Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I shrugged out of my jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders. It was lined with shearling wool and would provide more warmth than the designer coat he’d left in a snowdrift.
“I can’t take your coat,” he protested weakly.
“I’m not offering options here. Besides, I’m used to the cold.” I settled it over him despite his objections. “And you’re soaking wet.”
He pulled the coat tighter around himself, looking surprisingly vulnerable in my well-worn outerwear. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
I returned to the camera equipment, quickly dismantling the tripod and packing everything away. The sky had darkened considerably, the snow falling faster now. We needed to get back to the truck before the weather worsened any further.
“So,” Adrian said as I finished packing up. “All we need to do is drag a hundred-pound tree back to your truck through increasingly deep snow while a blizzard descends upon us?”
“That about sums it up,” I agreed, shouldering the equipment bag. “Unless you want to leave your perfect tree behind?”
“Never,” he declared with such conviction I had to smile. “But… I don’t suppose you have a tree stand at your store?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Of course we do. It’s a hardware store, for god’s sake. We actually sell Emerson trees there, too.”
“Good.” He hesitated, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. “Because I just realized I have no way to set this up in my cabin, and I… kind of really want to. Will you help me?”
The request hung in the air between us, carrying more weight than its simple words suggested. Going to his cabin. Extending our time together. Continuing whatever had almost happened in the snow.
Every instinct told me to refuse. To maintain boundaries. To remember that in less than three weeks, Adrian Hayes would be gone, back to his perfectly curated life in LA, while I remained in Legacy with my responsibilities and reality.
But as I looked at him standing there in my coat, snow and sweat turning the edges of his hair dark, I found myself nodding. “Okay.”
What the fuck was I thinking? There was a storm coming, and if I went to Adrian’s cabin, I’d end up spending the night there. That was not acceptable. Everyone had seen that movie, for god’s sake, and knew how it ended: with only one bed.
I quickly added, “But, uh… not today. We’ll unload it at the cabin, and then I’ve got to head back into town and check on Maya. I’ll bring a stand out tomorrow and help you get it inside before your next da—ah, shoot.”
The smile that broke across his face was like sunrise after a long night—warm, bright, and devastatingly beautiful.
“Perfect,” he said, raising a teasing eyebrow. “Just like this tree.”
I groaned and forced myself to turn away and focus on figuring out how to drag the massive spruce through the deepening snow. “Let’s get moving before we become the only people on Earth who’ve died from hypothermia at a Christmas tree farm.”
As we began the laborious process of hauling the tree, I tried to convince myself that I was just being a good business owner—securing a customer’s satisfaction, ensuring the shoot could be completed properly.
But the memory of Adrian beneath me in the snow, his eyes darkening as he looked at my lips, made it impossible to believe my own lies.
I was in dicey territory, and the storm brewing around us was nothing compared to the one taking shape inside me.
By the time I arrived home that evening, every muscle in my body ached. Hauling Adrian’s ridiculously large tree through the snow, securing it to my truck, and then leaning it up against the porch of his rental cabin had been a workout even by my standards. But that wasn’t what had me pacing the floor of our apartment above the hardware store, a forgotten mug of coffee cooling on the kitchen counter.
It was what had happened—or almost happened—in the snow.
I’d nearly kissed Adrian Hayes. And worse, I’d wanted to. Badly.
The realization hit me like a sledgehammer as I replayed the moment for the hundredth time. The weight of my body against his. The softness in his eyes. The way my name had sounded on his lips. If he hadn’t shivered from the cold, would I have closed that final distance between us?
“Fuck,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair as I crossed to the window.
Snow continued to fall outside, muting and softening Founder’s Row. Even though the storm hadn’t intensified as predicted, I’d still raced away from Adrian’s cabin like my ass was on fire. He’d invited me in for a drink, but I’d made excuses about needing to check on the store before the storm worsened.
The truth was more complicated. I hadn’t trusted myself to stay, not with the memory of our almost-kiss still pulsing between us. I’d felt something real out there among the trees—something that scared me more than I wanted to admit. Every accidental brush of our hands afterward had sent electricity through me, a current I wasn’t prepared to handle.