Graham woke before dawn, as usual. He lay in bed for a few minutes, because those moments were likely all he’d get in the way of peace and quiet that day. Most days, actually. Running Springside Energy was a seven-day-a-week job that he tried to cram into six so he could attend church.

Running Whiskey Mountain Lodge was easily as busy, what with the horses and the land and everything. So he’d hired three women on as staff around the lodge. Annie only came to clean a few times a week, because seventy percent of the house was still unused. Bree had seen to his lawn, gardens, pool, and trees over the summer and into the fall. Now that winter was breathing down their necks again, she’d asked about doing some interior decorating on the house.

Graham had looked around the foyer, finally noticing that while everything was dust-free thanks to Annie’s efforts, there wasn’t anything personal in the room. No pictures. No flower arrangements. No personal items of his travels, his likes, nothing.

Every room in the house felt like that, like it had no personality. Like the ghost of a man lived here.

Graham had nodded, which had brought a bright smile to Bree’s face. So, for the past three weeks, she’d been bringing in holiday décor. For Thanksgiving, the whole place had been ripe with turkeys, welcome signs, a fall leaf wreath, and much more.

She’d just asked him about art, what he liked, what her budget was, and if each room should have a theme. He’d given her whatever money she needed and asked her to simply make the house look like someone cared about it.

Graham did care about the lodge; he really did. He lived in a large bedroom down the hall from the kitchen, with a huge office between the two. Those three rooms felt lived-in at least, and they took up almost the entire main floor. He used the washroom, where Bear slept, but it had been a while since he’d been up the spiral staircase to the rooms up there, or down to the basement, where more rooms, a game room, and a theater sat.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched, the scent of baking bread meeting his nose. His last addition to Whiskey Mountain Lodge had obviously arrived and had been busy in the kitchen.

Celia Armstrong was brilliant with flavors, and she could make anything Graham requested. He didn’t make a lot of demands on her, other than “something I can’t get from a place in town.”

After all, Coral Canyon was a small place, and he’d eaten through every restaurant twice before May had arrived. That was when he hired Celia, then Bree, and finally Annie as the workload at Springside threatened to crush him.

He took a moment to miss his life in Seattle. He’d lived there for fourteen years and hadn’t eaten at all the restaurants he’d wanted to, let alone every one in the city. After being gone for eleven months, he could think about that life without anger.

Thank you for that, he prayed, glad that time did seem to heal some wounds. He could even think about Erica and all she’d done without his pulse pounding in his neck, and that had taken much longer to achieve.

He ran his hands through his hair and got up to shower. After all, he had chores to do out in the stables before he got to work on energy business. Over the months, he’d learned a lot about horses, farming, and ranching.

Whenever there was something he didn’t know, he called Laney. She’d come to help him, sometimes bringing her daughter and sometimes coming alone. And in a world where Graham had given up his corporate job, his friends, and his entire life, it was nice to have someone come when he called.

In fact, Laney McAllister was definitely one of his only friends in Wyoming. His brother and mother lived in town, but Graham honestly found it hard to get down to see them more than once a month.

He enjoyed being busy, because it prevented him from having too much time to think, like he was now. So he put his lonely existence from his mind and got ready for the day.

When he arrived in the kitchen, he grinned at the spread of hot bread and homemade strawberry jam. “Celia.” He chuckled as she turned from the stove. “You’re a godsend.”

She smiled at him, the wrinkles around her eyes a welcome sight. Her laughter like a balm to his weary soul. The older woman reminded him so much of his mother, and hiring her was the best move he’d made since coming to Coral Canyon.

“Its just bread, Graham.”

“And eggs.” He pointed to the pan behind her. She turned back to her scrambling, and Graham sliced the end off a loaf of bread and smeared it with butter and jam. A moan leaked from his throat at the warmth, the yeasty taste of the bread, the sugary jam.

“A godsend,” he repeated around the mouthful of food, and Celia shook her head. A few moments later, she slid the eggs from the pan to a plate and presented them to him.

“I’m making those sweet and sour meatballs you love,” she said. “So they’ll last until I come back. And I’ve put three of those rising crust pizzas you love in the freezer. And Bree’s coming to do the Christmas decorations this weekend, and since I’m visiting my sister.” She lifted her eyebrows as if to ask if Graham remembered that she’d be gone.

He hadn’t remembered, but he nodded anyway.

“Since I’ll be visiting my sister, Bree’s agreed to bring up the next batch of food.”

“I can go to town,” Graham said. “I think I can stand to go back to Towers again.”

Celia laughed and swatted his arm. “You’ll do no such thing. No one should eat a dozen onion rings the size of their head.”

Graham smiled, took a couple bites of scrambled eggs just to appease her, and said, “I have to get out to the stable. Thanks for breakfast, Celia.”

She grinned at him like he was her son, and said, “You work too hard.”

“When there’s work to be done,” he said, his standard answer. And there was always work to be done. He stepped outside, the temperature about ten degrees colder than the day before. Now that December had arrived, Graham had been warned to expect snow every day until Christmas.

The scent of snow hung in the air, the tops of the Tetons already dusted with the white stuff. Gray clouds loitered ominously, and Graham stuffed his hat lower on his head and bent into the wind on the way down to the stable.

Frost covered everything, and the sight of it made anger slip through Graham’s bloodstream. But he’d chosen this, and he couldn’t be mad about it. Not anymore.

He still had the three horses that had come with the lodge—Bolt, Clover, and Goldie. Out of the three of them, he liked the gelding the best, and Bolt was the first to greet him, as usual. The other two horses were slowing warming up to him, and Graham had read that horses could be very loyal animals. They’d obviously loved their previous owner, and no matter how many apples he brought out to them, Clover and Goldie still gave him disdainful looks before coming over to eat.

At least he’d kept them all alive for almost a year. That right there was a major life accomplishment Graham had never aspired to. His phone rang, and Sam Buttars’s name popped up on the screen.

His only other friend, and a grin tugged at the corners of Graham’s mouth. “Hey, Sam,” he said after opening the call.

“Graham, how are you?”

“Doin’ fine,” he said, feeling very cowboy-ish. He’d met up with Sam after discovering they had a mutual friend in Tucker Jenkins. Tucker actually bought the horse farm in Vermont where Sam and his brothers had worked for a few years. Ben, the youngest, was still there, but the other three brothers had moved on.

Sam lived on his father’s farm with his wife Bonnie and their two kids. They’d had Graham over a few times over the past year, and he’d always enjoyed himself.

“Bonnie wanted you to come to dinner this weekend. Doable?”

Graham didn’t have his schedule in front of him, but it didn’t matter. He could spend eighty hours a week CEO-ing, and another twenty with the horses and buildings. Now the weather was turning bad, there wouldn’t be nearly as much to do around the ranch besides keeping the horses alive.

“Definitely,” he said. Bonnie was an excellent cook, and his mouth started watering at the thought of her bacon and potato soup.

“Want to bring someone?” Sam asked, his voice a bit too high.

“What?” The word exploded out of Graham’s mouth.

“Bonnie made me ask,” Sam hissed into the phone. “She says it’s not good for you to be holed up in that lodge all by yourself all the time.”

“I’m not by myself,” he said, reaching for the pitchfork. “Celia’s here twice a week. Annie too. And Bree’s coming this weekend to get the place ready for the holidays.” And his entire family had committed to coming to Whiskey Mountain for Christmas as well. Though it was still three weeks off, a giddiness pranced through Graham’s chest at the thought of having all of his brothers and his mom together for a few days.

They hadn’t been able to gather that last Christmas, and his dad had died only five days later. So when he’d offered the lodge this year, everyone had said yes, and Graham had already talked to Annie, Celia, and Bree about helping him get everything ready for the celebration.

Sam sighed. “I know,” he said. “Bonnie worries about you.”

“Tell Bonnie I’m just fine.”

“Bring someone if you want!” Her voice came through the line as though she was standing in the kitchen Sam had remodeled for her while he sat at the table. Sam chuckled, but Graham didn’t.

He didn’t need to be thinking about dating. Not right now. He had no time to give to someone, number one. And number two, he’d left most of his heart in Seattle. How was it fair to give a slice of himself to someone and expect it to be enough?

“Tomorrow night,” Sam said. “Six o’clock.”

Graham confirmed, hung up, and shook his head. “They want me to bring someone,” he said to Bolt with a scoff. “That’s ridiculous, right?”

The horse didn’t answer, but lifted his head over the fence and nudged Graham’s shoulder. At first, the large animals had scared him a little. But now he found them gentle and attentive.

“You’re lucky,” he said to Bolt. “You’ve got two ladies right here, penned in with you so they can’t escape.” He rubbed one palm down the horse’s mane. “And you always know where they are, so they can’t cheat on you.”

His throat cinched, and he swallowed back the bitter memories. He wasn’t even sure he could trust another woman, and he thought he was doing just fine as a cowboy bachelor.

Wasn’t he?

The following evening, he showed up at Sam’s farmhouse ten minutes early. It was a Saturday after all, and he couldn’t be expected to work twelve hours on the weekend. But he had, and still had time to shower and drive down the winding roads from the lodge to the town.

Sam and Bonnie lived on the east side, and Graham enjoyed a trip down memory lane as he drove from one side of the town to the other. Sam and his brothers had grown up here too, but Sam sat between Eli and Beau, Graham’s two youngest brothers. Graham had been gone from Coral Canyon before Sam entered high school.

Bonnie opened the front door and waved at him to come on in. Graham ducked his head and got out of the huge, hulking SUV he drove. “Hey, Bonnie,” he called.

“Use the side door.” She hurried to close the door, and Graham didn’t blame her. It was freezing tonight, and he couldn’t see a single star as he walked toward the stairs leading to the entrance on the side of the house.

So it would definitely snow tonight, and Graham felt a little piece of him die. He never thought he’d miss Seattle and all the rain, but snow was definitely worse.

Inside the house, the atmosphere held cheer, bright yellow light, and the scent of roasted meat mixed with baby powder.

Sam had a child in each arm. His daughter, Jackie, had just turned three, and she squealed when she saw Graham. He took her from Sam and produced the bag of chocolate that made him so popular with the little girl.

“There are only fifteen of them,” he said to Bonnie when she tsk’ed. Jackie already had the first candy-coated chocolate in her hand, a blue one.

“Blue,” she said before popping it into her mouth.

Graham smiled at her and set her on her feet.

“Not in the living room, Jackie,” Bonnie said as she stirred something on the stove. “Eat them at the table.”

Sam smiled and shook Graham’s hand, the six-month-old baby boy on his hip bouncing with the movement. CJ babbled and slobbered on his fingers, and Graham gave him a cursory smile. He’d never thought of himself as cut out for fatherhood, so seeing Sam in the role so easily was a bit of a mystery to him.

“Something smells good,” he said to Bonnie as he removed his cowboy hat and set it out of the way on the back counter.

“Beef tacos,” she said. “We bought a cow from your neighbor.”

“Laney?”

“Yes, Laney.” Bonnie turned off the stove and declared them ready to eat. A flurry of activity started then, from saying grace to loading up plates for small hands. By the time everyone sat at the table with flour tortillas, long strips of marinated beef, and all the taco toppings, several minutes had passed.

Yet Bonnie said, “She’s single, you know,” as if no time had passed.

“Who?” Graham asked.

“Laney.” Bonnie rolled her eyes. “About your age too.”

Graham took a big bite of his taco, not sure where Bonnie was going with the conversation. He exchanged a glance with Sam, who was absolutely no help.

“I know Laney,” Graham said after he swallowed. “We grew up together. We’re good friends.”

Bonnie’s eyebrows went up. “You mean you have other friends besides us?” Her hazel eyes danced with merriment.

Graham smiled and shook his head. “I’ve needed help with the stable chores from time to time. Laney comes when I call her.”

“Like a servant?” Bonnie’s hand paused with a taco halfway to her mouth.

“No,” he said quickly, though Laney did come whenever he called. Maybe not right away, but she always had. Sometimes she looked absolutely exhausted, but she was still there. He had the sudden thought to invite her for Christmas. Her and her mother, who still lived in town. But he kept the idea to himself, sure Bonnie would have them engaged and their wedding planned if he said anything at all.

“Well, she’s beautiful,” Bonnie said. “And she hasn’t gone out with anyone in years.” She was less than subtle with the hints, and Graham nodded and smiled like he agreed that he’d go straight home and ask Laney to dinner.

Sam, thankfully, moved the topic to something else, but Graham couldn’t let go of the idea of not only asking Laney to come to the lodge for Christmas but to go out with him.