The Warmth Between Us

She came home for six weeks. She never planned on falling for the boy next door all over again.Piper Larkson swore she'd never move back to Frostwood Harbor, not after the winter she watched the boy she loved choose someone else in front of the whole town. But when her aunt's death leaves her a lakeside cottage and an unexpected seat on the Winter Lantern Festival committee, six careful weeks of settling the estate turn into something far more complicated the moment she finds Sawyer Voss living next door.Sawyer never stopped loving her, and he's spent eight years learning to live with the choice that cost them everything. As they're pulled back together lighting lanterns for the festival that once broke her heart, he finally tells her the truth he was too scared and too young to tell her back then -- and Piper has to decide whether the life she built specifically to avoid this kind of risk was ever really safety at all, or just a longer, quieter kind of heartbreak.A slow-burn second-chance romance about old wounds, small-town belonging, and learning that some homes are worth the risk of trusting again.WHAT'S INSIDE:- A slow-burn second-chance romance with real emotional depth- A cozy small-town winter festival setting full of warmth and community- A heroine choosing between the life she built and the one she actually wants- A hero who has to earn trust back through honesty, not grand gestures alone- A satisfying happily ever after with a lantern-lit proposal and one-year epiloguePERFECT FOR READERS WHO LOVE:- Second-chance and childhood-sweethearts romance- Cozy small-town winter and holiday-adjacent settings- Slow-burn tension with a heartfelt, emotional payoff- Clean and wholesome romance with real emotional stakes- Coming-home stories with a found-family feel