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I HAD TO leave Harriet’s place before I did something stupid, like stay and make sure Ben was okay.

He didn’t need a grown man fussing over him, but after I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

He’d felt so small in my arms, light but solid, like he was holding himself together with sheer stubbornness.

When he’d nodded off in the truck, his head tilted toward me, trusting me, all vulnerable and sleepy.

He’d been happy to let me take him anywhere, too tired to argue, and that stuck with me for some reason.

It had been a long time since someone had let me care for them like that, even for a moment.

He’d mumbled in his dream, something about someone promising to protect him.

He’d wriggled in his sleep, scared of something.

I can’t rescue him from his dreams.

I shook away how nice it had felt to be somebody’s champion as I crossed the yard of the big house, snow crunching under my boots.

My parents’ home stood just ahead, the porch lights glowing warmly.

I was almost to the two-bedroom cabin Dad and I had built when I was a teenager—my place now—but Mom caught me before I made it.

Almost as if she’d been waiting for me.

Who was I kidding —of course, she’d been waiting for me.

She was standing near the truck, wrapped in a long wool coat, her dark hair pinned back in a neat twist. Tall and slim, she looked as elegant as ever, her sharp blue eyes—my blue eyes—narrowing as she spotted me.

I got my height from both Mom and Dad, but the rest of me was all Mom.

“Where’s your big coat?” she asked.

“You shouldn’t walk around in just a sweatshirt. Oh, and Joe stopped by earlier,” she said, shifting topics like flipping a switch.

“I ran into him on the road, and he mentioned the car in the driveway, so I joined him taking it back and sat with Harriet for a while.”

“Okay,” I said and kept walking, but nope, I wasn’t going to avoid the inquisition when Mom stepped in front of me.

“Turns out you rescued her great-nephew, Ben.”

“I didn’t rescue him—”

“You got him out of the car.”

“He got himself out of the car.”

“Well, you took him to the hospital,” Mom added, brushing snow from my damp sweater.

“Harriet says she was already worried about Ben being ill or something. She doesn’t understand what’s wrong with him but was anxious for him to come home.”

I hesitated, unsure how much to say.

“I dropped him there, and he seemed okay,” I said after a moment.

“Well, apart from a cut on his head. No concussion or broken bones.”

Mom raised an eyebrow.

“Harriet showed me a photo of him—adorable—just your type.” Fuck.

Here we go. I’d had one short, cute boyfriend when I was sixteen and now, according to my mom, that was my type.

Ben is my type.

Whatever.

“Harriet says he dates boys and girls, so what did you think of him?” she continued.

“He’s… fine,” I said a little too quickly.

“Haider called dibs.”

She frowned.

“He did what now?”

“Never mind.”

Her lips quirked, but she let it go, glancing toward the house.

“Talking of Haider, you’ll be late for his party.”

“Yeah, and I love you, Mom, but I’ve got to go.” I gestured vaguely toward my cabin.

“Shower, clean clothes, party.”

“Yes, you can’t go looking like that,” she said, her eyes flicking to my mud-streaked boots and sweatshirt.

“Your dad and I are leaving soon for dinner, so you better hurry.” Every year, Dad took Mom to a fancy Valentine’s Day meal at a restaurant several towns over.

She always got dressed up for it, and tonight was no exception.

“Which is why I need to go inside.” I was freezing my balls off here, and if Mom was that worried about me being coatless, she needed to let me go.

“Of course,” she said.

“And, Sam, a heads-up that everyone in town knows about Ben and your heroic rescue.”

I groaned, already dreading the inevitable teasing from my friends.

“Great.”

Dad appeared then, less than thrilled about going out in the snow.

He was grumbling under his breath about having to dress up, tugging at the collar of his shirt, although he secretly loved every minute of dating the woman he called darling every day.

“Thought we were leaving,” he said, then glanced at me.

“Heard you rescued some tourist.”

“Ben’s not a tourist,” Mom said, giving him one of her signature wife-type looks of despair.

“He’s Harriet’s great-nephew.”

“So, what’s Harriet’s great-nephew doing crashing on our farm road?” Dad asked, frowning.

“It was more sliding than crashing,” I said with a shrug.

“He got lost.”

Dad grunted, unimpressed, and I took the opportunity to back away.

“I have to go,” I said, and before Mom could rope me into more conversation, I jogged to my cabin.

Inside, I kicked off my boots, peeled off my jacket, and headed straight for the shower.

Haider’s party was waiting, and knowing him, it was probably in full swing by now.

Clean clothes, maybe a halfway decent shave, and then I’d deal with whatever chaos awaited me.

But as I stepped under the hot water, I couldn’t shake the image of Ben asleep in my truck, his face peaceful for that one fleeting moment.

I was the kind of person who liked to fix things for people.

I couldn’t help it—it was in my bones.

I liked it when people needed me.

And Ben? He’d needed me.

The feeling of him in my arms, his weight leaning into me as if I were the only thing keeping him upright, had stuck with me.

It wasn’t only that he needed help—it was him.

And now, knowing he was into guys?

Yeah, that knowledge buzzed in the back of my head like an annoying fly I couldn’t swat away.

But no. Nope. Not interested.

I shook my head as I toweled off after my shower, pushing the thoughts aside.

We were coming into the busy season on the farm, and I had zero time left for random hookups with town visitors.

Ben might be staying at Harriet’s, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t temporary.

Everyone was temporary.

And after the disaster that was Byron Duke—the asshole New York lawyer who’d vacationed here for a month last summer, fucked me, and somehow managed to squeeze in cheating on me with at least two others in the same damn county—I wasn’t about to fall into the same trap again.

The next guy I slept with would be long-term, he’d want kids, and he’d be freaking faithful.

I tossed the towel aside and dressed, wearing clean jeans and one of my best sweaters, of which I had two.

Haider’s party was waiting, and I needed a distraction.

Something to drown out the memory of Ben’s sleepy weight against me and the way he’d looked at me in the truck as though I was the only safe thing in the world.

The last thing I needed right now was to get tangled up in feelings for someone just passing through.

I WAS LATE for the second time today, but I figured I had a decent excuse for showing up to Haider’s party a good forty minutes behind schedule.

The inn’s warmth hit me as soon as I stepped through the door, as did the unmistakable scent of chocolate.

It followed Haider like a signature, as maple did for my family.

The party was in a side room, decked out with twinkling lights and tiny dangling hearts for Valentine’s Day, the same as the rest of the inn.

Only this room had an added candy explosion.

A chocolate fountain sat dead center, surrounded by platters of truffles and what I was sure were heart-shaped brownies.

There wasn’t a piece of regular food in sight—typical Haider.

My stomach rumbled—one vending machine sandwich at the hospital, stale and old, wasn’t cutting it—so chocolate it would have to be.

I spotted the group near the far wall: Conor towering above the rest, Ryan using him as a shield against random people who might want to talk to him, and Haider standing out like a bright star.

He’d gone all-in tonight, peacock-blue and green hues glittering under the lights.

Something sparkly was tucked into his curly hair, catching the firelight from the massive stone hearth, and he was holding court with a wide grin.

“Finally,” Haider said when I joined them, his voice ringing out over the chatter in the room.

“I thought you weren’t going to show, Mr. Hero.” He had a bottle of beer in one hand and a glass of something fizzy in the other, dual-wielding like the birthday boy he was.

I slipped my coat off and grabbed a beer from a nearby bucket.

“Hero is my job, not yours.” Conor leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his grin easy and smug.

“You just put syrup in bottles. Easy.”

“Fuck you, and also, not much of a hero,” I said, taking a swig of beer.

“Just got the guy to urgent care.”

“Not just any guy. This was Ben, our big-city guy,” Conor said.

“You go into hero mode after I called dibs on him,” Haider interjected, shaking his head in mock despair.

“Remember, you can’t call dibs on a man,” Ryan reminded him, straight-faced.

“Sure, I can,” Haider said, gesturing with the beer bottle.

“Like I said, it’s efficient. Anyway—” He pointed toward a tray of chocolates.

“Go taste the new stuff on the last tray. It’s only trial versions that weren’t perfect, so I can’t sell them, but taste each one and tell me I’m not irresistible.”

We humored him, all four of us wandering over to the table.

The chocolates were glossy and dark, with a drizzle of maple syrup over some of them.

I examined it closely as he would expect, then popped one into my mouth, and the flavor hit me with rich chocolate, caramelized syrup, and a hint of sea salt.

It was, hands down, one of the best things I’d ever tasted.

“Oh my god,” Ryan said and sighed as he sucked on the concoction.

“Holy mother of all things chocolate,” Conor muttered, giving Haider a noogie and almost causing him to drop his drinks.

“Our little candy genius!”

“Get off me, you big oaf!” Haider exclaimed, laughing despite himself as he juggled the drinks and tried to fix his hair.

After two failed attempts, I smoothed his curls back into place.

“Well?” he asked, vibrating with excitement—or was that the champagne?

“What do you think? It’s your syrup. Did I screw it up? Why aren’t you saying anything? You’re way too quiet, and it’s not like these two know anything about anything.”

“Hey!” Conor interjected.

“I know chocolate,” Ryan added.

But it was my opinion Haider wanted.

“These are incredible,” I said.

“We could stock these in the shop. How are you packaging them?”

Haider blinked at me as if the thought had never even crossed his mind.

“I’m too drunk to think about that right now,” he declared, holding up his drinks as if they were trophies.

Before I could press him, Haider disappeared into the crowd, leaving me to shake my head.

As always, he was chaos wrapped in glitter, but he made life a little brighter.

Sometimes, that was all a person needed.

“So, the guy in the car,” Conor asked as he leaned on the bar, arms crossed, his firefighter curiosity piqued.

“Ben,” I said, tipping my beer bottle toward him.

“Yeah, he went into the ditch. We didn’t get called out.”

“He wasn’t far in. Just in the shallow dip after the gates to the farm,” I replied, taking a swig.

The memory was still fresh, the image of Ben slumped over the wheel flashing in my mind.

“He refused paramedics, wasn’t trapped, and got himself out.”

Conor frowned.

“What was he doing on that road? Snow was bad enough to keep most people off it.”

“Being an idiot,” I said bluntly, shaking my head.

“He wasn’t too hurt, though—just a scratch and a bruised ego.” I shrugged, setting my bottle down.

Around us, the party hummed with life.

Haider’s laugh rang out near the chocolate fountain, as bright and loud as the decorations he’d thrown together.

Everyone was here, as they always were when Haider planned something.

He was the most outgoing of the four of us—always with a ready smile and had a way of drawing people in, and nights like this proved it.

Conor, Ryan, and I might be his closest friends, but everyone in town loved him.

Still, the day’s events weighed on me, and the faint ache of hunger reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I scanned the tables.

Chocolate. More chocolate.

Desserts of every shape and size.

But where was the real food?

“I need food,” I muttered.

Conor leaned in with a conspiratorial grin.

“I ordered pizza.”

I raised a brow.

“Pizza at Haider’s fancy chocolate party?”

“A lot of pizza,” he said, ignoring my teasing.

“It’ll be here in ten. Trust me, we’re all going to need it.”

I smirked, about to reply, when Joe, the mechanic who’d pulled Ben’s car from the ditch, appeared by the beer cooler.

“Sam,” Joe greeted, grabbing a beer for himself.

“Joe.”

“Got the car back to Harriet’s.”

“So I saw, thank you.”

“Guessing I send the bill to him at Harriet’s place?”

“Yep.”

We stood in silence for a moment.

Joe had this habit of starting to talk about cars at the slightest provocation, and apart from how to keep my truck on the road, I knew nothing about cars.

I gestured goodbye with my beer, but it seemed Joe had something to add.

“His luggage was fancy as hell. Heavy, too. Nearly broke my back getting it out of the trunk.”

I winced.

“He’s a city guy, Joe. I’m guessing they don’t travel light.”

“No kidding.” Joe twisted off the cap of his beer and took a swig.

“The car wasn’t too bad. The front bumper took a hit, though. Hope he’s insured.”

“I’m sure he is,” I said.

Joe snorted, tilting his beer toward me.

“Well, if he’s got that much stuff, he’s planning to stick around. Better get used to him.”

I nodded but my mind wandered back to the image of Ben—wide-eyed, flustered, and stubborn as hell.

Maybe Joe was right.

Maybe Ben wasn’t just passing through, but I wasn’t interested in romance with yet another asshole fresh from the city who could never understand me.

That would be enough as long as I didn’t have to dig him out of any ditches.