Brandon:
I like things simple. Predictable. Calm.
Like Willow Glen.

That’s what I told myself the night Laney Brooks walked away—from me, and from this small New York town. Said she had bigger dreams than what we could offer here.

Ten years later, I’ve kept my life steady. Farm work. Dispatcher shifts. No surprises.
Until her yellow lab barrels through the kindergarten playground, and suddenly she’s standing in front of me again.
My first love. My hardest goodbye.
Back as the new school counselor, with a smile that still stops my heartbeat and a dog who turns order into chaos.

She’s the opposite of everything I built my life around.
Unsteady where I’m rooted. Wild where I’m calm.
And somehow, she still feels like home.

Laney:
I thought chasing big dreams in New York would make leaving worth it. Instead, I burned out, broke down, and came home with more regrets than I care to admit.

Now I’ve got a job I love, a crooked little rental house, and Sadie—the therapy dog who’s anything but therapeutic. And of course, the first person she drags me to is Brandon Williams.

Grumpy. Steady. Still maddeningly attractive in that I-build-barns-and-fix-everything kind of way.
He was my first kiss. My forever plan. The boy I left behind.

I thought I needed the world to feel complete.
But standing here in Willow Glen, I’m starting to wonder if home was what I was searching for all along.

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