“We’ll let the kids eat yours,” Karoline said, and Harper nearly laughed out loud. She’d known her sister wouldn’t deem it good enough to be given away.

Once that was established, the conversation came back around to who should receive Harper’s.

“There are a lot of people in our church who’d like it,” Karoline mused. “Do you want me to pick someone?”

Harper almost agreed. She was flattered hers had, at least, passed muster. But then she remembered Tobias talking about buying a Christmas dinner for his mother and Uriah, which sounded like a dismal way to spend the holidays, and decided—if she could do it without raising too much curiosity—she’d like to take it to him. “I think I’ll give mine to the guy who handed me that rose at the Eatery,” she announced as if she didn’t know him a whole lot better now.

Karoline’s and Terrance’s heads came up. They’d seen her talking to Tobias at the bar and had questioned her when she got back to the table. She’d insisted that it meant nothing, she’d just been saying hello, and the fact that Tobias had left the group and walked out only a few minutes later certainly lent her story some credibility.

Still, she could tell that her sister and brother-in-law were curious about him.

“What rose?” Piper asked.

Harper took the frosting bag so she could retwist the back end. Otherwise, all the frosting they had left was going to squish into her daughter’s small hands. “The one that was here on the island in a vase,” she replied.

Piper frowned. “I don’t remember it.”

“It was before you left for Disneyland.” Harper gave the decorator bag back to her. “It died, so I had to throw it out.”

Miranda wrinkled her nose. “Someone gave that to you? I thought you didn’t know anyone here—other than us.”

Harper finished her house by sprinkling green sugar on various parts of her landscaping. “I didn’t know him.”

“So why did he give you a rose?” Amanda asked.

“He could tell that I was sad and wanted to cheer me up. Nice, right? And now maybe we can do something nice for him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Miranda said.

Once the decision had been made, Harper felt excited about stopping by Tobias’s house with a plate of cookies and her gingerbread house. She wanted to see him again, and if she had everyone with her, she couldn’t stay overnight, like she knew she would if she went over later.

With a far greater interest in making her house as cute as possible, she added a tiny Christmas tree in the front yard and a few other decorations. She was eager to get her coat and set off—until Karoline insisted they would also sing Christmas carols at each stop.