It wasn’t a stolen kiss. It wasn’t a desperate kiss behind a closed door. It was slow, sweet, and very public.
Around them, the town kept celebrating. Someone laughed. A child dropped a candy cane. The music played on, and the world didn’t stop because two men kissed under a magnolia tree.
It just got a little bit brighter.
Epilogue
Holiday Pines Farm
One Year Later
December 24
The snow started an hour before sunset.
It wasn’t the hard, biting sleet of the previous year. It wasn’t the treacherous glaze of an ice storm. It was the stuff of storybooks—fat, lazy flakes drifting down from a heavy gray sky, dusting the green boughs of the pines in soft white powder.
Wes Dalton stood on the porch of the farmhouse, a mug of coffee in his hand, watching it fall.
“It’s sticking,” a voice said from behind him.
Wes leaned back against Jake, who wrapped his arms around Wes’s waist, resting his chin on Wes’s shoulder. Jake smelled of cedarwood soap and the expensive cologne he still wore, even though his daily commute was now a ten-minute drive to the loft above The Divine Dough.
“It’s the good kind,” Wes said, relaxing into the embrace. “Ground temp is warm enough that the roads will stay wet, but the trees will look pretty.”
“Ever the farmer,” Jake teased, pressing a kiss to the side of Wes’s neck. “Calculating soil temps on Christmas Eve.”
“Someone has to.”
“Everything is ready,” Jake said. “The heaters in the barn are cranking. Chuck just pulled up with the catering van. And I think I saw your dad sneaking a shot of bourbon into his cider.”
Wes laughed. “Let him. If he survives the sweater Barb knitted for him, he deserves a drink.”
Wes turned in Jake’s arms. A year had put a few new lines around Jake’s eyes—good lines, from laughing—and roughened his hands nearly enough to match Wes’s. He looked happy. Not the frantic, high-octane success of the Atlanta banker, but the deep, settled contentment of a man who was exactly where he belonged.
“You realize,” Jake said, straightening Wes’s collar, “that tonight is a victory lap, right? The Event Barn is booked solid through June. The tree sales were up twenty percent. And nobody died of frostbite.”
“We did okay, didn’t we?” Wes admitted, terrified of jinxing it.
“We did amazing. Now, go put on your jacket. The town is coming.”
The renovation of the old tractor barn had been Jake’s idea, of course.
Further diversification, he’d said in his PowerPoint presentation to Wes and Henry back in February.Agritourism.
Wes had called it “cleaning out fifty years of raccoon poop.”
But looking at it now, Wes had to admit Jake was a genius. The barn doors were thrown wide open. Inside, the spacewas transformed. The rough-hewn beams were wrapped in thousands of warm white twinkle lights. The dirt floor had been leveled and covered with rustic pavers. Tables with red linens were scattered throughout, and a dance floor had been cleared in the center.
It was the first annual Holiday Pines Christmas Gala.
Much of the town was there. Tucker and Evan were manning the bar in the corner, Tucker laughing loudly as he poured heavy-handed drinks. Chuck and Brody were serving brisket sliders and mini-doughnuts. Diane Crawford was there, looking younger than she had in years, laughing with Miguel and Charlie near the heaters. Even Henry was there, at a table near the entrance. He was wearing a bright green sweater with a red-nosed reindeer on it, gesturing with his cane as he spoke with Dex Barker.
Also, near the heaters, Mayor Titus Shepherd was holding court, looking regal in a charcoal wool coat, his arm draped comfortably around his husband, Pedro. They stood close, an anchor of calm in the bustling room.
“Look at this place,” Pedro said as Wes and Jake approached. He gestured with his wineglass, his dark eyes warm. “It’s magical, Wes. Truly. You’ve brought the spirit back to this land.”
“Jake did the heavy lifting on the design,” Wes said.
