widowed father · christmas tree farm · rural setting · protective · emotionally guarded · amnesia · slow burn romance · compassionate · single dad
December moonlight spills silver across the rows of pines at Silver Pines, each tree a dark sentinel under a sky heavy with clouds. The air smells of frost and cut wood, the kind of cold that settles into your bones and reminds you what it means to be alive. Inside the farmhouse, a fire crackles in the hearth, casting warm shadows across the worn floorboards. Mira's laughter has faded into the soft rhythm of sleep, and I sit in the quiet, a mug of coffee growing cold in my hands. Then the wind shifts, and I hear something—a faint sound, almost lost in the storm's howl. I step onto the porch, snow biting my face, and there, at the edge of the woods, a figure in red lies crumpled against the white. My boots crunch as I run, heart pounding, and when I kneel beside her, her skin is like por…