Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 37164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
I came back to Pineview to finalize my mother’s estate, sign the paperwork, and leave before the memories had a chance to catch up to me.
My mom has been gone long enough that people assume the hardest part is over. But grief doesn’t fade quietly, especially not in a small town during the holidays, when traditions are loud and everyone remembers who you used to be.
I wasn’t supposed to run into Erik Beaumont.
Erik stayed when I left. He built a life here that is steady, rooted, and quietly magnetic. He is familiar and different all at once, the kind of familiar that still knows exactly where it hurts.
When Pineview pulls us back into its Christmas traditions, old feelings resurface. So do unanswered questions, buried truths, and a past that refuses to stay behind me.
With my return flight booked, my life in New York City waiting, and Christmas closing in fast, I am forced to confront what I have been avoiding for years. What it means to leave. What it means to stay. And whether some loves ever truly let you go.
Because in Pineview, Christmas doesn’t just bring people together.
It brings the truth you can’t outrun.
A deeply emotional, slow-burn small-town Christmas romance about second chances, childhood sweethearts, enduring traditions, and the kind of love that lingers long after you think you have moved on
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
Savannah
New York City doesn’t ease you into Christmas. It slinks a garland around your neck and slaps you across the face with mistletoe. Hard.
Then asks why you’re not smiling.
It glitters at you, loudly, aggressively, as though Christmas showed up uninvited and immediately took over the whole damn house. You can’t escape it even if you try with lights everywhere, wreaths zip-tied to scaffolding like the city panicked at the last minute, and bells ringing with the enthusiasm of someone who’s never met seasonal depression.
Rockefeller Plaza looms like a dare. An iconic shrine to Christmas past, present, and impossibly well-lit. The kind of place you grew up watching in movies, where everyone falls in love, nobody slips on ice, and coats apparently provide zero insulation but look great doing it.
This is the Christmas people picture when they think of the holidays and New York City is turned all the way up to an eleven. The city comes alive buzzing with tourists, overpriced cocoa, and the unspoken understanding that we are all pretending this is magical and not deeply inconvenient.
I kind of like that about it. Even if I dread this time of the year.
Snow drifts between buildings that have never known my mother’s name, and that anonymity feels like mercy. No one here expects me to decorate a tree or show up for traditions I abandoned years ago. No one looks at me like they’re waiting for me to remember who I used to be. I can just dip into it momentarily and find refuge back in the safe space I built for myself.
I wrap my fingers around my coffee mug and stare out the window of my Brooklyn studio apartment, watching the city pulse below. Somewhere down the block, Mariah Carey is threatening to defrost, and I shut the window before the sound can crawl inside my chest.
I step back from the glass.
My apartment is quiet in a way Pineview never was. Clean lines. Neutral colors. No hand-me-down furniture. No photographs framed with love instead of symmetry. Everything here is intentional, curated. A life assembled piece by piece until it fits neatly around the parts of me I’m willing to acknowledge.
Behind me, the bed creaks.
“You always drink coffee like it personally offended you,” a rugged voice, rough with sleep.
I don’t turn around right away.
He’s stretched out across my bed, naked and unbothered, one arm tucked behind his head, the sheet pooled low on his hips like it forgot its job sometime during the night. His hair is mussed, his mouth curved into an easy smile that suggests he’s very pleased with how the morning started. I won’t lie, so am I.
“I’m thinking bagels,” he adds. “Or we could be ambitious. Eggs. Something with effort. I make a mean scramble.”
I glance over my shoulder. “You don’t strike me as an effort-before-noon person.”
He laughs softly. “You seemed to like my effort last night.”
Heat flickers in my chest. “Coffee first,” I blush. “Then we’ll see.”
“Fair,” he pushes himself upright, the sheet slipping further. I catch a glance of what lies beneath, the pressure of him still lingering inside of me. “You’re staying in today?”
“For a bit.”
“Good.” He stretches, unhurried. “I could be convinced to stay too.”
“Don’t tempt a girl,” I tease.
He grins. “Challenge accepted.”
I don’t respond. My gaze falls to the floor as I turn back to the window, to the city that keeps moving.
My phone buzzes against the counter. I don’t need to look to know who it is. I already know.
Aunt Carol.
I let it ring.
“Everything okay?” he asks casually, reaching for his jeans.
“Yeah,” I sigh, louder than I’m expecting. “You know, that time of the year. Family.”
“Oof,” he says softly, sympathy in his eyes as he buttons his shirt. “Do you want me to head out?”
The question is careful and kind. We matched on a dating app not long ago, and I know what he’s hoping for. I only wanted the distraction along with the brief forgetting. I’m not ready for more from him.
I’m not even ready for more from myself.
“I think I do. Thank you for understanding. I’ll text you later, okay?”
He nods, unfazed. “I’ll hold you to that.”
The phone buzzes again, insistent now, the way Pineview people are when they’ve decided something is happening whether you like it or not.
I answer. “Hi, Auntie.”
“Oh thank God. I was worried you wouldn’t pick up. I’ve been texting and emailing. Next I thought, I’d have to show up there myself.”
“I’m in the middle of something,” I half-lie, because that’s easier than admitting I was standing still, wrapped in a life that looks complete from the outside, watching a man I barely know finish dressing.
“Well, I’ll be quick.” A pause. “It’s December.”
There it is.
Pineview never dives straight in. It circles, building momentum and waits for the inevitable.
“I’m not coming home for Christmas,” I affirm, voice light. I’ve practiced and rehearsed this all year. “You know that.”