Chapter 1
Chapter One
WILLOW
Mom used to say that holidays were magical because of the people they brought together.
As a child of divorce, I never believed her. Not before my father walked out, and absolutely not afterward.
Every December, she’d swear up and down that the season wasn’t about gifts or traditions—it was about the people.
She said it like a vow, as if she could reshape reality into something kinder than it was.
We’d spend another Christmas alone, just her and me, pretending a crooked tree and half-burnt sugar cookies meant joy.
She never admitted that maybe it hurt her too.
She was stubborn like that—too proud to confess that hope sometimes lies.
Now, the garland is hanging behind the cash register, and I sigh. The tinsel scratches my wrist, and the glitter sticks to my palms, clinging like memory.
“You just had to leave in spring, Mama,” I whisper into the half-empty shop. “Couldn’t give me another reason to hate these stupid holidays?”
It’s been three years since a stroke ripped her out of my life, and I still don’t know how to function without her. She never understood why I wanted this bookstore so badly.
“It’s a dying business, Willow,” she’d say, lips pressed tight while scrolling through my chaotic inventory spreadsheets. “You’ll never make enough money to support yourself with this.”
She predicted it would ruin me. She laughed when I quit my city job, emptied my savings, and rebuilt the old post office into shelves and stories.
She thought it was reckless. But she still came every day she could, fussing over my displays, shoving receipts into neat piles, humming along to the radio while insisting she didn’t have time to stay.
The grief isn’t as unbearable as it used to be.
In the beginning, it felt like drowning—like every breath scraped against something jagged inside me, like the world had been drained of all its color and left me in grayscale.
I couldn’t step through the door of this shop without hearing her voice in the hum of the heater, without expecting her to materialize from behind a shelf with that knowing smirk and a stack of receipts she’d already alphabetized.
Now it’s quieter. Softer, but no less present.
It clings the way the smell of old paper lingers here, stubborn and impossible to scrub out.
It seeps in like cold air through a cracked window, unnoticed at first, until it’s wrapped itself around me.
I’ll be shelving books or measuring out coffee grounds, and suddenly her absence presses against me—like a chair pulled out across from mine that no one will ever sit in again.
Some days, it still makes me collapse. But other days . . . I can almost smile.
I can remember her fussing over the register or teasing me about my stubborn streak, and instead of breaking down, I feel something gentler.
Not happiness exactly, but a warmth that reminds me I was loved, and that I still carry her in ways I don’t always notice—when I hum while working, when I keep the shop open too late, when I push back against advice because I believe in what I’ve built.
The pain hasn’t vanished. It never will. But it’s changed. It doesn’t flatten me the way it once did, doesn’t suffocate me until I can’t stand. Instead, it lingers, like a bruise that will never fade completely, but no longer throbs every time I move.
Some nights I still bury my face in a pillow and scream until my throat aches, until my chest feels raw and hollow.
I’ve learned, though, that I don’t have to hold all of it alone. I have neighbors who check in, friends who drag me out for coffee, customers who notice when my laugh sounds off. And then there’s him.
The only person who can still make me feel seen in the middle of all this silence is the one my mother trusted enough to call her own when his family didn’t want him.
“Riddle me this, Princess,” Roman calls as he saunters in from the loading dock, voice dripping with mock irritation. “Why did I unload five cases of Austen reprints this morning?”
“They’re popular,” I mutter, rearranging the garland as if it suddenly matters.
“Popular enough for five cases?” His brow arches. “We talking Hunger Games level mayhem in here? Book nerds tearing each other apart limb by limb for copies of stories that have been around longer than our grandparents?”
I shoot him a look. “You never know.”
He hums, folding his muscular arms across his broad chest. “And this definitely has nothing to do with the high school library losing its funding, right?”
I wince. Shit.
Roman smirks, that cocky grin that makes me want to punch him and kiss him in the same breath. “Busted.”
“I thought you unloaded them already,” I say defensively.
“I didn’t say where I put them, now did I?” His grin widens. “Figured I’d save us both some time and get them into my truck.”
I groan. “Your ego’s so inflated the town should charge you property tax.”
“Don’t lie, Princess.” He leans in just enough for me to catch the scent of his cologne, warm cedar and something darker. “You love me, and you know it.”
Well, you don’t have to know that.
If twenty years of friendship have taught me anything, it’s this: deny, deny, deny. Deny guilt. Deny feelings. Deny the way my pulse jumps when he’s too close. Because if Roman catches even a hint of vulnerability, he’ll weaponize it with merciless teasing.
The last thing I need is him knowing how pathetically gone I am for him.
And how could I not be? That tousled chestnut hair, like he just rolled out of bed with sin on his mind, makes me want to forget every ounce of self-control.
Those eyes—warm, endless brown—hold a gravity that could pull secrets right out of me if I let them linger too long.
And that grin—crooked, reckless, utterly infuriating—like he knows exactly how undone he leaves me.
Then there’s his body. God help me. Broad shoulders that stretch every flannel he owns, arms so strong and defined they look like they were built to pin someone close and never let go.
And when the sleeves ride up? The veins trace along his forearms in ways that make me dizzy.
His chest is solid, the kind of solid that makes you feel like the rest of the world could crumble and he wouldn’t budge.
And his stomach—yeah, I’ve caught glimpses when his shirt rides up.
Those abs aren’t sculpted like a fitness model’s.
They’re better. Earned from long days of hauling boxes, fixing roofs, and working through summers under the sun.
Muscle shaped by life, not vanity. Real, raw strength, lean lines that pull my eyes where they shouldn’t linger, making my pulse skip and heat coil low in my stomach.
He’s the sort of man strangers stare at in the grocery store, lingering too long by the produce aisle just to watch him reach for something on the top shelf.
And I’ve seen it happen—seen the way women’s eyes trail over him, bold and hungry.
It makes my skin crawl, makes me want to tear their gazes away, makes me want to scratch their eyes out for looking at what doesn’t belong to them.
I’ll never admit how badly I want to be the one standing at his side when they look.
He flicks my forehead. “Don’t think too hard. You’ll get stuck with that pout forever.”
“I do not pout,” I snap.
“So now you’re pouting about pouting.” His laugh warms the air between us. “Lighten up, Wills. Do something daring.”
“Yeah, because what every independent bookstore needs is a thrill-seeker for an owner,” I deadpan.
“Exactly.” He waves me off, vanishing into the break room and returning with his disgusting neon-green energy drink.
“When was the last time you took a risk?” he asks, cracking the can open.
“Yesterday. I wore mismatched socks.”
“Wow. How did you survive?”
“Shut up.”
His lips tilt sideways, that expression he gets when he’s prying something loose without saying it outright. “I’m just saying . . . it’s been a few years. I know this season isn’t your favorite—”
“Understatement of the century.”
“But your mom loved it,” he presses. “And I think . . . a part of you did too.”
I hate him a little for saying it out loud. Because he’s right.
I never liked the holidays themselves. Too loud. Too full of relatives who didn’t give a damn about us until December rolled around, showing up just to criticize my mother’s catering choices while drinking her wine. The same people vanished when I buried her.
But I loved how much she loved the season. She lit up with it—the sweets, the carols, the lights, the chance to believe next year could be better. Even when the bills were stacked high. Even when her health faltered. She was still stringing popcorn, still humming along to Bing Crosby, still hoping.
I'd give anything if I could have one more night with her—just one more Hallmark marathon, one more argument about those cursed stockings she knit and refused to throw out.
“I guess,” I admit softly.
Roman slings an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close with casual ease that feels like torture. “So maybe we do something special. You’ve always been there for me, Wills. Let me do something for you.”
His body radiates warmth, his touch grounding and dangerous, all at once. My throat tightens.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s something worth saving in this season. Not for me, but for him. For us. For her memory.
Maybe—just maybe—I can bring the magic back.
Not through lights strung across windows or garland wound around banisters, but through the hope my mother carried like a flame she refused to let burn out.
That hope still clings to me, no matter how hard I try to bury it.
And against every cynical bone in my body, it stirs again now—because Roman is here.
His thumb brushes the curve of my shoulder, warm and distracting, his breath ghosting close to my temple.
It makes me want to lean in and believe—for one terrifying, impossible second—that some things are still worth saving.