I haven't put up a Christmas tree in six years.

Not since the accident. Not since I carried my wife's ornament box to the attic, closed the lid, and told my son we'd do Christmas at Grandma's from now on.

Eli's eight. Old enough to stop believing me when I say it's no big deal. Old enough to notice every other house on this mountain has lights in the windows and ours sits dark.

I cut timber for a living. I can fell a hundred-foot pine in sixty seconds and make it land exactly where I want. I can build anything with my hands, fix anything that's broken, carry anything that needs carrying.

I can't figure out how to give my kid a Christmas without falling apart.

Then she shows up.

Noelle Walsh rented the cottage on my property because it was the cheapest listing in the state. She's a children's book illustrator with a deadline, an ancient Subaru, and no idea that December in Bear Creek Valley means frozen pipes, four feet of snow, and a grumpy neighbor who isn't interested in small talk.

But she keeps leaving her porch light on. Keeps waving at Eli through the window. Keeps drawing pictures of bears and snow-covered cabins that make my son laugh harder than I've heard him laugh in months.

She's soft and stubborn and she burns her coffee every morning and talks to the trees when she thinks nobody's listening.

I should keep my distance. She's my tenant. She's leaving in January.

But when the storm knocks out her power on Christmas Eve and she ends up at my kitchen table with Eli's hot chocolate in her hands and snow melting in her hair, drawing him a picture of Santa's workshop while the fire crackles behind them ?

I stop thinking about January.

I start thinking about how her laugh sounds like something I forgot I needed.

When my boy falls asleep on the couch between us, she reaches for my hand in the dark. Her fingers are cold. Mine are rough. We fit anyway.

I haven't felt warm in six years.

I'm not letting this go.

And I'm putting up the damn tree.

Christmas With The Protective Lumberjack is a single-dad holiday romance featuring a widowed lumberjack who stopped believing in Christmas, the curvy illustrator who draws the life they both deserve, and the Bear Creek Valley December that proves some families are built by choice, not blood. Guaranteed HEA. No cheating. No cliffhangers.