Claire Bennett comes back to her snowy mountain hometown with a single plan: sell her mother’s cottage and leave. It should be straightforward. Instead, she walks into a half-frozen house with creaking floors, peeling paint, and a repair list longer than she expected. And standing on the porch with a toolbox is the boy she once loved now a man who knows every shortcut in town.
Evan Hart has carved out a steady life as the local art teacher, painting backdrops for the Christmas auction and showing up whenever someone needs a hand. Seeing Claire again pulls up everything he pushed down years ago: the warmth, the quiet regrets, the worry that letting her close means revisiting a door he never locked.
Day after day, in the pale winter light, they work side by side. Old rhythms slip back in. A shared laugh over a crooked shelf. The scent of sawdust mixing with cold air. And the cottage once the thing Claire ran from starts to feel like somewhere she could breathe again.
Then the offer to buy the house lands in her email, sharp and sudden. Claire has to choose between the life she built far away and the man whose steadiness feels like home.
When Christmas settles over the mountains, what will she hold on to?
***
Set against this heartwarming backdrop, this story unfolds as one unforgettable chapter in the Home for Christmas series a reminder that love often waits right where we left it.
In Maple Hill, the town where snow never fully melts and Christmas lights glow year-round, love always seems to find its way back home. The Home for Christmas series celebrates faith, friendship, and the kind of warmth that only a small town can offer. Each story follows hearts learning to forgive, laugh again, and rediscover joy beneath the soft shimmer of winter nights. From old promises renewed to unexpected companionship, these tales remind us that home isn’t just a roof overhead it’s the people who make us feel safe, known, and loved. Every Christmas brings a quiet new beginning, wrapped in grace and the promise of forever.
