The Christmas Hourglass

Book 4: Outer Banks Novel

by Davis Bunn

Genres: Christian Romance; Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance

Synopsis

In this heartwarming, giftable comfort read for fans of Nicholas Sparks and Richard Paul Evans, a family shaken by loss experiences a life-changing season of new beginnings and Christmas magic on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

A time for family . . .

The holidays bring a storm of emotions for Thad Wright. Three days after Christmas, his estranged daughter passes away—leaving behind a baby, Cassandra. And when Thad discovers that time is not on his beloved wife Lia’s side either, he takes Lia’s last plea to heart: that Cassie is not raised by strangers, that he gives the child a loving home. As difficult as the months ahead are, Thad’s granddaughter is a singular source of light in an otherwise dark season.

And for making every Christmas wish come true . . .

Thad’s friends in Fortunate Harbor are there for him, including Akila, his co-worker at the local hotel where he’s head chef. She’s kind, comforting, gentle, and everything her teenage son, Juri, is not. In that boy, Thad sees the same rebellion that led his own daughter astray. Yet as Thad’s relationship with Akila deepens, he’s determined to forge a bond with the young, defiant, aspiring musician. Soon, helping to make Juri’s dreams a reality is an unexpected wonder for Thad. It’s even beginning to mend his own grieving heart.

As the year passes, another Christmas approaches. What will be a first for Cassie just might be a blessed milestone for Thad, Akila, and Juri, as well.

Release date: October 27, 2026

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 240

Sample

That year, autumn along the Crystal Coast came and went in a series of gentle transitions. Once the hurricane season was behind them, the changes were often so gradual as to go unnoticed. Unless, of course, people knew what to look for and kept a watchful eye. By the week before Thanksgiving, dogwoods and sugar maples and ancient oaks had all emerged from hiding among Carolina’s coastal pines. They sang a colorful welcome to the cold and the nor’easters. They transformed the surrounding evergreens into dowdy old aunts. Days off became invitations to pause and savor the final flavors of a good year. Just like now.

Thad wasn’t certain Lia had slept a wink. He half expected her to beg off the day’s fishing trip. But when he woke just before six, she was already busy in the kitchen, coffee brewing. Lia was dressed in the multiple layers necessary for a November day on the open waters, with a yellow slicker and woolen cap resting by the rear doors. She made their traditional day-off breakfast, egg-white Spanish omelets and scratch biscuits.

Twenty-seven years into a solid marriage, Thad knew the signs. His wife was working her way through something important. Lia would tell him when she was good and ready. Pressing or demanding only sparked the sort of quarrel Thad was happy to avoid. They ate in silence.

They were standing on the end of their pier when Kendrick and Cheryl Asher pulled up in their recently acquired Hatteras convertible. They exchanged soft greetings with the other three couples, loaded their gear, and set off.

“Convertible” referred to a sportfishing yacht featuring a flexible design. This meant it contained both a rear deck intended for deep-sea fishing and a climate-controlled salon for comfortable cruising. The Ashers’ sixty-foot craft had a cockpit roomy enough to hold all eight of them, where they gathered and watched the dawn unfold.

Kendrick Asher was Morehead City born and raised and had been a friend of Lia’s since grade school. He was one-quarter Choctaw and possessed the tribe’s distinctive chiseled features and fighting nature. Kendrick had made it out despite very hard beginnings, did his studies at Chapel Hill and Duke, then surprised everyone by returning home. He was the region’s first specialist in geriatric medicine and was known far and wide for possessing not one iota of a caring nature. Many locals disliked him intensely. Cheryl, Kendrick’s wife, was a warm and kindhearted woman with a core of tempered steel. Everyone who knew the couple marveled at how the region’s new doctor had managed to find the one lady who could handle him. Lia served as the local hospital’s assistant administrator and bookkeeper. She considered Kendrick to be a superb doctor. In her opinion, Kendrick’s contrary nature was simply part of the package.

They passed Radio Island just as the sun edged its way over the placid sea. The boat had been silent before. Now it held to a reverential stillness. The windless day would soon prove a welcome amplifier for what heat there was. Just then, a frigid mist drifted close to the water and rose in fitful swirls as the boat headed east. As they passed Shackleford Banks, island ponies floated ghostlike among the low brush. The horses were first brought over by whalers, who built a ramshackle village, reputed to possess more bars and bordellos than the rest of the Crystal Coast combined. The village was long gone, but the ponies remained. They were now known as a unique island breed, the only animals capable of thriving on the salt-encrusted grass.

As they took the Beaufort Cut and entered the open Atlantic, Lia climbed the ladder and settled into the flying bridge. The others glanced her way, but it was the county sheriff who saw fit to ask, “Something we need to know about?”

Colton Knox was one of Thad’s closest friends, which meant Thad was used to the man’s professionally nosy nature. He replied, “I have no idea.”

Colton huffed what might have been a laugh. “Man, does that ever sound familiar.”

Kendrick snapped, “Lia is just fine. She could use a private hour. That’s all anybody needs to know about the lady today.”

Which closed off further conversation in Kendrick’s typically abrupt fashion. Even when Lia’s solitary hour extended longer and longer. And longer still.

Thad took it upon himself to visit the lady’s high perch, bringing her a mug of tea, again with one of Nola Knox’s trademark corn muffins, again when he decided it was time to ask if the lady was all right—despite the frown that earned from their skipper.

There was a way Lia became when she was thinking about their absent daughter. Normally, Thad’s wife managed to keep all that hurt and worry tucked away. But from time to time, the phone would ring late at night or someone unexpected would knock on their door, and Lia would give one of her tight little gasps; a short, sharp intake of breath was all the warning she managed. Whenever that happened, Thad knew instantly he was in for a couple of hard days.

When he was growing up, Thad had loved the Li’l Abner comic strip. There was a character with the remarkable name of Joe Btfsplk, who always walked around with a thundercloud over his head. Lia got like that, at least around their home. How she was at work, no one had bothered to tell him. A day or so would pass, and she’d apologize, and Thad would always pretend he had no idea what she was going on about. Everything returned to normal. Like a lance had never pierced her heart.

This day’s quiet solitude was something else entirely.

The first two times Thad went up top, Lia smiled and seemed to mean it when she thanked him. The third time, she stripped off one woolen mitten so as to touch his face. “You are a good, fine man.”

“Lia, you’re scaring me.”

She refitted her mitten and turned back to the rising sun. “I just need a little time on my own, is all.”

They cut a swath through the copper-hued waters, the air not so much quiet as breathless. They halted by the deep-sea fishing grounds known as Big Rock, a ten-mile-long formation bordering the continental shelf. When the light strengthened, a storm wall appeared far to the north, signaling the slow approach of the season’s first cold front. But here the morning remained an autumnal gift. There was no anchoring; the waters were already well over six hundred feet deep.

They stayed out for four glorious hours, long enough to watch the storm clouds approach and bunch like muscled fists. The wind remained mild, but oil-slick waves gradually rose high as the boat’s bridge, great rolling beasts who lumbered like silent herds ahead of the coming storm. The fishing was very good that day. The Gulf Stream’s surface-level waters were pushed inland, and the fish followed the nutrient-rich currents.

They were after striped bass and red snapper, everyone’s favorite catch. Well before lightning danced beneath the storm wall, they met their legal limit. Finally, the thunder shouted its warning, so they drew in their lines and made ready to head home. Even then, Lia remained isolated on the high bridge, her silence touching everyone on board. Thad did his best to conceal how much this concerned him. Lia loved deepwater fishing. His wife was normally the first to cast her line and whooped with delight over every good catch. Yet even now, as the Crystal Coast’s barrier island rose on the western horizon, she remained where she was, staring south toward the empty sky. Away from the coming storm.

When they pulled up to Thad’s home pier, Lia went to each person in turn, saving Kendrick and his wife for last. Long hugs, softly spoken thanks. Then she stood on the pier and saw them off with the same still watchfulness she had maintained all day. Only now Cheryl stood by the stern transom, as silent and watchful as Thad’s wife.

They returned home and cleaned up and started dinner. While Lia prepared coleslaw and wild rice, Thad fired up the grill. He took his time, needing the space and solitude. Something told him he was soon going to learn the reason behind Lia’s mood. He dreaded hearing almost as much as he needed to know.

Thad was a professional chef, a talent he had discovered as a young army recruit. Being assigned to the officers’ club at Bragg had been a gift of good fortune so monumental he still wondered at the event.

He gathered shallots and marjoram and thyme from Lia’s herb garden and used a clay jar to mix them with the juice and zest of one lime and one lemon, along with olive oil and sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper. He cut the bass into hand-size segments, scored the flesh, and thoroughly coated both sides with the mixture before wrapping them in foil. He set four packets, skin-side down, on the heated grill and placed the others in the garage fridge for eating the next day. Their share of the snapper was already cleaned and packed and settled in the freezer.

They ate in a silence that was almost companionable, watching the cold front sweep in and dominate their world. Normally, Thad had no problem with silence. He and Lia both came from Down East clans. Many of their relatives were known to parcel out words with the same care as they spent money. Lia seemed neither angry nor worried, merely content to hold back on talking. Thad felt he had no alternative but to wait until she was good and ready.

Rain pelted the rear windows as they cleaned up, then took mugs of fresh mint tea back to the table. It was set in a corner, nestled between windows and sliding glass doors. The storm lashed and the wind buffeted, making the cubby feel even calmer, safer, warmer, theirs.

As Thad waited for the portal to open and Lia to reveal her secret, all he could think was, Shame about my racing heart.

“You know I love you very much.” Her voice was a plainsong chant. “More than life itself.”

He wanted to lift his mug, but with the tremors in his hands, he risked sloshing the liquid over everything. Swallowing was a terrible challenge.

“You are a very good, dear man. Life with you has been a gift. I want you to know that, and how grateful I am for the years we have shared.”

“Lia, what on earth is going on?”

“It’s very simple. I want our daughter to come home.”

Under different circumstances, Thad might actually have laughed. Or barked with rage. Or both. “Lia, you made me promise.”

“I know I did.”

“Swear a solemn vow. Those were your exact words. No matter what you said, how hard you begged …”

“I said all that. It’s true enough.”

“The last time she was here, remember that?”

“She broke both our hearts,” Lia agreed. “Again.”

“Olivia came out of rehab, she begged, and we relented.” Thad was of two minds. On the one hand, he was responding exactly how his wife had instructed. And yet something told him none of this was really the issue at all. Lia was somehow disconnected from everything he said. As if she could see around an unseen corner and already knew the outcome of this conversation. Her unruffled calm somehow evaporated the anger he would otherwise have brought to bear. Because nothing about this conversation held to the pattern laid out by their previous talks.

“Nine days was all it took,” Lia agreed. “Then Olivia crushed the breath right out of my body.”

“Nine days,” Thad repeated. “Then what happened?”

“She stole all my jewelry,” Lia said. “Including my grandmother’s wedding ring.”

“And she vanished into the night.” When his wife remained silent, he added, “Lia, hon, I don’t understand.”

She reached over and took both his hands in hers. The storm seemed capable of pushing its way into their haven, washing her gaze with unshed tears. “Our daughter has been clean for almost eight months.”

“You know this how?”

“She’s been a resident of the center in Fayetteville. The one with a halfway house. She’s stayed there under supervised care all that time.”

Thad grudgingly acknowledged, “Okay, this is new.” Up to this point, their daughter’s longest known stint of sobriety had been three months less one week in court-imposed rehab. Followed of course by the nine days at home, before she had gone off the rails in spectacular fashion. Again.

Despite the gut-wrenching prospect of bringing Olivia home, even more potent than going against the vow his wife had made him take was the change in Lia’s demeanor. The hollow bitterness that invaded conversations about their daughter was not simply absent. The only word that seemed to describe Lia’s state was …

Serene.

Still holding his hands, while calmly meeting his gaze, she said, “Tomorrow is visiting day. I want you to go see her. Decide for yourself whether we should bring our Olivia home. If you say no, you won’t hear another word about the matter. Not ever.”

Thad breathed around the prospect of being scalded again, having all the old wounds reopened. It would be all too easy to push back, argue, deny. Instead, he heard the unspoken message in the storm lashing their home and asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

Lia’s gaze was a deep well, her voice a mother’s lament. “Our daughter is pregnant. And she is dying.”

The storm blasted Morehead all night long. Which was a fair way t. . .