not to see her.
“Okay,” she murmured, unlocking the door. “Let’s just behave.”
The engine turned over once.
Twice.
Then made a sound that felt deeply personal.
“No,” Sunnie said softly. “We talked about this.”
The car shuddered, coughed, and went silent.
She stared at the dashboard, hands resting uselessly on the steering wheel. Errant snowflakes drifted past the windshield, catching in the glow of the parking-lot lights. Somewhere behind her, someone laughed. A door slammed. Life continued as other vendors packed up their own wares.
Sunnie exhaled and leaned her forehead against the wheel.
“Cool,” she whispered. “This is great.”
She was halfway through evaluating whether DoorDash counted as a toxic relationship when a shadow fell across her window.
