CHAPTER ONE A fat winter moon poured light over the old stone and brick of the inn on The Square. In its beams, the new porches and pickets glowed, and the bright-penny copper of the roof glinted. The old and new merged there—the past and the now—in a strong and happy marriage. Its windows stayed dark on this December night, prizing its secrets in shadows. But in a matter of weeks they would shine like others along Boonsboro’s Main Street. As he sat in his truck at the light on The Square, Owen Montgomery looked up Main at the shops and apartments draped in their holiday cheer. Lights winked and danced. To his right, a pretty tree graced the big front window of the second-floor apartment. Their future innkeeper’s temporary residence reflected her style. Precise elegance. Next Christmas, he thought, they’d have Inn BoonsBoro covered with white lights and greenery. And Hope Beaumont would center her pretty little tree in the window of the innkeeper’s apartment on the third floor. He glanced to his left where Avery MacTavish, owner of Vesta Pizzeria and Family Restaurant, had the restaurant’s front porch decked out in lights. Her apartment above—formerly his brother Beckett’s—also showed a tree in the window. Otherwise the windows were as dark as the inn’s. She’d be working tonight, he thought, noting the movement in the restaurant. He shifted, but couldn’t see her behind the work counter. When the lig