“That,” she answered, a bit too smug for her own good, “was the first stage of my plan.”

“And you just let him go?”

“Yeah.” She ran a hand through her hair and checked her wrist for a ponytail holder she already knew wasn’t there. Her dirty blonde hair was so long and thick it often broke the thin elastics, leaving her to fuss and fiddle with her locks whenever she got too nervous to think straight. Tugging on one strand of hair, as if to pull some wisdom from her own brain, she tried to lay down her plan. “He needs time to cool off. Nothing was going to get done by needling him.”

“What’s your genius plan now, huh?”

Genius. That was it. When she was seven years old, Miss Cartwright—owner of the music and dance studio near the center of town—told her she could be a genius piano player if she ever put her mind to it. When The Christmas Company said it would pay for her lessons if she used her skills for the festival every year, she’d readily accepted.

And as it happened, the Woodward House’s living room housed the town’s most beautiful and most expensive piano, which sat in the corner across from the Christmas tree, waiting to be played.

Kate wandered over to the ancient Steinway. Her fingers only just brushed the ebony cover. It shot a thrill through her, like touching a holy relic; she needed to approach with reverence.

“We’re going to smoke him out of his room.”

“How?” Michael asked, as she lifted the cover and took her place on the bench. Shaking his head, he immediately began a muttered stream of vain prayers. “Don’t say with song. Please don’t say with song.”

Her fingers touched the keys. Out of tune. She winced, but pressed forward.

“With song,” she confirmed.

It was perfect, really. So much had already been written and spoken about the power of music, Kate didn’t think twice about this stage of her plan. Music spoke to the soul in a language unwhispered by any other tongue. Her screaming after him about the magic of the season wouldn’t work, but her joyful voice raised in song might be enough to coax him out of his hiding place, wherever that might have been.

Michael didn’t share her optimism.

“We’re doomed. We’re totally doomed. This isn’t a song and dance kind of guy, Kate.”

“I know.” She cracked her knuckles. It was going to take a lot of singing to cover the flaws of this piano’s lack of tuning, but she never backed away from a challenge. Besides, she listed “singing Christmas Carols” as one of the Special Skills on her resumé. Without knowing it, she’d trained for this exact moment her entire life. “That’s why this is going to work.”