The moment Y/n pushed through the arrivals gate at the tiny Evergreen Falls regional airport, the cold hit her like a frozen brick to the face. One second she was a perfectly respectable Chicago woman. The next, she was a human popsicle who had clearly forgotten that real winter existed outside the city.

The airport — if you could even call it that — was little more than a large rustic cabin with a baggage carousel that looked like it had been installed during the Reagan administration. It smelled like cinnamon, pine, and the unmistakable chaos of families reuniting for the holidays. Children in puffy coats ran shrieking toward grandparents. A woman in a reindeer sweater was already crying. And standing near the exit, holding a cardboard sign that read WELCOME HOME, CHICAGO'S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORETTE (STILL SINGLE EDITION) was her cousin Sophie, bouncing on her heels like an over-caffeinated elf.

Sophie launched herself across the terminal and wrapped Y/n in a hug so enthusiastic it nearly dislocated something.

Sophie grabbed the handle of Y/n's suitcase and started pulling it toward the exit with the energy of a woman on a mission. A mission to marry off her cousin before New Year's.

Outside, Evergreen Falls looked like someone had taken every Christmas card ever printed and turned it into a real place. Snow drifted lazily from a pale gray sky. Wreaths hung from every lamppost. A horse-drawn sleigh clip-clopped past the airport entrance, bells jingling. The whole town smelled like gingerbread and impending romantic disaster.

The car behind Sophie's hadn't been there a second ago. But now it was. A large, dark pickup truck with a snowbrush in the bed and a Christmas tree air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. And leaning against the driver's side door, arms crossed, was a man.

He was tall. Infuriatingly tall. Dark hair slightly messy, like he'd run a hand through it one too many times. Warm brown eyes. A sharp jaw. Broad shoulders under a dark green sweater with the sleeves pushed up, revealing forearms that were — and this was absolutely the most annoying part — unfairly attractive. Tattoos curled around his wrists and disappeared under fabric. He looked like a Christmas-themed romance novel cover that had climbed off the page and learned to drive a truck.

And he was smiling.

His voice was warm. Deep. Amused. The kind of voice that made a person forget how to form sentences. He stopped a few feet away, hands sliding into his pockets, smile tilting into something crooked and devastating.

Sophie made a sound that was supposed to be a cough but was definitely a suppressed laugh. She gave Y/n a little shove forward, then slid into the driver's seat of her own car.

The car peeled away, leaving Y/n standing in the falling snow with a man she'd never met but had apparently been discussed like a prize heifer.