Chapter 1

Dane Silver, a.k.a. a man very unaware of his own romantic situation

Someone is breaking into the house.

It’s broad daylight. My dog is beside me. There are neighbors nosy enough to notice—if any of them are home.

And someone is definitely jiggling the living room window on the side that overlooks the backyard.

Not that I can talk. This isn’t my house. I technically broke in too.

But my sister told me where to find the spare key for her little cottage, and the person now banging the lowered blinds of the window wouldn’t do that if they knew where the spare key was.

Mine was a legitimate break-in.

This break-in is more likely criminal.

But is there crime in the little town of Tinsel?

Not likely.

I look down at Chili, who’s sitting beside me on the overstuffed yellow-checkered couch that faces a brick fireplace with a television above the mantel.

My fluffy tan mutt stares back. He’s about fifty pounds of some golden retriever, some Labrador, and some something else. I could get him a doggy DNA test, but he’s a good dog, if a bit lazy, and that’s what matters most.

“You gonna do something about that?” I ask him.

He yawns. Then looks back at the window to the left of the television and fireplace. Been a while since I took stock of Lorelei’s house, but I’m reasonably certain the window is at least five feet off the ground.

Whoever’s breaking in is going to a lot of work considering the front and back doors are both unlocked.

And there’s an arm flinging itself up over the sill, making the lowered blinds bang more. It’s a slender arm attached to a slender hand with slender fingers tipped in pink.

Definitely not Lorelei’s arm.

She’s not the pink-nail-polish type.

I look at Chili again.

He grunts at me and lays his head back down on the couch, where he’s in the direct path of most of the rotating fan’s track.

As a puppy, he would’ve been racing to make a new friend. But since he hit two years old, he’s happiest when someone else does the sniffing and investigating. I’ve had dogs all my life, and I’ve never had one this lazy.

Until you’re talking about food. Then, don’t get between the beast and his breakfast.

Trust me on this one.

From outside the window, there’s a grunt far more feminine than Chili’s grunt.

I set aside my laptop—work can wait—and pull myself to my feet. Debate tossing on a shirt.

You wouldn’t think it could get above ninety in this part of Michigan, but August has been brutal. Glad my grandparents have air-conditioning.

Wish Lorelei did, too, but that’s a future project for her fixer-upper. And the heat wave should break in a few days.

We hope.

I walk through the breeze coming off one of the two fans circulating air in the little cottage, earning another disgruntled noise from my dog, as the intruder’s second arm hooks itself over the windowsill and bangs the blinds more.

There’s one more grunt, and then a woman’s curly, brown-haired crown pokes under the blinds. She huffs and heaves, propelling the rest of her head through the window.

And then she lifts her face.

Recognition clicks instantly, and I’m so caught off guard, I stumble backward.

Her gaze lands on me, and she goes slack jawed and wide eyed, then ack s and tumbles off the windowsill, banging the blinds around.

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” I hear Amanda Anderson mutter as I catch myself and leap toward the window.

And yes.

That is definitely Amanda Anderson. Thick, curly brown hair. Brilliant brown eyes. Natural olive skin. Pouty lips that were always more prone to smiling back in high school.

She’s in a black tank top and short jean shorts, sitting on the ground amid the holly bushes with her arms braced behind her, staring at me like I’m a ghost.

“You’re not friggin’ kidding me,” she says.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to see Lorelei.” She winces. “Actually ... that’s not right. I ... need to see you. But I didn’t know you’d be here. I knew you were in town, but I didn’t know you were here here.”

Amanda Anderson needs to see me ?

It’s been years since the last time we spoke to each other.

Not because there’s any animosity between us.

Not exactly.

Our families have hated each other for generations, though no one in my family has been able to explain why in any manner that’s made sense.

Their feud is the soot mark on the otherwise happy, peaceful town of Tinsel, Michigan, where it’s Christmas all year round.

Even on days like today when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.

I’ve lived in San Francisco since I graduated from college. Last I heard through Lorelei, Amanda had moved to New York to pursue a career as an actress.

Not surprising.

Especially to anyone who watched any of her performances with the high school theater.

She lit up the entire stage.

Which is an opinion I’ve kept to myself, even knowing that Lorelei and Amanda often had lunch together at school despite our families’ feud.

They make me was what Lorelei always told our parents. They want our families to get along, so they make me.

The teachers made me wouldn’t have been an excuse I could’ve used if I’d gotten up the balls to ask her on a date.

“This is better.” Amanda’s face doesn’t match her words. Her face says this is terrible and I want to go live in a hole . Which isn’t the kind of nice that I remember her being. “This way, we can keep Lorelei out of it. She’ll never have to know, and she won’t have to take sides, and it’ll all be over before you laugh about it with her later, when I’ll be long gone to stew in my own mortification for the next forever. Can I come in? I really don’t want to talk about this with witnesses.”

I glance at the houses in view from the backyard.

Doesn’t look like there are any nosy neighbors snooping, but you never know.

“They’re all downtown for ... erm ... a meeting,” Amanda says. “But I don’t know for how much longer.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“Can I please come in?”

“Back door,” I tell her. “It’s unlocked.”

“Oh. Well. That would’ve been easier, wouldn’t it?”

My guard is up. I’m already testy for having been guilted into spending an entire week in Tinsel before my grandparents’ anniversary party. I’m hot and sweating and need to put on a shirt.

And despite all that, I smile at Amanda’s self-deprecation. “Have you and easy ever gotten along?”

“You laugh now ...,” she mutters while she leaps to her feet and strides quickly past the window up the stairs to the deck just off the living room.

I grab my T-shirt and pull it on— fuck , it’s hot—and then look at Chili again. “Still not moving?”

He pops one eye and gives me a silent no.

Lazier than usual today, but then, we haven’t been in heat like this in forever.

The screen door clatters as Amanda lets herself in. “Yep. That was easier.” She looks me up and down and winces again. “Can we sit down? Preferably on opposite sides of the room with me closest to the door when you decide you want to murder me? Which you don’t have to do. I’ll fix this. Cross my heart and triple pinkie promise, I will.”

She hasn’t changed at all. Still unpredictable. Still prone to the dramatic side. Still always able to make me smile no matter what’s coming out of her mouth.

My heart gives a painful thump.

I had such a crush on her in high school.

Not that I ever had the courage to tell her that. Family feud aside, she preferred dating the football players and the class president. Not the guys who were in band and on the mathlete team.

No shade to Amanda.

She was always kind to everyone, but the popular crowd was where she belonged. Where she fit.

I scratch my chest where it’s starting to drip sweat and gesture her to the blue La-Z-Boy nearest the screen door, then seat myself once again on the couch, but this time on the other side of my dog.

Farther from her.

At her request.

She sits at the edge of the chair, crosses her legs, and weaves her hands around one bare knee. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna go for it. And before I tell you what I have to tell you, I want you to know that I’m very, very, very sorry. I will fix this. I will set this right. I will tell them the truth. I just ... haven’t yet.”

I lean back and hook an ankle over my own knee.

College and then city life have helped me get over feeling like the geeky band guy who blushes at the slightest look from an attractive woman, but there’s something different about facing your original high school crush fifteen years later.

Especially after coming to realize just how off you felt growing up because of always having to be on guard to never let your family know you’d had any kind thoughts about the enemy . Or that you didn’t understand why you had enemies, and why everyone couldn’t just get along.

Tinsel might be magic for everyone else, but for me, it’s nothing but stress and unease. I was not built to be a participating member of a long-standing family feud of indeterminate origins.

Not when it overshadowed every shining moment of my childhood.

“The truth about what?” I ask her.

I honestly can’t guess what she’s about to say. I never could. And that was half my fascination with her.

For as much as I like predictability in my own life, I still envied the whirlwind of unpredictability that she thrived in.

She sucks in a breath that has her chest lifting, highlighting the curve of her breasts, and she squeezes her eyes shut before she answers. “That we’re engaged.”

Chili lifts his head and gawks at her.

My jaw meets my chest.

She peeks at us out of one squinty eye, then sighs and opens both eyes again. “I’m sorry. I truly am. I don’t know why I said it. My grandma told me that when she announces her retirement this weekend at the party for her fiftieth anniversary of working at the bakery, she’s leaving me the gingerbread bakery, and I can’t bake, and I love Tinsel, I do, but I belong in the city. New York City. It just—it feeds my soul, and I like to think that I give it something back too. And Lorelei and I were talking about dinner right before I went to see my grandma and she said you were coming to town and might join us even though you and I haven’t seen each other in years and I was thinking about how we’d have to be so sneaky to have dinner without my family finding out—”

“Breathe,” I interject.

Can’t help myself.

I don’t think she’s drawn a full breath since she walked in the door.

Also, I need to breathe.

I need to breathe, and I need to think.

My fingers curl into fists and then stretch out on their own as I hunch forward. If it wasn’t so hot, I’d leap up and start pacing.

Engaged.

Engaged to Amanda Anderson.

While I’m not getting engaged to anyone at this point in my life, the news doesn’t have me as shocked as I would’ve thought it should.

Or as horrified.

She takes a massive breath that makes her chest rise and fall again, drawing my attention to the hint of cleavage at the neck of her tank top, and then she dives right back in. “So you and Lorelei and our families’ stupid fights were already near the top of my brain, and I looked out the window of the Gingerbread House and I saw your family’s Fruitcake Emporium, and then Grandma said I’m the only person who can take the gingerbread bakery now, and the next thing I knew, I was blurting out that I was engaged to you. I panic-engaged us because being engaged to a Silver is basically the only thing worthy of instant disinheriting and it seemed kinder to tell her that being in love with the enemy was the reason I can’t take over the bakery.”

“Breathe,” I say again.

“I’m breathing. Also, I don’t personally think you’re the enemy. I promise. I know you’re a nice guy. Lorelei says so.”

“Breathe more.”

“I’m so sorry—”

I hold up a hand, cutting her off. Chili grunts—that’s his annoyed someone’s interrupting my sleep grunt—and puts his head back down on the couch.

“Ohh, is that your dog?” Amanda says.

I don’t answer.

My brain is spinning too fast, putting a puzzle together and taking me on a path that is far, far, far from my preferred predictability as I give in to the desperate need to move right now. The fan hits me as I pace, then the other fan, but neither offers relief.

I don’t think like this.

I don’t jump to conclusions or solutions like this.

I say and do the predictable thing, always— You need to tell them we’re not engaged, or I will —except my entire being is revolting over that idea.

And instead, there’s an unexpected whisper in the back of my mind telling me to stop, drop, and think .

Think about how I didn’t want to take this entire week in Tinsel for my grandparents’ anniversary party, but my dad guilted me into it. Might need an extra set of hands for last-minute plans. You don’t come home enough. Already told us you won’t be home for Christmas.

Think about how I’ve been cutting our conversations short every time he starts complaining about anything around Tinsel.

About how his favorite thing to complain about is Amanda’s family.

About how I said I got a promotion at work , and the first thing I heard was my uncle cackling in the background. Bet none of them Anderson kids get promotions as fast as our Dane does. Like I’m not a person, but a prop in their war. Just like always.

Dane’s valedictorian. Those Andersons have never done that. Dane aced his SATs. Those Andersons have never done that. Dane’s first clarinet. Those Andersons have never done that.

About how the fruitcake shop isn’t doing well, and everyone’s denying it, and if they’d all pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and address the problem instead of blaming the Andersons for god only knows what reason, maybe they could find a solution that isn’t trying to destroy that gingerdead family .

Yes, gingerdead family .

It’s fucking stupid.

My heart’s doing its own thing that it needs to get over, and get over immediately.

If I do this—if I propose— suggest this idea that’s growing louder and more persistent in my mind—it’s purely for the reason she already said.

I don’t think you’re the enemy.

Lorelei has to sneak around to have dinner with one of her oldest friends.

No one knows why our families started fighting in the first place.

Who cares what they did?

What I care about is that I have to hear alllll about it. Every week. Like clockwork.

“You told them we’re engaged,” I say slowly.

“That we’ve been secretly dating long distance for the past year and we’ve decided to elope to Vegas next month,” she whispers.

“They believe you?”

She visibly swallows and looks away. “My mom had to take my grandma to the hospital to be checked for a heart attack.”

I stop pacing and spin to stare at her. “Holy shit.”

She flaps both hands. “She’s fine. My grandma, I mean. She does this all the time. She’s had heart attacks over my uncle getting a fishing cabin, over her supplier raising prices for the first time in fifteen years, and once over the fact that she went all the way into the city to get a specific bedding set from Macy’s and they didn’t have it in stock.”

She bites her lip. “I mean, I think this is just like those times. My mom promised to text with updates. And she said I definitely could not ride along for the trip to the hospital. But that’s why I know the neighbors aren’t home. Not the ones who would’ve seen me coming in the back, I mean. They’re having a meeting to discuss who’ll take over Grandma’s role for the Jingle Bell Festival if this heart attack is real. Which I’m nearly certain it isn’t. I think. I hope.”

I slowly close my own jaw again.

Amanda’s phone dings.

She pulls it out, looks down, and blows out the heaviest breath I’ve ever heard another human being blow out.

Her eyes water. Her chin trembles. And then she forces the fakest smile I’ve ever seen in my life as she flashes the screen at me. “See? She’s fine. It was just indigestion.”

Her voice wobbles, and I have to rub my own chest. “She had her heart checked lately?”

“Every time she supposedly has a heart attack. She has the arteries of a twenty-year-old. Good genes. Can’t be all the gingerbread she’s eaten over the years.” She’s forcing a cheerfulness about this like she wasn’t honestly terrified she’d given her grandmother a heart attack.

You can tell that the nonchalance about the idea of her grandmother having a heart attack is fake.

Considering some of the performances I saw her do in high school, this has to be hitting her hard.

Or she’s playing you, the ever-present voice of people like Amanda Anderson don’t fit into lives like ours whispers in my ear. With a side of she’s one of them gingerdead people .

I tell it to shut up.

Lorelei has always insisted that Amanda’s never been one of those Andersons who likes to torment us, and I trust my sister’s judgment.

“At the risk of sounding like an asshole,” I say slowly, still weighing how much chaos I want to bring into my life for this trip home, “it’s fucking ridiculous for your grandmother to fake a heart attack over not liking someone you claim to love enough to want to marry. Especially someone she’s never met.”

Her eyes flare wide again, and her lips part before she slowly clamps them together.

“It’s fucking ridiculous that if we tell my family we’re engaged, they won’t give you the time of day either,” I add.

“If we . . . what?”

“We’ve been dating for a year,” I say slowly.

This could work.

I broke up with Vanessa a year and a half ago. I’ve taken a few solo trips while I worked through it all.

Amanda eyes me the same way I should be eyeing myself right now. “I’ll set the record straight as soon as Grandma’s home tonight. But I wanted to tell Lorelei—you—before you heard it from someone else. Because the whole Jingle Bell Fest committee might’ve heard. And then kicked me out while they tended to Grandma’s heart—indigestion.”

“When was your last serious boyfriend?” I ask.

“ Psh. My roommate is the best friend a girl could ask for, and I get to spend my days with dogs and my nights exploring the city. Who needs a boyfriend?”

“Your family knows that?”

“They don’t always believe me, but I also haven’t dated anyone in—why are you smiling? What’s going on? What’s with the questions?”

“Days with dogs ... Are you a veterinarian? What happened with acting?”

Her mouth works like she doesn’t know what to answer first, and then she sighs. “I’m a dog walker,” she grumbles out. “And I love it. I do. I just—my family doesn’t understand why I love it so much. As for being an actress, it wasn’t—let’s just say the stage and I are soulmates, but the rest of the gig wasn’t in line with my personality.”

A protective streak sparks to life inside of me. “Did someone—”

“No. No. No one hurt me. It just—the constant rejection, the uncertainty, and sometimes the personalities of the cast and crew. I have the world’s best roommate now, and I made enough connections when I was trying to break into the theater that I was able to get hired by a company that only services high-end clients. But I’m still just a dog walker . Not a real job . Of course I can give that up for my family .”

Protective is rapidly morphing into fury . “That’s what they said to you?”

“More or less. But for real—one of my cousins is a cancer researcher. The other is doing amazing things as mayor of his wife’s hometown in Oregon. My brother just got a job at a high-end bakery in Italy after eloping himself. Being a dog walker ... it sounds lame in comparison.”

“Does it make you happy?”

“ Yes. I love my job. I’m outside all day, every day. My dogs are hilarious and fun, and they’ve introduced me to so many amazing people. I can pay my bills and have time to be involved in my neighborhood and there’s a never-ending supply of new things to see and do in the city, and—I know it sounds silly, but when I’m in New York, I’m just—I’m where I was meant to be. And I am acting. We just restarted a community theater, and we’re about to have auditions for our first show.”

My mind is made up.

We’re doing this. “We should stay engaged.”

Her eyes go comically round.

Relatable. I’m goggling at myself internally too. This isn’t like me.

It’s not like me at all.

But then, it is like me to dislike coming home more every time I do it. And that’s not a recipe for happiness.

“Dane, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—” she starts, but I interrupt her.

“How stupid is it that our families are holding on to a generations-long fight when no one knows what it’s about anymore?”

She doesn’t immediately answer.

“Do you know what it’s about?” I press.

She shakes her head, and there’s something firm enough in it that I believe her.

“I don’t either. And it’s fucking ridiculous. You like Lorelei. She likes you. You should be able to visit her when you’re in town without climbing through a back window while you hope the neighbors don’t notice. So we stay engaged. We make our families work together if they don’t want to lose both of us. We end the damn feud. Are you in? Or do I have to tell Lorelei you broke my heart because your family didn’t approve? You know she’s likely heard by now. It’s how Tinsel works.”

It’s low.

I know it’s low.

All the way around.

But I fucking hate the way our families fight. The idea of coming home puts me on edge every time.

It makes me feel like a pawn instead of a human being, and it’s overshadowed every major accomplishment I’ve had in my life.

Early last year, when I thought I would marry Vanessa, that we’d have kids—I didn’t want to bring them home.

They didn’t even exist, and I was already thinking about how I didn’t want to put them in the position that I grew up in. I didn’t want them to have to hide it if they became friends with an Anderson. I didn’t want them to feel like half of their identity was hating someone else and every good thing they ever did was a chip to be used in a poker game of animosity.

I’ll have kids one day, and I’ll feel the same then as I do now. They don’t need a cloud of anger and hatred hanging over their lives.

So what if we end it?

What if we take advantage of this moment, of Amanda’s spontaneity, and we make a real plan, and we end this ?

“That’s ...” She licks her lips while she stares at me, apparently at a loss for words.

“A big risk,” I acknowledge. “It could backfire. But you don’t want to inherit a bakery. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hearing more about what’s wrong with your family than what’s right with mine. So what are we out if it doesn’t work?”

I know what I’m risking.

I’m risking conflict inside my family instead of them having a united front against the Andersons. I’m risking being cut out of my family completely if they can’t look past their old prejudices to see that Amanda’s a nice person.

I don’t know what her relationship is with her grandma. I don’t know what she wants it to be.

But if she was willing to blurt out that she’s engaged to the enemy to get out of inheriting a bakery, can it be that fantastic?

She’s staring at me with ever-darkening eyes, and she licks her lips once more.

Fuck it.

If I’m doing this, I’m doing this .

I drop to one knee in front of her. “Amanda, will you do me the honor of being my fake fiancée so that we can bring some peace to this town?”

She searches my eyes with hers, her pupils dilating just enough to be noticeable as her breath comes in shallower and shallower bursts.

After what feels like an eternity, she gives me a solid nod. “Okay. Okay. I’m in. Let’s do this.”

My heart leaps. Not the only part of me leaping, if I’m being honest.

I’m engaged to Amanda Anderson.

This week will be interesting.

An alarm beeps on my phone.

Shit.

Family cookout tonight.

I’m due there in an hour. Which, I suppose, means we’re due there in an hour now.

I lift a brow at Amanda. “Good. Because we’re starting right now.”