Emma Hartley's life is falling apart. Her engagement ended three months ago when she caught her fiancé cheating. Her job at the Boston marketing firm is suffocating. Her family keeps asking when she's going to "get back out there." She's exhausted, heartbroken, and desperate for a break from her life.So when her best friend cancels their planned holiday trip to a mountain resort at the last minute, Emma decides to go anyway. Alone. Two weeks in Pine Ridge, Colorado—a tiny town in the Rockies where nobody knows her, nobody will ask about the breakup, and she can just breathe.The Evergreen Lodge is perfect. Rustic, cozy, with a massive stone fireplace and views of snow-covered mountains. The owner, however, is decidedly less perfect.Ben Coleman is grumpy, gruff, and clearly would rather be anywhere than making small talk with guests. He's in his mid-thirties, unfairly handsome in a rugged, flannel-wearing, lumberjack way, and has mastered the art of the one-word response. When Emma tries to be friendly, he grunts. When she asks about local attractions, he points to a brochure. When she mentions it's her first time in Colorado, he says "Nice" and walks away.Emma should be annoyed. She is annoyed. Ben Coleman is the opposite of charming. He's antisocial, borderline rude, and seems to actively dislike the holiday season despite running a Christmas-themed lodge.But then a massive snowstorm hits. The kind that buries roads, knocks out power, and traps everyone inside. The kind that the weather service says won't clear for at least a week. Maybe more.Suddenly, Emma isn't just a guest passing through. She's snowed in.
As the days pass, Emma discovers that Ben isn't actually grumpy—he's grieving. The lodge belonged to his late wife, who died two years ago. This is his first Christmas running it alone, and every decoration, every tradition, every holiday song is a reminder of what he lost.He's not antisocial—he's protecting himself. Keeping people at arm's length because letting them close means risking that kind of pain again.But Emma, with her relentless optimism and refusal to let him wallow, is making it very hard to maintain that distance. She helps him fix things when the pipes freeze. She cooks meals in the fireplace when the power's still out. She finds his late wife's recipe book and convinces him to make her famous hot chocolate.She makes him laugh. Makes him remember what it feels like to enjoy the holidays. Makes him realize that maybe, just maybe, he's ready to live again.And Ben—grumpy, closed-off Ben—makes Emma feel safe in a way she hasn't felt in years. He listens when she talks about her ex, about feeling lost, about not knowing what she wants from life. He doesn't try to fix her or rush her healing. He just sits with her in front of the fire and lets her be sad when she needs to be sad.He makes her hot chocolate at 2 AM when she can't sleep. He teaches her to chop wood (badly) and laughs when she nearly takes out the woodpile. He tells her stories about his wife—not to make Emma feel like she's competing with a ghost, but to share the parts of himself he's been keeping locked away.The snow keeps falling. Christmas gets closer. And somewhere between the candlelit dinners and the late-night conversations and the way Ben looks at her like she's the first good thing that's happened to him in years, Emma realizes she's falling for him.But the storm will eventually end. The roads will clear. Real life will come calling—Emma's job, her apartment, her family in Boston. And Ben's life is here, in this lodge, in this town, wrapped up in memories of the life he built with someone else.Can two broken people find healing in each other? Can a holiday romance that started with a snowstorm survive when reality returns? And is Emma brave enough to risk her heart again—this time for a grumpy lodge owner who makes her believe in love, second chances, and the magic of Christmas?
