Some Christmas traditions are meant to be broken. Verity Troyer has perfected the quiet art of surviving Christmas. At thirty-five, she's a capable midwife with a full, independent life in Cedar Grove-one her mother hopes she'll eventually trade for marriage. Every December, Verity returns home knowing exactly what waits for her: another bachelor her mother has chosen, another polite holiday courtship, another harmless "Christmas ruse" that carries her to Boxing Day before she slips back to her real world. For ten years, the pattern has held. No attachments. No expectations. No chance of disappointment. Until Adam Beiler. Adam doesn't pursue her. He doesn't pressure her. Instead, he meets her steady, quiet rhythm-matching her step for step in a way that feels unexpectedly natural. Nothing like the forced pairings Verity has endured for a decade. But Adam is hiding a huge secret-big enough to break Verity's trust in an instant. A truth that doesn't just ruin a Christmas… it shatters everything she thought was safe. As the season unfolds and the truth threatens the fragile peace she's always maintained, Verity must decide whether this Christmas will end like all the others… or whether the life she's been running back to each year is no longer the life she wants at all. Could this be the Christmas that finally changes everything?
