Snow had fallen in Candle Beach overnight, just in time for the annual winter festival. Jake knocked on the door to Maggie’s apartment and breathed in the crisp, cool air while he waited for her to answer it. Had it really only been a week and a half since he’d arrived in Candle Beach? When he’d arrived, he’d had nothing, and now he had deepening family ties and a job with the police department.

“Hey.” Maggie opened the door and smiled at him. She wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt and blue jeans that hugged her curves. “We’re almost ready to go. She thrust a thermos of coffee at him. “We’ll want this later.” She turned backward to yell, “Alex, let’s go!” His nephew skipped into the room.

Jake took the coffee from her and leaned against the doorframe, gazing at the empty street outside and enjoying the juxtaposition of warmth from her apartment and the icy coldness of the outdoors.

When she came out, she’d dressed both herself and Alex in fluffy winter jackets. Her apartment was a little too far from the Marina Park to walk in the winter, so she drove them there in her Prius.

When she’d invited him to join her and Alex at the winter festival, he hadn’t known what it would be like. It turned out to be a big town event. He recognized several new acquaintances and waved at them.

“This is my favorite time of year.” Maggie twirled around in the middle of the Marina Park. Twinkly white lights hung in all the trees and a light dusting of snow coated the ground like powdered sugar. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue to catch a stray snowflake. A group of people turned in her direction and smiled before returning to their conversation.

“Mom, stop that.” Alex shuffled his feet around in the snow, clearly embarrassed by her antics. He turned to Jake. “Can you make her stop?”

He laughed. “Your mom’s happy. Let her be.”

Maggie shot him a grateful smile.

“So, what’s on the agenda?” Jake reviewed the huge schedule posted on the bulletin board by the gazebo. It listed in blue paint a full day’s worth of activities that the Chamber of Commerce had planned.

“I’ve been coming to the winter festival since I was a kid. It’s one of my favorite childhood memories.” She pointed to one of the items on the list. “How about sandcastle building at the beach? That’s always my favorite thing to do during the festival.”

“Sandcastles? In the middle of December?” Jake stared at her dubiously.

“It’s winter time on the coast. We don’t get much snow accumulation for a snowman-building contest, so we have to use what we do have—sand. They aren’t all sandcastles, more like sand sculptures of whatever you want.”

“Sounds fun.” He picked up a brochure and leafed through it. “Maybe we can check out the pie-eating contest later?” His mouth salivated at the thought of freshly baked pies.

Alex sulked. “I don’t want to build a sandcastle.”

Maggie gave her son the evil eye and said sternly, “Let’s go.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the beach overlook.

When they arrived at the overlook, she pointed out the crowd of people a hundred feet from the foot of the stairs. Like them, everyone in the crowd was dressed for winter. Jake found it humorous to see people hanging out on the sand in the dead of winter. Instead of wearing bathing suits to lounge in the sun, they wore puffy jackets and snow or rain boots.

They walked down the icy stairs to the sandcastle-building contest headquarters. Down on the beach, the sand was clear of snow.

“Where’s the snow?” Alex craned his head from side to side, searching for white powder.

“When the snow hits the beach, it melts because of all the salt in the sand, just like when we put salt on the sidewalk.” Maggie took his hand and dragged him over to where a tall man with a clipboard and a portly woman were giving out instructions.

“We’d like to enter the family contest.”

“Sure.” The man consulted his clipboard and then pointed down the beach. “Do you see where that large family is down there?”

She nodded. A family with at least four kids and two sets of grandparents were hard at work building an immense sand structure.

“You can take the area of beach next to them. Good luck.” He handed her a piece of paper with the contest rules on it.

She beamed at Alex and Jake. “So? Are you guys ready for some fun?”

Jake looked at the beach. Making sand castles on a soggy beach, wearing a parka in the middle of winter, wasn’t exactly his idea of fun. But, it was obviously important to Maggie.

He pasted a smile on his face and pumped his fist in the air. “Let’s go make a sandcastle!”

Alex glared at him, but he grabbed his nephew’s hand and tugged at him until he followed his mother over to their designated building location.

“So what should we build?”

“An igloo?” Jake suggested. It made sense in the freezing weather.

She smiled at him with condescension. “Half of these teams are making igloos. Get creative, Price.”

“Fine, fine.” He thought for a moment. “How about a Christmas tree? We could build it lying on the ground instead of standing up, but you’d know what it was from above.”

She considered his suggestion. “I like it. We’ll need ornaments and a nice star though.”

Jake eyed Alex. “Your mom takes this very seriously.”

“I know. She does this every year.” He sighed and looked enviously at a family ascending the beach stairs to town.

Jake shivered, but Maggie didn’t appear affected by the chilly weather. She instructed them on how to form the individual tree branches and ornaments so they’d look more realistic. Two hours later, when every part of his body was frozen, he thought it was done, but she stared at it, tapping her chin with her finger.

“It’s missing something.”

“What?” Most of the other contestants had finished, and while he had to admit that their Christmas tree looked nicer than the neighboring family’s igloo, he envied them being off the beach, probably drinking hot cocoa in the town square. He pulled out the thermos of coffee and took a swig of it. It was lukewarm, but tasted fine.

“Presents,” Maggie said. “We forgot to make presents for under the tree.” She scooped up some sand and knelt down to form a square at the base of the tree.

“Mom, I’m tired of this,” Alex whined.

“Just a little longer. Then we can all go get pie and hot chocolate.” She added a ribbon and a bow.

“I’m going back to town. All my friends are probably playing at the park by now.” He ran off toward the stairs.

“Alex, get back here,” Maggie called. She and Jake jogged over to the stairs to catch up with him, but it only made him go faster, taking the steps two at a time without holding on to the railing. When he was only ten feet in front of them, Jake watched in horror as he slipped on a patch of ice and crashed down to the step, landing on his left arm.

“Owie, owie.” Tears streamed down Alex’s face as he cradled his arm. Maggie was at his side in a second.

“Are you okay? Can you move it? I told you not to run on the stairs.” She touched his arm and he winced. She shook her head. “They should have put sand on the stairs. Someone could have broken their neck.”

His arm hung at his side at an awkward angle. Alex tried unsuccessfully to rotate his arm.

Jake knelt by his nephew and inspected the injury. “Yep, I’d say that was broken.”

Alex burst out into a fresh torrent of tears. “Now I can’t ride my bike.”

Jake smiled. “You’ll be okay in a few weeks. They’ll put a cast on your arm and you’ll be good as new.”

Maggie turned to Jake. “What do we do? He’s never broken a bone before.”

“His pediatrician should be able to set it.”

Her face fell. “It’s Saturday, they won’t be in.”

“Okay, well, let’s take him to the hospital in Haven Shores.” They helped Alex to a standing position. Slowly, they made their way to the car. Tears were bright in Alex’s eyes and Maggie cringed whenever his face twisted in pain.

Jake put his arm around Maggie, who looked like she was about to cry herself. “Boys break bones, it’ll be okay. It’s part of growing up. Did Brian ever tell you about breaking his leg falling out of a tree when he was a kid?”

“No, never.” Maggie looked at him with interest as they helped Alex into the car and carefully strapped him into his booster seat. “What was he doing?”

Jake looked at Alex in the rearview mirror as he related the story. “Well, you see, your father bet me that he could get an apple from the top of the tree in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard. Have you seen that tree?”

Alex nodded. “It’s huge.”

Jake smiled. “It is very tall. Your dad picked out an apple near the very top to be his goal. He actually did make it to the top, but when he tried to carry his prize apple down, his foot slipped off a branch and he toppled out of the tree. I was standing below him, but there was nothing I could do. He was down there on the ground, with the bone sticking out of his skin and blood everywhere.”

“Ew,” Alex said. “That sounds gross. At least the bone isn’t sticking out of my skin.”

Maggie made a face and turned a little green. “I can’t believe he never told me about this. I always wondered how he got that scar on his leg, but I never asked.”

“Yeah, and of course, I got blamed for it. I was the older brother and according to my mom, I should have been more careful.” He glanced at Maggie. “But you know Brian, he was headstrong and ready for any challenge that came along. There was no way I could talk him out of climbing that tree once he’d set his mind on it.”

Maggie laughed. “That does sound like Brian. I remember trying to talk him out of climbing out on a ledge one time when we were hiking. He scared me so badly that I refused to talk to him until we had reached the trailhead.”

Alex piped up. “Tell me more about my dad, Uncle Jake.”

The rest of the way to Haven Shores, Jake regaled them with stories of his younger brother. It felt right telling Maggie and Alex his memories of Brian, almost cathartic in a way. He and his brother hadn’t been close in later years as their jobs took over their lives and moved them across the world from each other, but when they were kids, they’d played together often, even with a five-year age difference.

They arrived at the hospital in Haven Shores and the emergency room staff had Alex’s arm immobilized in a cast in no time. Maggie was still shaken up over the accident, so after they had Alex settled in his seat, Jake held open the passenger side door for her. She paused next to the door.

He smiled at her. “See, I told you it was no big deal.”

“I’m glad you were here. I don’t know what I would have done if I were by myself. I really hate it when he gets hurt.” She surprised him by leaning in to hug him. He wrapped his arms around her and patted her back before he reluctantly released her. Although she was hugging him out of worry and relief, he’d take what he could get.

“I’m glad I was here too, and happy that he wasn’t hurt worse.”

She nodded, smiled gratefully at him, and got into the car. He shut her door and whistled as he walked around to the driver’s side. While he hated seeing his nephew injured, it felt good to be able to help Maggie and her son as he’d promised to his brother.