Ivy handed him the note. “The thing is, I found this in the jacket pocket of the Santa suit. And I was wondering who Carlette was? And her father.”

His face softened as he read the Santa note. “Oh, wow. That’s so sad. I guess maybe this little girl’s daddy was in Vietnam? But I have no idea who these people might be. I didn’t grow up here. My wife was the local.”

“Maybe she knew the family?”

James’s smile faded. “I wish I could ask her. Sandi died two years ago. Breast cancer. She never would sell the house after her parents passed. But now, she’s gone and my kids have no interest in living in this ‘hick town,’ as they call it.”

“To each his own,” Ivy said lightly as she showed him to the front door.

The chicks were awake now and peeping loudly from their cardboard box.

“Are those chickens?” James asked, looking amused.

“Yep.” She left it at that.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You mean, what’s a nice, single, big-city girl like me doing in a hick town like Tarburton?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

She shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure I know myself. I guess I was ready for a change.”

“Big change, coming from Atlanta to a burg with a population of fifteen hundred people.”

“Blame it on the chickens,” Ivy said.

“Huh?”

“When I was a little girl, my great-aunt lived way out in the country in a little farmhouse. And she had chickens. They’d come and sit on your lap and eat out of your hand. You can’t keep chickens in just any old place, you know. Turns out, there are all kinds of rules. So, when I started house hunting, I decided to find a place where I could keep chickens.”

James gazed out the window. “Betty Rae, my mother-in-law, used to keep chickens, back in the day. There might still be an old coop somewhere out back.”

“It’s on my list of things to check out,” Ivy said. “Thanks again for stopping by.”

He took one last, long, wistful look around the living room. “There are a lot of good memories in this old house. Bob and Betty Rae were wonderful folks. They were mainstays in this community for a lot of years. I hope you’ll love this place as much as they did.”

She spent the next hour boxing up what seemed like several generations of the Rose family’s clothing to donate to charity. But she didn’t have the heart to donate the Santa suit. It had been special to Bob and Betty Rae Rose, and maybe someday it would be special to someone again. In the meantime, there was no harm in keeping it right here at their former homeplace.

“Okay, Punkin,” Ivy said, rousting the dog from the sun-soaked spot he’d claimed by the front window. “I’m gonna walk into town to do some paperwork and maybe rustle up some caffeine. You stay here and guard the chickens, okay?”