“Not well. Good. Miller’s Point is a great town, but there are still plenty of families that need our help. Every year on Christmas Eve, we do a big donation of Christmas presents and provisions for them, but no festival means no place to give out the donations, so a couple of us volunteered to pick up the slack.”

One of the first thoughts Kate had after his announcement was for those families. Money was tight for her, but even worse for some families. Miller’s Point wasn’t a big town by any stretch of the imagination, and they didn’t have a poverty epidemic like Clark might have seen in Dallas, but the few who needed help still mattered. If she couldn’t at least help them, what good was she to anyone else? Kate reached for her coat as Michael and Emily started collecting the heavy boxes of presents waiting on the floor.

“We’ll be gone for about an hour,” she informed him as she wrapped herself in her favorite soft red scarf. Miss Carolyn knit it for her last year, and though it was full of holes and missed stitches, Kate couldn’t bear to leave home without it. “Are you going to change the locks while we’re out?”

“I could come with you.”

Kate blinked. The offer… It sounded generous and kind. Which couldn’t be true because she wasn’t sure Clark Woodward had a generous or kind bone in his body. Kate’s pulse quickened.

“What?”

“It’s…” He cleared his throat. “Your things are heavy. I could drive you, I mean. That way you don’t have to carry them back down the hill.”

“Really?”

“It would be easier than taking this down by ourselves,” Michael offered, though his skepticism was plainly written on every corner of his face.

“It will be good,” Clark said. “You know, for the people in town to get to know me.”

…Before you take their jobs away. Kate struggled with this Clark Woodward character. Every time she thought she got him, every time she saw some light poking out through the cracks in his walls, she remembered why she was here in the first place. He was close to destroying the town, trying to take away everything they held dear.

She wanted to see the best in him, and more than anything she wanted to find a way to make him happy in the same way his family made this town happy for so many years. And yet…he seemed to go out of his way to make himself out to be the biggest jerk around. Until now. Until this moment.

“All right.” Kate handed him one of the crates, groaning under its weight. What had they bought these kids, lead bricks? “Take this. And pull the car around. We’ll be out in a minute.”