Chicago-based public school art teacher Clara Bingham is heading home to Fayetteville, North Carolina for the Christmas holidays to help her mother, Bonnie Bingham, at the family store, Candy Cane Confectionary, following the recent death of its founder and co-operator, Clara's paternal grandfather Jerry Bingham. Clara is sad not to have had the opportunity to say her goodbyes to him, he who largely shaped her life, especially his philosophy that one's wishes are what is in one's heart spoken aloud. Before heading to Fayetteville, Clara unexpectedly discovers two things: that her schoolteacher boyfriend, Blake, was about to propose to her, something that left her feeling fearful rather than joyous, and he not having done so only on circumstance of the time; and that despite being named one of her school's teachers of the year, she is being laid off at the end of this school year in cuts to the arts program and she not having seniority. The Binghams' collective stories are shaped by Fayetteville being adjacent to Fort Bragg: Jerry served in the Korean War, Clara's father/Bonnie's husband was killed in battle overseas, and Clara's first love, Logan, was also in the army. It wasn't the fact that Logan was shipped overseas that led to them breaking up, but that he had already acted on the unilateral decision to enlist before he told her. In Fayetteville, Clara runs into Logan, who, after reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, left active duty a year ago and is now a reservist. Clara and Logan end up spending much time together, partly in they sleuthing together in Clara's discovery of a journal Jerry kept when he was a young man, it talking about a love with an unknown woman named Martha, i.e. she not being who ended as Clara's grandmother. In a spark still existing between the Clara and Logan, what happens between them is affected by what they discover regarding Jerry's romance with Martha, and Clara learning about the story of Jay, the awkward young man Clara hired on a whim to help at the store. —Huggo