Do I regret falling in love with a man who I’ve never met in person and whose heart belongs to someone else?

Actually, yes because I should know better than to think I’d be anything but lonely this Christmas. If the grinch were a lady, I’d be her. I didn’t choose this for myself, but compounding factors make me dread the holiday and not only because it’s also my birthday.

But no one wants to hear that sob story. Instead, I help heroes and people who’ve transformed their lives tell theirs. After spending months emailing back and forth as I cowrite a veteran’s biography, we meet to finalize the manuscript before the deadline.

Every second spent with retired SEAL officer Alexander Armstrong is like being stabbed with icicle daggers because he’s taken. Dramatic, I know. To make matters worse, we get snowed in and have to spend Christmas together in a town called Holidayle of all places.

However, his focus turns to thawing out my heart when I learn the truth about his. We take long walks along glowing paths under the softly falling snow followed by peppermint mistletoe kisses. I don’t know why he’d bother when our lives are in different states and each of us bear scars from the past. We’ll need more than a miracle to make this work.

Then again, what else is this season for if not hope?