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Anita absently smiles as she checks the oven. “That doesn’t sound like my daughter.”
“Your daughter who turns into an unprofessional train wreck of a human being in his presence.”
“Now that definitely does not sound like you.” Tiny crow’s-feet crinkle the corners of Anita’s eyes. “You behaved rashly, but your heart was in the right place and no harm was done. Do you think you’re putting too much pressure on yourself? It’s just a house. Aren’t you always telling me that half the time when shooting on location doesn’t work out, they re-create the interior sets in a studio?”
“Except the nostalgia of Piney Peaks is the whole reason they’re filming here, Mom. A set definitely won’t cut it.” Elisha sighs. “I have a short list of other homes ready to email first thing Monday, but it’s a long shot. The whole town and Damian, the director, are counting on me coming through with the Christmas House.”
Hearts are set on it. And not just because of Elisha’s promises to make it happen. The right location can improve a production tenfold. It’s as important as good casting and a killer script. Using the Christmas House for the Sleighbells under Starlight fiftieth-anniversary sequel practically sells itself. From the opening scene of the first movie—snowflakes dreamily falling against the dark-green shingles—the cozy, charming mood is set. With every watch, that shot captures a feeling so intangible inside Elisha that the English language has no word to convey it: the exquisite yearning of remaking a heart over and over again.
When Elisha had told Maeve about the director’s interest in using the house for outdoor shooting, the older woman’s eyes had brimmed with emotion. It had still belonged to her father, Doc Hollins, when the first movie was made. She’d been a young woman then, and pretty enough to get plucked out of the extras and bestowed with a couple of lines, more than any of the other locals. When she shared anecdotes about life on set, blue eyes sparkling and bright, Elisha could swear time rewound the years Maeve wore.
“If I hadn’t made such a shitty first impression, I would have his permission locked down by now,” she says glumly. “But he doesn’t have to be such a Christmas Curmudgeon about it!”
Anita’s lips twitch into what could either be a smile or a reprimand. “I imagine,” she says gently, “that the poor boy has enough to deal with. If you want to make amends, perhaps what he could really use right now is a friend?”
Elisha mulls it over. She did tell Solana that she could win Ves over with neighborliness, and it’s way too early to give up. Plus, he seems like the kind of guy who gets grumpy without his morning coffee, and Maeve detested the stuff. She doubts there’s anything good in the house. “Could I bring him breakfast?” she asks. “And maybe, like, a welcome-slash-apology-slash-please-don’t-hate-me package?”
“That’s a wonderful gesture. How do you think he takes his coffee?”
“Black like his soul?” Elisha jokes.
Anita fixes her with a capital-L Look. “A breakfast basket is a good idea, but it won’t work miracles.”
“Point taken. Um, I remember he had a latte last night... can we do a gingerbread one?”
“Of course.” Anita hums. “While you’re at it, maybe drop off Maeve’s cats?” At Elisha’s guilty flush, Anita adds, “I know they’re cute, but we can’t hold on to them forever.”
“Couldn’t we, though?”
“Don’t use that wheedling tone on me, young lady,” Anita says with a laugh.
“Maybe one surprise visitor this morning is enough. Gotta work my way up to ‘By the way, surprise! You’re a cat dad!’ Ves doesn’t, uh, strike me as the kind of guy who’s good with surprises.”
It’s at that exact moment that her father, Jamie Rowe, wanders over. His apron is dusty with flour and there’s a powdery streak on his blond stubble that Anita brushes away before kissing his jaw.
“Surprises always go over better if you bring treats. If you feed him this bebinca, he’ll fall in love with you just like I did with your mom,” Jamie says with a grin, wrapping his arm around Anita’s waist.
“Dad!” Elisha yelps. “This isn’t a seduction package. I swear, I have no ulterior motives. Just want to make a better third impression than I did a first one. Or, you know, a second one. Trust me, yesterday was comically bad. The bad of biblical proportions. Burning-the-bebinca bad.”
His lips quirk. “Then you better make it a generous piece, because it sure has a lot of ground to cover.”
She takes his advice because, in all honesty, bebinca is pretty magical, and when it comes to food, Dad is never wrong. And it’s always been there for her, through bad boyfriends and broken hearts and everything in between.
Her first taste of the rich, sweet dessert had been in her grandparents’ villa in Goa, all her cousins clustered around her. In the same kitchen where Anita learned to make it, overlooking the same sandy stretch of beach lined with tall and green coconut palms swaying in the breeze.
And every year—in those sacred two weeks after New Year’s, when the Chocolate Mouse goes on holiday and Piney Peaks is buried under snow—Elisha’s family returns to the yellow house with the mother-of-pearl windows and iconic blue-and-white azulejo tiles. She wakes early to swim in the ocean while jewel-colored birds chatter in the ancient trees, returning in time to sip sweet, foamy whipped coffee on the balcão, the extended porch where her grandmother swaps gossip with passersby.
Ten minutes later, everything is in eco-conscious packaging and Elisha is on her way out the door.
“Bye, Grandpa!” she calls, not bothering to button her coat. “Wish me luck!”
Dave stops sweeping away pine needles. He doesn’t ask what for, just recites their usual catchphrase, the same one he’s given her ever since she was little. “Go with grace and gumption!”
So she does.
Chapter Eight
Elisha
