There were hot chocolate and kettle corn stands, handmade crafts, and an entire Santa’s village. On Christmas Eve, the town could rival the North Pole in festivity. If you lived within one hundred miles of Merry, you went there for Christmas Eve. It was part of thousands of families’ Christmas traditions.

Where would they go this year? Cat wondered.

She picked up her phone again, dialed.

“Hey!” Her sister-in-law’s cheery greeting was undercut by Gabby’s squeal of delight or frustration. The one-year-old certainly had gotten the volume from the King side of the family.

“Hey, Paige. I just talked to Kathy Hai,” Cat said, cutting to the chase.

“Oh! How is she? How’s April?” Paige asked. Cat’s sister-in-law had an uncanny memory for the families they’d featured on all four seasons of Kings of Construction.

“It was hard to hear her over the hurricane bearing down on her.”

“Oh, no! I haven’t caught up on the news. Are they going to be okay?”

Cat blew out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know. I mean it’s a direct hit.”

“And their house is across from the park,” Paige said, getting the gist.

“And the river.”

“If they need anything at all, you know you can count on Gannon and me.”

“Thanks. I think I just want someone else to worry about them with me.”

“Consider me your partner in concern,” Paige promised. “How’s Operation School Days coming?”

Cat flopped down on her overstuffed sofa and turned off the TV. “I’m not on speaker phone, am I?”

“No.”

“Good. Because I’m so fucking pumped about it. I think I just found my ideal facilities manager, and I’ve got a few lines on some other VIP staff. And I’m dying to talk about it. But until I have a location, what am I going to say?”

“That you’re an amazing woman who is going to train other amazing women to work in trades and run their own businesses?” Paige suggested.

“Awh. You’re pretty amazeballs yourself, Paigey. How’s my beautiful niece?”

“Big, bad, and beautiful. Just like her daddy and her aunt.”

“What’s next on your busy filmmaker schedule?” Paige had gotten her start behind the camera in reality television. She’d worked her way up to director and had started her own production studio that developed documentaries. Her first documentary, on women in the television industry, had opened eyes across the country to double standards and inequalities. The Reno and Realty Network—probably fearful that Paige would take aim at them specifically—had started a program to advance women behind the camera and put in place an equal pay policy.

Paige filled Cat in on the particulars of her latest project. “But listen, when this school thing pans out, I’d be interested in documenting it.”

“Really?” Cat kicked her legs up over the arm of the couch. “Like a day in the life?”