Ten years ago, Maren left a ring and a note in Eli's mailbox and caught the 6:10 bus. Tonight, his plow is stuck in her grandmother's ditch.
Maren Ellery is a Boston ICU nurse who checks every number twice and hasn't set foot in Larkspur Falls, Vermont, in ten years. Then a stroke takes most of her grandmother's words, and Maren drives home through a December storm with index cards, two pill organizers and a plan: four weeks, then back to Boston.
Eli Rourke grows Christmas trees and plows the county roads at night. He has already stocked her grandmother's pantry, shoveled her walk and fed her cat. He has one rule for her visit: be polite, say nothing about the past, and stay out of the way until she goes.
The rule doesn't last. Her grandmother writes her opinions on a whiteboard in capital letters, the whole town is counting on a lantern walk, and Eli keeps showing up with a shovel and no explanation.
Then a job offer arrives from Boston with a deadline, and the question neither of them asked at a bus stop ten years ago comes due.
Inside this book you'll find:- A second chance love story ten years in the making
- A Vermont town, a lantern walk and a December storm
- A nurse heroine and a tree farmer hero who says too little
- Warm and emotional, with real grief and a grandmother you will love
- Sensual love scenes, with the door closed
- A happily ever after, with no cliffhanger
This book is for you if...- You love second chance stories where both people were wrong.
- You like a hero who says it with a shovel and a grocery list.
- You want a Christmas read that is cozy but not fluff.
Spend December in Larkspur Falls and find out what it takes to come home.