She’s my tenant. My therapist’s sister. And the last distraction I need this Christmas.
Kelsie Mason arrives at my rental cabin three weeks before the holidays with notebooks, a laptop, and determination to break her eight-month writer’s block. I’m the forty-four-year-old sheriff who hasn’t celebrated Christmas since my wife walked out sixteen years ago, leaving me to raise our daughter alone.
When the cabin’s heating system fails, I offer her my guest room as a temporary solution. She should be easy to avoid – I’ve perfected the art of keeping people at a distance.
Except her creative chaos infects my ordered home. She cooks meals we share over conversations that stretch into night. Her smile coaxes me to the town tree lighting I’ve avoided for years.
She came seeking her lost creativity. Instead, she found me—a grumpy sheriff who never expected to feel again.
Christmas has always meant pain, but Kelsie is showing me it might be time for a new tradition.