Booked for Christmas

the Snow will appeal to readers who have the good fortune of being sedated for surgery’ did, anyway.” She silenced their chorus of indignant shouting with a hand and smiled. “You guys are the best. And no, I think I’m doing pretty well with it, actually. I was able to put it out of my head to focus on the current book. And this party, of course.” Smiling, she gestured around the small cabin. “I love it here. I wish I could live here all the time.”
“No, you don’t,” Jonah said immediately. He was petrified Sophie would do exactly that; he’d verbalized this fear dozens of times over the past three years. “Because then you wouldn’t have access to Powell’s and ¿Por Qué No? Tacqueria and all the queer bars.”
Sophie laughed. Jonah, a transman, was well-integrated into Portland’s queer community. “I don’t think the last one applies to me, but point taken.”
“Plus, if you moved here, you’d be ninety minutes away from all of us in Portland.” Marco made a sad face. He was strikingly handsome—and sweet and smart to boot. In her weaker moments, Sophie thought it was a total shame they’d been friends for way too long for it to be anything more than that.
She turned off the slow-cooker. “That’s true.”
“Not to belabor the point,” Jonah said, pouring himself a glass of port. “But I do have this one advertising manager at work who might be perfect for you.” Jonah was in a very loving relationship with a doctor named Megan (who was currently working a night shift at the OHSU ER). They were celebrating their one-year anniversary soon, and since he was so happy, he wanted everyone else to be, too. His matchmaking was legendary in Portland dating circles.
“I don’t know, Jonah,” Sophie said, chewing on her lip. “I mean, I appreciate it.” She reached out and squeezed his elbow. “But, like, I don’t know if I’m ready to take the plunge again.”
Peyton raised a skeptical eyebrow. “But you’re always going on about soulmates and finding your person.”
Damn. This was the problem with blurting out every last thought to your friends. They actually held you to them. “Well, yeah…” Sophie took a moment to look out the kitchen window into the darkness beyond while she formulated her thoughts. The glowing Christmas lights from the interior of the cabin reflected in the glass, bringing a warmth to her heart. “I don’t know how to explain it. More than anything, I want to find my soulmate. I want to be happy and in love with someone I can trust, someone who’s exactly right for me. But with my track record, I just need … I need a sign from the universe that I’m on the right path before I dive in with my heart on my sleeve again. You know?”
Marco nodded. “Sure,” he said, gently. “That makes a lot of sense.”
Peyton grinned evilly at Sophie just as the doorbell rang. “Well, you could just have sex and forget about the soulmate part. Can confirm: It’s a lot of fun.”
Sophie laughed and set her sangria down as she walked to the door. “I don’t know if that would work for me as well as it works for you, Peyton.”
Pulling the front door open, she made sure to have her hostess smile on, bright and shiny. But it fell off her face the moment she saw who stood on the other side.

2
He may not be raising his trademark skeptical eyebrow or holding a book he could desecrate in his column, but the man in front of her was unmistakably the cruel-hearted, agony-causing Disney villain of her nightmares.
“Evan Wolfe?” Sophie said at the same time as he said, “Sophia Hart?”
They regarded each other in open-mouthed silence for three full seconds. Wolfe was dressed in a long black peacoat with a tan plaid scarf wrapped once around his pale throat (sadly, not as tightly as Sophie would’ve liked). He was younger than he looked in the picture by his book review column, probably not much older than her twenty-five years. He was taller than she’d expected, too, and much more in shape. Did he spend all his spare time bench-pressing his books or what? Curly dark hair fell forward onto his forehead in an unruly burst, and he held a glittering purple present in his big hands.
Sophie blinked. “Why are you here?”
They’d asked the question at the same time with the same slightly horrified inflection. Sophie frowned—asking her why she was at her own cabin was pretty ballsy, even for Wolfe.
He stepped back and looked at the number on the front of the cabin. “Is this 125 Wildberry?” he asked, though he could plainly see he had it right.
“Ye-es…” Sophie refused to move from her spot, even though she was rudely barricading the interior of the cabin. Her mother would balk at the supremely ungracious way she was treating her visitor, who was currently standing outside in twenty-degree weather. But it was Wolfe. His heart was made of ice; surely a little bit of winter weather wouldn’t bother him. “I’ll ask again—why are you here? I’m here because this is my cabin.”
He leaned against the doorjamb and gave her a hint of a smile. “Really? So this is where Sophia Hart hides out.” His eyes held hers. “Intriguing.”
Sophie scowled. Intriguing? Was he making fun of her little cabin? “Shouldn’t you be in Portland with a stack of books you can set fire to and then dance on the ashes of?”
He smirked and stood up straight. “Oh. So you saw my latest review.”
“Saw it, read it, discarded it.” He looked a little taken aback at her brusque tone, but before he could say anything else, Sophie continued on. “Did you come to my home to make sure I hadn’t missed it?”
“No … I’m Will’s plus-one. I didn’t have any plans tonight, so he convinced me to go. Said there’d be bookish people here.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “William Cartwright, the picture book