Mistletoe and Missed Shots

Some shots you only get once.

June Calder runs the counter at Hollow Feed and Supply, posts the town's most famous cat to four hundred thousand followers, and has followed the Denver Ridgebacks the way other people follow the weather. Mostly she follows number 14: Nate Haugen, the boy from the pond who taught her to skate and left for junior hockey the summer she was fifteen.

Now Nate is back in Silver Hollow for Christmas, renting the house on the ridge with the eight-foot window and waiting on a phone call that could send him anywhere. When June loses her co-coach, he volunteers to help her run the town kids' hockey on the old mill pond. Twelve kids. Four nights a week. A game on Christmas Eve.

It's supposed to be simple. But June has never told anyone how long she waited for a letter, and Nate is carrying something he never sent.

A clean, warm second-chance Christmas romance about a hometown pond, twelve kids in cat jerseys, and the shots worth taking.

Inside you'll find:

• A clean romance with no swearing and no spice, closed-door all the way
• First love and a second chance: the boy who left for hockey comes home
• Twelve kids, one frozen mill pond, and a game on Christmas Eve
• Biscuit, the feed store cat whose face is on every jersey
• Faith woven gently into everyday life, never preached
• Book Two in Silver Hollow, and it reads fine on its own

If you love sweet holiday movies, hometown second chances and a hockey hero with a soft heart, lace up your skates and head back to Silver Hollow.