A Letter to Santa

Every year at Christmas the small town of Ivory Lake Texas is infused with the holiday spirit. People come from the surrounding towns to walk the Parade of Lights when every house is lighted in an elaborate display of celebration. Lily Holland is just visiting Ivory Lake after two years of teaching abroad. She’s looking for a community with the kind of personal daily encounters she’s come to love. Her first discovery is the Gingerbread House bakery across the street run by Carson Wheeler. He might look like a cowboy but he bakes like a wizard and she’s addicted to the muffins. The best coffee in town is at the flower shop and it’s free, but Lorna Slater is the only other newcomer, too. She informs Lily that it won’t be long before she’s drawn into the community of Ivory Lake with open arms.
Carson Wheeler has been going it alone in his bakery and he loves what he does, but it takes all of his time. He’s tried online dating a few times but he’s never leaving Ivory Lake – not again. If he could have one wish it would be for the perfect woman to just drop into town out of nowhere. No online hassles, no leaving town, no sitting through an evening of wondering how many more similarly boring evenings lay ahead. Then, Lily Holland is standing out front one morning when he opens the bakery and even if he doesn’t know it right away that’s when his wish came true.
Over the weeks leading up to Christmas Lily decorates her house for the Parade of Lights, she learns how to play Turkey Bingo, she helps Carson with the gingerbread house competition for kids, and she even fills in at the bakery when his teen clerk has to go away for the holidays. She’s falling in love – with Ivory Lake and Carson Wheeler. She wants to stay, but is it real or just an overdose of Christmas Spirit? Can she ever really belong in a place with so many tight knit relationships and history? When she discovers a relationship in his past that Carson never mentioned, she decides the answer is no.