Chapter Nine | Sam
Chapter Nine
Sam
The party had become something I couldn't have imagined this morning.
Through the French doors leading to the terrace, I watched couples swaying under strings of lights that turned the October night into something from a dream.
Inside, the dining room pulsed with music and laughter, locals in elaborate costumes mixing seamlessly with the original wedding guests.
A group of teenagers dressed as various Disney villains had commandeered one corner for an impromptu dance battle while Tony filmed gleefully.
I stood near the dessert table—Gus's autumn trifles and pumpkin cheesecake bites disappearing faster than we could replenish them—and let myself breathe for the first time in hours. We'd done it. We'd actually pulled off the impossible.
"There she is!" Mayor Theodore Snowcroft swept toward me in his Dracula cape, his wife Edna beside him in a Victorian vampire gown that put most wedding dresses to shame. "Sam, my dear, this is magnificent!"
"Thank you, Mayor—"
"Theodore, please." He clasped my hand warmly. "What you've accomplished here tonight—turning disaster into triumph—that takes real talent. Real grit."
"This is the event of the year," Edna added, her eyes bright with amusement. "You've given Wintervale something to talk about for decades."
My throat tightened unexpectedly. "I had a lot of help. The whole town really came together."
"That's what we do here," Theodore said simply. "We take care of our own."
Our own. The words lodged in my chest as they moved on to congratulate Rory. Not even a full week in Wintervale, yet people were treating me like I belonged. Like I was already part of this place.
The evening had reached that golden hour where the formal party began shifting into something more intimate.
The caterers from town had started packing up the elaborate food stations, though plenty of desserts remained.
The jazz quartet had given way to the DJ's more contemporary playlist, and the dance floor had thinned to just the diehards and the couples too lost in each other to notice the late hour.
Through the crowd, I spotted Stormi and Blaze on the dance floor.
She'd ditched her Maleficent horns, her blonde hair falling loose around her shoulders as she laughed at something he said.
Blaze—miraculously sober after multiple pots of coffee and Jake's emergency bacon sandwich intervention—was looking at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Really seeing her.
Making my way over during a break between songs, I noticed how his hand rested protectively on her lower back, how she leaned into him without the hesitation that had marked their earlier interactions.
"Having fun?" I asked Stormi.
She turned to me with pure delight lighting up her features—so different from the tears that had dominated the past two days. "Sam, I can't thank you enough. When Raven left, I thought everything was ruined. But this—" She gestured to the party around us. "This is better than any wedding."
Blaze wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she didn't pull away. "Sam's a miracle worker," he declared, his Texas drawl less pronounced now that he wasn’t slurring his words. "And Stormi here's been keeping me from making a fool of myself all night."
"You're doing that on your own, cowboy," she teased, but there was affection in it.
I gave her a subtle thumbs up behind Blaze's back, and her answering smile could have powered the decorative lights strung across the garden. Sometimes love found its way despite—or maybe because of—disaster.
"Samantha! There you are!" Diana Sharp materialized beside me in a sleek black pantsuit. No costume for her—I realized she'd been the only one to skip the dress-up element entirely, too focused on business to play along with Halloween festivities. "We need to talk."
She steered me toward a quieter corner near the windows overlooking the garden, where jack-o'-lanterns flickered among the shadows. Through the glass, I could see Cass adjusting one of the heat lamps on the terrace while Rory directed the placement of additional blankets on the outdoor furniture.
"What you pulled off tonight was nothing short of genius," Diana began without preamble. "The transformation, the crowd management, the narrative pivot from disaster to triumph—I've worked with planners who've been in the business thirty years who couldn't have managed this."
"Thank you, I—"
"I want you on my team." She pulled out her phone, fingers flying across the screen.
"I'm having the network put together an official offer.
Full-time position as my senior event coordinator.
You'd handle every single one of my TV events—premieres, wrap parties, publicity stunts, award show after-parties. The works."
My heart stuttered. "Diana, that's—"
"The starting salary is triple what you're making now.
Full benefits, travel budget, wardrobe allowance because you'll need to look the part at industry events.
You'd need to relocate to LA, of course, but we'd cover moving expenses and temporary housing for the first three months.
" She fixed me with her sharp gaze. "This is the kind of opportunity that launches careers into the stratosphere, Samantha.
The kind most people wait their whole lives for and never get. "
Triple my salary. Los Angeles. The chance to work at the highest levels of the entertainment industry. Everything I'd been working toward since I'd started Maxwell Events in my studio apartment five years ago, surviving on ramen and determination.
"That's... more than generous," I managed, my mind racing through the implications.
"It's smart business. I know talent when I see it, and you've got that rare combination of creativity and crisis management that this industry demands.
" She glanced at her phone. "I'll have the official offer to you by Monday morning.
Take the weekend to think about it, but honestly?
This is a no-brainer. You'd be insane to turn it down. "
She moved away to corner Tony about footage, leaving me standing there with my entire future rearranged in the span of three minutes.
The smart thing—the logical thing—would be to accept immediately.
This was everything I'd dreamed about when I was starting out, planning weddings for couples who could barely afford flowers, let alone elaborate productions.
Through the crowd, my eyes naturally found Gus.
He stood with Margot from the bakery and Ted from the bookshop near the kitchen door, laughing at something Margot said while gesturing with a serving spoon.
His Superman costume was delightfully ridiculous—the glasses perched crookedly, the shirt coming more untucked by the hour—and somehow just right.
The overhead lights caught the slight curl of his hair, the familiar lines around his eyes when he smiled.
My chest ached with unexpected pain.
Los Angeles was two thousand miles from Wintervale. From him. From whatever this thing between us was becoming.
The party swirled on around me—the DJ announcing couple's dances, teenagers sneaking champagne when they thought no one was looking, Bramble weaving between legs in his tiny pumpkin costume that Rory had somehow procured.
But I felt suspended outside time, standing at a crossroads I hadn't seen coming when I'd driven into this town less than a week ago.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Piper appeared beside me dressed as the Cheshire Cat, complete with purple striped tights and an unnervingly wide grin painted on.
"Just processing everything," I replied vaguely, trying to shake off the weight of Diana's offer.
"It's a lot to take in." She studied me with knowing eyes. "The way a place can feel like home even when you've just arrived. The way people can change your life in a matter of days. The way some decisions feel impossible until they're the easiest thing in the world."
Before I could ask what she meant, she'd drifted away to dance with someone dressed as the Mad Hatter, leaving me with the uncomfortable feeling that everyone could see straight through my professional facade.
The party gradually began its natural conclusion, though in Wintervale that apparently meant the dancing got slower and the conversations got deeper rather than people actually leaving.
The teens had been collected by watchful parents, the reality TV crowd had retreated to their rooms to post content, but the core group remained—locals who'd become friends over the course of the evening, vendors who'd become allies in our shared mission, and at the center of it all, the inn family that had somehow absorbed me without my noticing.
I was adjusting one of the centerpieces that had shifted—old habits died hard—when warmth spread across my back.
"Dance with me."
Gus's voice sent shivers down my spine. I turned to find him standing there, glasses tucked into his shirt pocket, hand extended. The kitchen no longer needed him, his crew handling the final cleanup with the ease of long practice.
"I should probably check on—"
"Dance with me, Sam." Softer this time, but insistent. "Just one dance."
I let him lead me outside to the terrace where the heat lamps created pockets of warmth against the autumnal chill.
Other couples swayed nearby—Theodore and Edna, lost in each other; a young couple who had pitched in to help rearrange tables and chairs—but the space felt private, intimate.
Above us, more stars than I'd ever seen in Denver scattered across the clear mountain sky, the Milky Way visible in a way that city lights never allowed.