Chapter One

Conrad

I looked down at the letter, blinking back the tears as I read it for the fourth time. Scrawled in her lopsided print and filled with misspellings was my seven-year-old’s letter to Santa—a list I wasn’t going to be able to fulfill.

Dear Santa,

I’ve been a good girl all year. I’m on the nice list. Daddy says so. For Christmas, I want to play in the sand and for Daddy to smile.

Merry Christmas,

Natalie.

My sweet little girl didn’t ask for a toy or a puppy or a unicorn like all of her friends. She wanted a trip to the beach—the Christmas trip we had been planning with her other father before he died. And most heartbreaking of all was that she wanted me to smile. It wasn’t that I was a grumpy person. I wasn’t. But Christmas had been difficult for me ever since we lost him. I thought I’d done a good job hiding it.

Daddy fail.

I wanted to give her the vacation and my joy. I really did. Take her to the ocean, let her bask in the sun, play in the tide pool, make sandcastles, look for sand dollars—all the things we had planned with Mark.

But the funny thing about making plans is Fate doesn’t give a shit. They do what they are going to do—in this case leave me heartbroken and my daughter without a parent. The fucked-up part was that it was so preventable.

When his car was T-boned at an intersection as he was waiting to turn, his life was snuffed out, and ours was changed forever. At his funeral, I made a vow to him, one I intended to keep. I’d give her the life we always planned for her.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I lied.

I tried my hardest, but his insurance money was barely enough to cover his final expenses, and the drunk who hit him had no insurance at all. In theory, one day, things would work out on that end. But it had been over a year, and that still hadn’t happened. I wasn’t holding my breath.

If only the asshole hadn’t grabbed his keys after a night of sports and beer. If only one of his friends had told him to stop. If only my husband had been at that intersection three minutes earlier. But if onlys wouldn’t bring him back. Nothing would. He was gone forever.

I’d gone through many stages of grieving and was in a really good place. I even went on a couple of dates. None of them went anywhere, but it was a start. What began as daily weeping turned into being sad with random memories bringing forth the tears, turned into entire days when I wasn’t sad at all. But then something like this would happen, and it would all be fresh and raw.

I’d kind of hoped Natalie would have forgotten about our planned Christmas trip to the sea. She’d only been four at the time. But no, she still remembered everything. I loved that she wasn’t going to grow up with only a faded memory of her father, but also—times like this were extra difficult. Both could be and were true.

And as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t deliver on the trip. Not this year, not last year, not the year he passed away. I just didn’t have the money. I barely had enough to keep going. More than one month, I’d played the which-utility-can-wait game. This was better-ish now, but not good enough for a vacation.

I folded the letter up and put it in my pocket, wiping away the tears.

“What’s wrong?” Amanda, one of my coworkers, stood in front of my desk. I hadn’t even seen her come over.

“Sorry. I just got Natalie’s Christmas list for Santa.”

“And you opened it at work?” She wasn’t a judgy woman, but she was most definitely nosey. I didn’t mind. She meant well and, back when Mark died, she’d been there for Natalie and me, bringing a few meals and watching her when I had to go to court to testify to the victim statements.

“Yeah… I wanted to see what she asked him for.”

“To put the items on the Elf Tree?” She knew the answer to that. I was all for accepting help if we needed it, but typical presents I could cover. It was wish list items like a vacation I couldn’t handle.

I gave a subtle nod, not wanting to get into it with her. She meant well. “Not that kind of list.”

Removing it from my pocket, I handed it to her. Amanda was an older woman who’d been with the company forever and sort of took everyone under her wing. If there was anyone I could’ve had this discussion with, it was her.

She opened it up, read it, and instantly, I saw the recognition on her face.

“I’m sorry.” She handed it back.

She’d been one of the people most excited about our trip, going so far as printing out coupons for local attractions. But that also meant she was there when my world came crashing down. It wasn’t something you could forget.

“I don’t know if I can help you get to the beach. It’s pretty popular.”

I was confused, but then she took out her phone, tapped away, and turned it to face me.

“This is a house-swapping app. One my son uses. He’s in the mountains, though, so he wouldn’t be a good swap for you.”

She turned it around and tapped away again, letting out a long sigh and returning it to her pocket. “It won’t let me in without an account, but what they do is—you put in your requests, and you bank them. Then they do magic so that, let’s say, you wanted to go to the beach and someone at the beach wanted to go to the snow, and someone in the snow wanted to go to the mountains, and someone in the mountains wanted to come to the city—they organize everything to make all those swaps happen at once.”

“Sounds expensive.” Which was the original problem.

“Except it’s not. It’s only a one-time fee because everybody is getting a room out of it. I don’t know. It might be nice. And you don’t pay unless you make a swap, so no risk.”

It sounded complicated and scam-filled, but if her son did it, maybe it was fine?

“Maybe. Thanks. I’ll look into that.” I would, too, but it probably wasn’t going to go much further. This close to the holidays, everything remotely close to water that wasn’t covered in ice would be long gone.

My phone rang, and I had to get back to work. But all day long, what she said about the app kept playing in my mind. Maybe tonight, after she went to bed, I’d look into it. Who knew? Maybe it would get us right on the exact beach where we’d promised to take her as the big sandcastle extravaganza was happening.

If not, at least it didn’t hurt to try. Because there was nothing I wanted more in this world than to give her exactly what Mark and I had always dreamed of—a home filled with love, acceptance, adventures, and, one day, a dog.

But today was not that day.

Today was about making sure bills got paid and taking a stab at our first adventure. It was a start.

If only I could really mail the letter to Santa and it was something he could deliver on. But I didn’t know how. And even if I did, he specialized in toys, right? Not experiences? Santa couldn’t magically build a beach in his toy factory and deliver it to us on Christmas morning.

If only he could because I could use some big old Santa Christmas magic about now.