“That's just Holden. Grumpy as they come, always has been.” She leaned back, mug in both hands. “Don't take it personally. He doesn't do small talk.” She considered me over the rim. “Doesn't do big talk either, come to think of it. But he's good at what he does. Been running that shop since his grandmother passed, keeps to himself mostly. Good kid, though.”
“Good to know.”
I opened my laptop but didn't start working. Kept thinking about the way he'd straightened when I stepped closer and let himself take up space for just a moment. Like he'd been trying to disappear and then, briefly, decided not to.
He hadn't laughed at my order, either, or asked probing questions. He'd been serious, but not… mean or anything.
The flowers weren't a joke. My therapist back in Denver would have been proud. I was doing the work, showing up for myself even when no one else would. After two years with Landon, I'd learned that waiting for someone else to make you feel worthy was a losing game. So I bought myself flowers. Took myself on walks. Reminded myself, on the bad days, that I was worth the effort even when it didn't feel that way.
Landon. The name made my shoulders creep up toward my ears.
We'd met in Denver a few years ago, started dating soon after that. He was in tech sales, all confidence and polish, the kind of guy who walked into a room and made everyone look. I'd been building my freelance design business, still figuring out who I was. He'd seemed like an answer to a question I hadn't known I was asking.
We were happy. We were in love.
Two years together. We'd adopted Marceline and Bubblegum as puppies six months in, and for a while things had been good. The dogs, the apartment, the life we were building together. The family I'd always wanted.
When things fell apart, when I finally admitted to myself that they'd been falling apart for a long time, Landon's company had gone under. Tech layoffs, the whole industry contracting, and suddenly the man who'd always had an answer for everything was unemployed and unmoored. He'd get angry and take it out on me and our relationship, easy targets.
One day he decided to move back to his hometown. Prospect Ridge. The place he'd grown up, where his family owned the ski resort up the mountain, where he could regroup and figure out his next move.
I told him that I understood.
Honestly, I didn't, but what else could I say? Things had been civil enough, dividing up any possessions we'd acquired together… except—
I looked down at the girls.
I wasn't giving up the dogs, and neither was he. Eventually we agreed to shared custody, alternating weeks, which meant I had a choice: stay in Denver and drive ninety minutes each way twice a month where we'd make the switch, or follow Landon to a town I'd never seen so we'd be closer.
Pathetic, probably. My mother certainly thought so. But my girls were worth it, and I had no real ties to Denver.
Under my desk, Marceline rolled onto her back, paws in the air. I reached down to scratch her belly, my fingers brushing the tattoo on my wrist—the two pointed Corgi ears I'd gotten a year into having them, back when I'd thought Landon and I would last forever.
The tattoo had outlasted the relationship. So had my love for these two ridiculous animals.
“You're thinking hard over there.” Brandy's voice cut through. “Everything okay?”
“Just settling in.” I pulled up the design project I was supposed to be working on, a logo for a craft brewery in Denver thatwanted something “rustic but modern, classic but fresh.” The kind of brief that meant seventeen versions before they picked the first one. “It takes time, right? Getting used to a new place?”
“It does.” She set down her mug and shuffled through papers on her desk. “But Prospect Ridge is good at taking people in. Give it a few more months.”
I wanted to believe her. My lease was month-to-month, a safety net because I wasn't ready to commit to anything permanent. Not after Landon. Not yet.
But sitting here in this cramped coworking space, with the mountains visible through the window and my dogs at my feet and coffee warming my hands, I felt something I hadn't felt in a while. Not happiness, exactly. More like the possibility of it. The sense that I could breathe here, maybe, if I let myself.
Through the frost-edged glass, I could see the road that wound up toward Hawkin's Ridge—Landon's family's ski resort, the reason he'd come back, the reason I was here at all. The slopes were busy this time of year, cars crawling up the mountain. But down here in town, everything moved slower. Quieter. After Denver's constant noise—the traffic, the construction, the bars spilling crowds onto the sidewalks at all hours—this icy stillness felt almost alien. Beautiful, though. The kind of desolate beauty that made you feel small in a way that wasn't entirely bad.
I started sketching ideas for the logo. Thought about grumpy florists and dry humor and the way Holden's ears had flushed red when I'd caught him looking.
Probably nothing. Definitely nothing. The man had barely spoken to me, and I was supposed to be focusing on myself, not getting distracted by broad shoulders and careful hands and the challenge of making someone that closed-off smile.
But the flowers would come later this week. He'd said he'd surprise me with the day.
I found myself looking forward to it more than I should have.
Chapter Two
Holden
