He smiles, a dot of bright under the full moon. “You can cook, honey. You just don’t like to—there’s a difference.”
My heart skips a few beats. Most people would say I’m a terrible cook, but Holden sees the underlying details. I’m not patient enough to get better at it, unless I want to. He quietly steps in and teaches me how to improve, and Iwantto do better.
Everyday rituals.
“So the town is obsessed with them,” I say, steering the conversation away from myself.
“They are. But they’re fixated on a version of Holly that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
I plant my hands on the dock so I can straighten my back. A quiet moan escapes as I stretch the aching muscles there. Wordlessly, Holden swings his legs around and adjusts so he can talk and rub my back.
“When Holly got here—at least when I first came across her—she didn’t look like someone who escaped a castle. She looked more like someone who’d been chased out of one. Granted, I didn’t see her every day, but Sam told me she barely ventured anywhere without a hat and sunglasses. If she even left her room. She didn’t want people to see her.”
“Well, she’s got a handful of Grammys. That makes sense.”
Holden shakes his head. “I think it was less about being recognized as Holly Everheart and more so about beingseen. You know how this town is.”
Not for the first time, I wonder if people can feel the undercurrent here. If they come seeking a respite from life or tragedy or fear, and somehow just know. Enchanted Hollow never hesitates to swoop in and protect what needs to be protected, and I’ve always wondered if someone who doesn’t have a connection here can feel that.
That could be overwhelming, I think.
Instantly feeling like you’re home without understanding what that means.
His voice softens. “I was doing a delivery one day, and I saw her walking back from the orchard. She had a basket full of apples, and she looked like she’d gone ten rounds with a tree. But she had this look on her face like she’d just remembered what breathing felt like.”
“That’s when everything changed.”
“People like to say it was when she ran into Cade in the sunflowers because, again-they love their romance. It gives a great angle to leverage and get people here.”
I chuckle. “You’d do better on social media than you think. That’s a heck of a hook.”
He squeezes my sides. “She’d sing in the orchard, too. It sort of became her haven—it was a place she could be herself, without performing. Like the trees were old friends, and she finally felt like herself again.”
“That’s why I wanted to hear your version,” I say. “You notice things no one else does. I’ve never heard her talk about it that way.”
“She probably didn’t notice. At least not at first. And Cade was a piece of that—I’m not denying theromance aspect. I’m just saying that for them to work, Holly had to follow her own path first. So there’d be room to love him.”
I feel something shift in my chest, the way words do when they take root.
“You’re good at this,” I murmur. “Maybe you should be the one telling the story.”
I think back to what Henry said about meaning disguised as aesthetics, and realize Holden’s been showing me that lesson all along—steady hands, simple words, all substance.
“I see people every morning who are up too early to filter, La. Five o’clock in the morning breakfast runs before school or work. People are grabbingdinnerafter an all-night shift, bleary-eyed and exhausted. I’ve learned to see through the cracks.”
“The unfiltered version,” I supply, thinking back to our conversation last December.
His hands move slightly on my back as he nods. “That’s the version you should write about, and I think Henry would agree. Not the dress or the ring—even though I know that’s part of the formula. Tell the story of how Holly learned to be quiet again before her voice came back. How she stopped running long enough to get caught—but by the right person this time.”
“I think I love that version,” I whisper. “Finding someone who lets you stop running.”
Holden’s thumb traces small circles against my back, an absent, grounding rhythm. “Then maybe it’s time you stopped too,” he says, his voice a gentle hum.
Something about the way he says it feels like a promise—one that lands right between my heart and my hands, in that space where all my unsent words live.
The words hit harder than I expect. I stare out at the pond—the glimmer of the stars, the golden orbs from the lanterns, and the moon all dancing in a trembling reflection.
