Page 101 of Merry Mended Hearts

I’m leaving this morning, but I want you to know, it was all real to me. Every moment, every kiss, it was all real.

I don’t know about you, but the music from that radio changed my life for the better. It led me to a man who is better than I knew he could be. A man I never thought would pay any attention to me. A man with a good heart who will be in my dreams for years to come.

I’m writing this because I want you to know why I love Christmas. I love it because it brings families together. Much as I hate to leave Harper’s Inn, I’m going home to spend the holiday with my family.

You haven’t lost every good thing in your life, Boone. You only lose good things if you push them away when they come to you. And I’m still here.

I’ll never forget you. If you feel like you could give me a chance, I would like to see you again. Merry Christmas. And I mean that.

Grace

I added my email and phone number to the bottom of the note, folded it with a prayer, and wrote his name across the front. And then, with a resolved sigh, I wheeled my suitcase into the hall. Down the stairs. I stopped at the reception desk where Junie sat with a headband that had reindeer antlers on her head.

She gave me a wide grin. “Hey, Grace. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, Junie.” I placed my room key on the counter.

Junie took it, adding it back onto the hook on the wall to her right. She swiped her tablet screen and tapped a few things before returning her glance to me.

“You’re all set,” she said. “All checked out. Glad we got you that room.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Thanks for everything. I’ll never forget this place.”

Or its attractive, closed-off sleigh driver.

I turned to leave, but a wedge in my chest kept my feet in place. The note I’d written was a brick in my pocket. It was now or never.

I faced Junie once more. “You haven’t heard anything from him?”

From the insightful twinkle and compassion in Junie’s expression, she grasped more than she let on. How much did Junie know about the old radio?

“Nothing. I’m sorry, Grace.”

I inhaled a long, deep draw of cinnamon-infused air into my lungs. I rifled in my coat pocket and retrieved the note.

“Can you at least give this to him for me?”

Junie placed her hand on the note and slid it toward herself. “Now, that I can do.”

We exchanged parting nods. And then, with my heart in my throat and a final glance at Harper’s Inn, I zipped up my coat and stepped outside as the Uber driver I’d called pulled up in a black car.

The driver stepped out to help place my suitcase in the trunk. He got my door for me, closed it once I slid in, and then he drove me down the mountain and to the airport to fly home.

I thought of Junie, hoping she was the kind of person to keep her word. Hoping she would follow through and give Boone the note—and that nothing would happen to it in the meantime.

BOONE

I was a fool.

I’d run away from Amy’s and my house in Deer Lodge because I couldn’t bear the reminders of her in every tree, every stoplight, and every corner of our apartment.

And now I’d gone and gotten closer to Grace Eastland than I ever intended to—and she was everywhere I looked, too.

She was in the trees. In the mountainside. The sky. The snowmobile tracks on the snow Junie continued cursing me for.

“Tell me again what you’re doing here?” Junie asked. Her hands were planted on her hips, and she stared me down as we stood in what was once the living room of the house before it became an inn.

This room was the worst place of all—apart from my cottage. It didn’t matter what I did. I still envisioned Grace stepping out of that door wearing my clothes, cuddling with me by the fire, and the morning she’d woken with dreams in her lashes and invitation in her eyes.

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