Jared groans. “Do you…do you talk like that all the time?”
“Only when I’m awake,” I tell him.
“Storm’s coming,” Rhett says, cutting through my pun-haze. He gestures toward the sky, which has drifted from postcard blue to iron gray while we’ve been standing here negotiating with horses. “If you’ve got filming to do, start today. Roads get dicey when it blows in from the ridge.”
“You get storms often?” I ask.
“Enough,” he says. “You staying in town?”
“Peppermint Inn,” I say. “Do they give out candy canes at check-in? Be honest.”
“Yes,” Mayor Turner says, patting my arm. “And hot cider on the hour. Tell Lolly I sent you. Also,” she adds, looking between us with a smile too wide to be strictly mayoral, “if you need anything for your, ah, project, the town is here to help.”
Rhett’s jaw ticks. “We’ll manage.”
“We’ll manage,” I echo, surprising us both by sounding like I mean it.
He relents with a sigh. “Come on, PR Lady. You can shadow while I tack up. You keep quiet, don’t spook the horses, and if you must pun, do it under your breath.”
“I can do quiet,” I say, following him into the warm, hay-scented barn where strings of white lights loop from beam to beam and glossy harnesses hang like jewelry. “Also, under-my-breath punning is one of my specialties.”
He glances back at me, mouth curving that whisper of a smile again. “I’m starting to believe you.”
“About the quiet?”
“About the specialties.”
Heat flickers under my scarf—part embarrassment, part…not embarrassment. I shove the feeling down, focus on the task. Save Christmas. Secure sponsor. Do not ogle the man who looks unfairly good in flannel and a knit cap.
“So,” I say, pulling out my notebook. “Tell me why you do this, Rhett Ryder.”
He adjusts a bridle, long fingers steady. “Because my granddad did. And because people forget how it feels to slow down until they’re in a sleigh under a quilt with the bells going and the horse’s breath puffing in the cold. Then they remember. And they breathe.”
I stop writing. It’s the first thing he’s said that’s not a prohibition or a judgment, and it lands warm in my chest. “That’s…beautiful.”
“It’s just true,” he says, no brag in it. He hands me a pair of work gloves. “You’re going to hold a lead rope.”
“I am?”
“You want authenticity?” He nods to a gentle gray mare whose eyelashes are longer than my last situationship. “Meet Comet.”
I pull on the gloves, aware of the way they swallow my hands. “Hi, Comet. I’m Ivy. I swear I’m not edible.”
Rhett places the rope in my palm, his gloved fingers brushing mine. A small, ridiculously festive hum zips through me, like someone plugged me into a string of lights. For a heartbeat, his gaze meets mine and my brain forgets every crisis-management bullet point it’s ever learned.
“Don’t let go,” he says softly.
I nod, gripping the rope like it’s the last candy cane on Earth. Outside, the first snowflake drifts past the barn door, lazy and certain. I breathe in hay and pine and something new, something that feels like possibility.
Okay, Chimney Gorge. Okay, grumpy sleigh man. Okay, Christmas.
Let’s ride.
TWO
RHETT
I don’t believe in omens, but if I did, they’d look a lot like a city girl in traction-adjacent boots cracking the runner on your best sleigh and calling it “holly heck.”
