And because the only thing that hurts worse than hearing it is the idea of her dragging herself up and down this mountain for a man who’s still fighting old wars in his head.
She sucks in a breath, looks away, then back at me. “Take me back to the square, please.”
The politeness in thatpleasehurts more than anything else she could’ve said.
I click my tongue, and the horses move. We ride back in silence, the bells suddenly too loud. The lights of town bleed slowly back into view, all warm and bright and oblivious.
When we pull up by the gazebo, she doesn’t wait for me to circle around and help her down. She swings her leg over the side and jumps, boots hitting the packed snow with a soft thud.
She pauses, hand on the sleigh rail, not looking at me.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, voice tight, “I wasn’t going to ask you to give this up. Any of it. I just wanted to be part of it.”
My vision blurs.
“Ivy—” I start.
She shakes her head, steps back, and finally looks up. There’s hurt in her eyes, but there’s steel too.
“Have a nice quiet life, Rhett,” she says. “I hope it keeps you as safe as you think it will.”
Then she turns and walks away, red coat bright against the snow, head high.
I sit there, hands clenched around the reins, watching her go.
Every instinct in me screams to jump down. To call her name. To tell her I lied. That I do want more. That I’m just too broken to know how to hold it without dropping it.
But I stay on the box.
Because I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to survive.
And right now, surviving looks like letting the best thing that’s happened to me in years walk out of my life and telling myself it’s for the best.
The bells jingle softly as Donner tosses his head.
I fix my gaze on the road ahead and tell myself I’m doing the right thing.
It’s amazing what you can make yourself believe when you’re trying hard enough not to feel.
FIFTEEN
IVY
The morning I leave Chimney Gorge, it feels like the whole town shows up to watch me drive away.
Everyone except the one person I actually want to see.
Snow crunches under my boots as I carry my tote toward the square. The sky is one of those clear winter blues that feels fake, like someone painted it on. Banners from the Jubilee still hang over the street. Lights twine the lampposts, faint in the daylight. It smells like cinnamon, woodsmoke, and fried dough.
It smells like a place I fell in love with.
It smells like the place I got my heart broken.
Keely is the first to tackle me.
“Don’t go,” she says, flinging herself at me so hard my bag swings. “Stay and be our permanent content elf. We’ll pay you in cookies and emotional validation.”
I hug her back, laughing weakly. “Tempting. Very tempting. But my boss would probably notice if I stopped showing up and just…moved into the Peppermint Inn.”
