Booked for Christmas

blanket over her thighs. Just let it go, Soph. But she couldn’t. When she saw someone in pain, she had to commiserate, to at least try to reach out and connect. “It’s just … I know what that feels like. Being cheated on and dumped, I mean.”
Wolfe blinked, apparently thrown off-kilter by this confession. “You do?”
She didn’t know what that inflection was about, but Sophie shrugged. “My ex-boyfriend Brock cheated on me, too. We were together for eight months, and one day he told me he was going to work—he was a librarian. Turned out he spent the day in bed with his other girlfriend.”
Wolfe blew out a breath. “You know, you really don’t expect that from librarians.”
Sophie sat up straighter, ignoring the twinge in her ankle at the movement. “Right? Like, that job’s supposed to be sacred. You’re not supposed to cheat when you’re a librarian.”
Wolfe snorted. “Hannah’s a mortician.”
Sophie made a face. “Ugh. They should never have sex.”
Wolfe smiled a little, his expression more relaxed than it had been in the past five minutes. “Thanks,” he said, after a moment. “This actually weirdly helps.”
Sophie waved a hand. “Any time I can help someone by talking about my own horrendous romantic failures, I’m all over it.”
Wolfe looked at her. “Failures? As in, plural?”
“Oh, yeah. You name it, it’s happened to me. I’ve had three serious boyfriends in the last three years. The first one, Ryan? Things were apparently going too well for him. He said we were too young to be this in love and he broke up with me.”
Wolfe made a face. “Does that even make sense?”
Sophie shrugged. “I guess it did to him. And then there was Brock, and we know how that ended. The third one was Fitz, who’d been in love with his ex-girlfriend the whole time we were dating. He broke up with me over text—while we were sleeping in my bed. We dated almost a year.”
“Damn.” Wolfe shook his head. “I’m sorry. That really sucks.”
“Yeah, it did. But it’s great fodder for the books.”
Wolfe cocked his head. “I’m surprised with that amount of heartbreak that you don’t write, I don’t know, sad literary fiction instead of love stories.”
Sophie leaned back against the fluffy couch arm and sighed. “Ah, but the best part of life is being in love. Having someone look at you like you’re the answer to the question they’ve been asking all their lives. I don’t regret a single second I spent with any of them. Those happy moments? That’s what I’m chasing in my stories. I believe in the magic of love.”
Wolfe’s skeptical eyebrow was back. “I don’t know. True love and happily-ever-after just seem so farfetched. Like a fairy tale rather than anything you should actually plan on.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s very cynical for a therapist, Dr. Wolfe.”
He half smiled at her joke, but his words were serious. “Is it? Or is it realistic?”
Sophie’s phone rang, interrupting their conversation. She was surprised by the spark of irritation she felt at the interruption; she was actually enjoying her conversation with Wolfe. Things between them felt … different, somehow. Like falling down and hurting herself had brought out a protective, nurturing side to Wolfe she hadn’t even suspected was there, let alone expected to uncover.
Feeling a little discombobulated, Sophie grabbed her phone off the coffee table to see Gina was video-calling. She slid to answer. “Gina, hi!”
Gina’s smiling, red-cheeked face stared back at her. “Hi yourself! You doing okay with the storm?”
Sophie made a face. “I was actually going to call you about that. I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can get the books to you today.”
Gina’s smile morphed into immediate concern. “Oh, no! Are you okay?”
“I am … well, I tried to snowshoe it out to you. You know how the road up to the cabin gets completely snowed under. And, um, I ended up falling and spraining my ankle.”
“What?? Sophie, you didn’t have to do that! Do you need me to send an ambulance?”
“Ah, no.” Sophie’s eyes darted over to Wolfe, who was watching her. Her cheeks flushing at the memory of him carrying her back home, she turned back to Gina. “I have a house guest who was able to help me. But I feel awful for the people on your list.”
Gina waved a hand, the image moving with the movement. “Don’t worry about that, sweetie. We’ll make it work, okay?”
“Yeah, but you said thirty people had signed up. And now they won’t have the books under their tree.” Just saying it out loud like that made Sophie want to cry.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Maybe we can get it to them for New Year’s or Valentine’s Day or something. You just worry about healing that ankle, you hear me?”
Suddenly, Wolfe was walking up to Sophie. She looked at him in confusion. “I’ll take the books down,” he said, already moving to get his coat.
“What? How?”
“Snowshoe.” He gave her a grin. “I’m something of a snowshoe champion, as you saw.”
“What’s going on?” Gina asked, frowning.
“Um…” Sophie looked back at the screen. “My houseguest—Wolfe—he says he’ll bring the books down to you.”
Gina’s squeal could probably be heard in a five-mile radius. “Oh my god, really?”
Wolfe came around so Gina could see him. “Really.” He smiled. “People need their literature, am I right?”
Had Wolfe just called her books literature? Sophie studied him in incredulity, waiting for the hysterical laughter that was sure to follow, but he was looking at Gina. He really meant it, then. That knowledge was like a warm, glowing ember in her chest.
Gina clasped her hand to her cheek. “You have no idea! One of Sophie’s Starlit Grove fans is in her seventies and has no family visiting this Christmas. And another just finished yet another round of chemo. These people—they rely on her books to keep their spirits up, you know?”
Wolfe met Sophie’s eye, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Then, looking back at Gina, he said, “I’ll be there soon.”
Sophie hurried