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Chapter 1
Chapter One: Homecoming
The night air over Maple Ridge smelled like woodsmoke and memory. Amelia Hart clenched the steering wheel as the snow thickened across the windshield, wet flakes catching in her headlight beams and turning the world into a white tunnel. It was the week of Christmas. It was also the week of her sister’s wedding. And for the first time in years, Amelia had come home.
She had left Maple Ridge early in her twenties with a city job and a tight smile that said she would never turn back. She built a life far from small-town gossip, far from the cabin parties and bonfires, far from the boy she had dated and the boy she had wanted. Now she was driving past the diner where she used to split a slice of pie with her sister and past the pawnshop with the permanent SALE sign. On the dashboard, a to-do list stared back at her for the wedding: ribbons, candles, place cards, boutonniere pins. Her sister Becca had that glowing, dazzled look of someone marrying the right person. That alone had pulled Amelia home.
She told herself she was fine, that she wouldn’t see Mark Bennett. She told herself the old one-two punch of his smile and voice couldn’t knock the breath from her like it used to. She was older now, smarter now. She had learned, in conference rooms and late-night emails, how to control every inch of her face. She could handle a Christmas wedding. She could handle memories.
Her tires rolled over a patched road. The snow came faster.
Becca called, her voice bubbling through the speakers. “You’re almost to the lodge, right? I sent you the list, but the craft store up the mountain has the exact ribbon. The pine-needle green. The online order went missing.”
Amelia sighed. “Of course it did.”
“I’ll owe you forever,” Becca said. “Plus I saved you a gingerbread man with sunglasses.”
Amelia smiled despite herself. “That’s a crime against cookies.”
“It’s festive. And you love me.”
“I do.”
“Thank you,” Becca said softly. “And… I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Amelia lied. She meant it about Becca. She was less sure about everything else.
She made the turn toward the mountain road. In the distance, the craft store lights glowed warm and golden against the encroaching snow. Her phone blipped with a new text—Becca forgot to mention the cake topper—and Amelia glanced down for a second too long.
The car drifted. The tires hit ice. The steering wheel went light, and the world skidded.
“Come on,” she breathed. The car fishtailed, finding no purchase on the slick sheen of frozen road, then slid sideways. Metal shuddered as the front bumper kissed the guardrail and stopped. Heart hammering, Amelia sat stunned, the world narrowed down to breath and snow and the faint, tinny sound of “O Holy Night” on the radio.
She tried the gear shift. The rear wheels spun uselessly. The car settled deeper into the drift. White swallowed the road, the trees, the sky.
Then the night went very quiet.
