Chapter 1
Chapter One
AVA
The train screeches into the station, brakes whining, a hiss of steam curling up into the night.
I press my forehead to the cold glass and stare out at the platform.
Same string of white lights along the eaves, same crooked wooden bench by the doors, same layer of snow dusting everything in sight. This place hasn’t changed. Not one bit.
I step down with my bag slung over my shoulder, the icy air biting my cheeks. It smells like pine and woodsmoke—like home, if home were a postcard I’d stuffed in a drawer and forgotten about.
My eyes immediately scan the crowd looking for one tall, grinning, infuriatingly familiar face.
He’s not here.
Of course.
I linger near the bench for five minutes.
I sit down for another ten. another ten.
By fifteen minutes, my toes are numb, and my patience is gone.
I duck inside the tiny station, use the washroom just to warm up, then end up at the vending machine buying a bag of candy I don’t even want.
By the time I walk back outside, tearing the bag open with frozen fingers, I’m already rehearsing the speech I’m going to give him about punctuality.
“Need a hand with that, city girl?”
That voice. I don’t even have to turn to know.
Sure enough, Liam Carter is leaning against one of the old wooden posts like the years haven’t touched him.
Beanie pulled low over his dark hair, camera strap across his chest, hands buried in his pockets like he’s got nowhere to be.
That same easy grin curves his mouth, the one that used to get him out of trouble and into just about everything else.
“You’re late,” I say, fingers tightening around my suitcase handle.
“You’re early.” He pushes off the post and heads toward me, boots crunching over the snow. “Classic Ava Reynolds move. Punctual to a fault.”
“And you’re still allergic to being on time.” I tip my head, squinting at him. “Tell me you actually brought a car and we’re not hiking six miles back to the cabins.”
Cabins. I don’t know why we still call them that.
They’re houses—solid, cedar-sided, with wide porches and stone chimneys—sitting side by side at the edge of the pines.
Liam’s family moved in when he and I both were five, and from that day on, it was the Reynolds-and-Carters, like one big extended household.
Summer nights playing flashlight tag, winters tunnelling through snowdrifts, birthday parties that always seemed to spill from one porch to the other.
Cabins or not, those two houses raised us. And now, for the first time in years, I’m about to walk back into them with him at my side.
He gestures toward the parking lot where his sleight gray 1967 Ford Bronco is, exhaust puffing into the cold air. “Would I let you freeze? I brought a blanket, too. Luxury service.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. “I’ll have you know heated seats are more my speed.”
“Bet they are,” he mutters under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear. I swat his arm as he takes my suitcase like it weighs nothing.
When he tosses it into the bed of the truck and turns back, his smile softens in a way that shouldn’t make my chest squeeze like this. Liam and I have only ever been friends. That’s all we’ve ever been. So, I don’t know why the sight of that smile makes something tight and unsteady shift inside me.
“It’s good to see you, Ava.”
I don’t say it back, but the heat creeping beneath my scarf probably says enough.
The heater blasts the moment I climb into Liam’s truck, but it still takes a full minute for my fingers to stop aching from the cold.
I rub my hands together and glance around.
Same cracked dashboard, same pine-tree air freshener dangling from the mirror, same stack of maps shoved into the door pocket like it’s still 2005.
“You still haven’t upgraded?” I tease, buckling in. “This thing was old seven years ago when we graduated high school.”
Liam shoots me a sideways look as he slips the camera strap over his head, letting it dangle from his hand before setting it carefully on the backseat.
That camera has been practically glued to him since we were teenagers.
Now it’s his livelihood. He’s a freelance photographer, always jetting off to some far-flung corner of the world to capture glaciers, deserts, and city skylines while remaining in Vermont as his home-base.
Liam starts the truck and pulls onto the road. “This thing is a fully restored, classic Bronco. It’s every guy’s dream, plus, it’s reliable. Unlike certain people I could name who abandoned Vermont for city skylines.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t start. You know why I left.”
“Yeah,” he says softly, then turns the radio up a notch. Christmas music filters through, cheerful and obnoxious. He hums along, just to annoy me, and I smack the volume down.
“Still hate Christmas songs?” he asks, grinning.
“Still love torturing me with them?”
“Tradition,” he says, and for a second it feels exactly like old times—me in the passenger seat, him at the wheel, trading jabs until my cheeks hurt from laughing.
Snow drifts lazily past the windshield as we wind up the mountain road toward the cabins. Lights twinkle in the distance, warm dots against the white hills. My chest tightens with something I can’t quite name.
“So, your parents…” I begin carefully.
“Florida,” he says. “Decided last minute to extend their trip. My sister needed more help with the baby.”
“Oh.” Disappointment and butterflies tumble together in my stomach. “That’s right, you’re an uncle now. Have you gotten to meet your niece yet?”
“I have,” he beams. “Charlotte is as cute as a button. She didn’t want me to leave. Bawled for twenty minutes the day I had to fly back to Vermont.”
“She’s eight weeks old, country boy,” I reply with an eye roll, though the warmth in his smile lingers in my chest longer than it should.
I clear my throat, shifting the focus, getting ready to break the news to Liam.
He and I are alone for Christmas. It’s probably better if I ask him to turn this truck around and take me back to the station.
“So, my parents took off too. Last-minute trip to Boston. Dad got called in for something work-related, so Mom tagged along. Guess that means it’s just us this Christmas. ”
He flicks a glance at me, the corner of his mouth tugging. “Guess so.”
Something about the way he says it makes the air in the cab feel warmer than it should.
I look away quickly, watching the snow blur outside my window.
Vermont looks so peaceful blanketed in snow.
If I stayed, I could finally finish that book I’ve been dragging around for months, sleep until the sun is high, and maybe even spend an entire day curled up by the fire with nowhere to be but here.
It wouldn’t be that bad if I spent some time with Liam.
Just like old times, I remind myself. Nothing more.
The heater finally starts to do its job, thawing the tip of my nose, but it’s still no match for the quiet between us.
We crest the hill and the homes we grew up in come into view, twin shapes tucked beneath heavy pines.
Snow piles high on the roofs, but the porches sit in complete darkness. Not even a porch light. I frown.
“Really?” I glance at Liam as he pulls into the drive. “You didn’t leave a light on?”
He winces, then shrugs, totally unbothered. “I meant to. I guess I got distracted.”
“By what?” I press, already knowing the answer.
“By life.” He says simply, throwing the truck into park. “Besides, nothing says ‘Welcome home for Christmas’ like stumbling up an icy porch in the pitch black.”
I shake my head, unbuckling. “Some host you are.”
“Correction,” he says, climbing out and grabbing my bag. “I’m the chauffeur so my job is officially done.”
Shaking my head at him, I climb out of the truck.
My boots sink into the snow, and for a second, I just stand there, staring at my family home.
Same crooked porch swing, same wreath my mom insists on hanging every year even though it’s half bare.
The sight punches me in the chest, harder than I expect.
I left Vermont four years ago for school, telling everyone I needed a change of scenery.
The truth was, I needed distance. My boyfriend at the time was an ass and suddenly this town felt too small to breath in.
Liam whistles low as he slams the truck door. “Guess it’s just us, huh?”
I huff out a breath, a laugh bubbling out despite myself. “Of course this would happen. What kind of small-town Hallmark nonsense—”
“—would strand us alone in side-by-side houses at Christmas?” His eyes glint as he finishes for me. “The best kind.”
I roll my eyes, fighting the smile tugging at my mouth. “Don’t get any ideas. This is strictly survival. Hot cocoa, maybe a movie marathon, and then I head back to my very non-snowy, very Christmas-free life.”
“Sure,” he says easily, like he believes me. “Just like old times.”
But the way my pulse stutters as I follow him up the snowy porch steps says it’s already nothing like old times.