Hallie Roberts had never been so cold in her life.
Freezing wasn’t accurate.
Bone-cold wasn’t enough.
She was arctic-tundra cold. The kind of cold where jumping into a blazing-hot fire wouldn’t even be enough to thaw her out.
Her nose was ice. Her toes were so scrunched and frozen in her shoes that they threatened to break off and move back to Florida where they thought they belonged. She didn’t blame them—in a few weeks, she was planning to follow.
New York City in December was no joke, especially when it was experiencing a historic cold snap. There was snow on the ground. Mounds and mounds of graying snow and a brutally chilling wind that whipped through her thin but fashionable trench coat and caused her to break out in what seemed like a permanent case of gooseflesh. She hadn’t known that weather like this existed. Before she moved from Florida she’d had this romantic idea of winter. Of New York in winter. That it would be all snow-globe beautiful with crystal flakes that gently floated to the ground and made whatever they touched seem magical.
But there was nothing magical about the nor’easter that had covered the city in white. It kept her snowed in and prevented her from going home for Thanksgiving and seeing the family she so sorely missed. So instead of eating her mother’s delicious sweet potato pie and slow-cooked ham, and walking on the beach with her grandmother after the big meal, she sat in her apartment and ate General Tso’s chicken along with an entire pint of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. And instead of taking an extra day off to breathe in the fresh ocean air and let the sun warm her face, she was trudging through icy snow on her way to work to teach her tenth graders about the brilliance of James Baldwin.
What a way to start the Christmas season.
Even though her plans had been ruined she didn’t mind going back to work. Her job was the only thing she liked about New York since she had moved there nearly six months ago. She had been mugged, her brand-new iPhone stolen by a hipster with a full beard wearing an ironic T-shirt. Her car had been towed because she had no idea what alternate-side-of-the-street parking was all about. And she’d once gotten so hopelessly lost on the subway she had to call her cousin back in Florida to help her navigate her way back home because she was too embarrassed to ask for directions. She didn’t know anyone in the Big Apple, aside from the people she worked with. She never thought she would be lonely in a city of eight million, but she was. And the longer she stayed here, the more she longed for the sandy beaches and small-town feel of Hideaway Island.
But going back to Hideaway Island wouldn’t be easy for her. Back in Hideaway Island was a man who had broken their engagement the day after she had the final fitting for her dress. Back in Hideaway Island was a man who’d told her that he wasn’t really sure if he loved her enough to spend the rest of his life with her.
I’m just not sure you’re what I need.
I’m not sure if you’re good for me at this point in my life.
It was hard being away from her close-knit family for the past half year but it was harder for her living on that tiny island and running into him everywhere she went. They had been together for over five years this time, but they had first started to date in high school. Brent had been her prom date. Nearly every place in town held some sort of special meaning for them. The dock where they had their first kiss. The beach where he proposed to her. The yacht club they were supposed to have their reception in. Reminders of him slapped her in the face at every turn. She had heard about heartbreak, but she had never expected to feel like she had felt.
He had made promises. They had made plans. She had made sacrifices. She had spent the last ten years of her life thinking she was going to be his wife and when he abruptly ended things she knew she would never plan her life around a man again. So when the opportunity came up to teach at this prestigious charter school, she’d jumped on it. Teaching inner-city kids wasn’t always easy, but she genuinely enjoyed them.
Except for right that moment when she walked up to the school to see two of her brightest students in the middle of a heated argument.
“You are obviously too stupid to understand what he was saying!”
“Who are you calling stupid? You’re the one—”
“Ladies!” Hallie took a step toward them only to feel her foot slide across the sidewalk. It was like the world had slowed down, like she was having an out-of-body experience. Falling down in public was bad enough, but falling in front of a bunch of high schoolers was the stuff nightmares were made of.
Hallie heard someone scream. Maybe it was her. She wasn’t sure because she hit the ground hard, her head bouncing on the sidewalk, and then everything went black. She wasn’t sure how long she was out or if she had died and gone to heaven, because when she woke up again the most beautiful man in the world was standing over her.
* * *
“How was your Thanksgiving, man?” Asa Andersen’s partner, Miguel, asked him as they headed back to their station at the end of a long shift.
“Quiet. My sister went to her in-laws’ this year so my parents and I went out to a diner.”
“A diner!”
“Yeah.” Asa grinned. “My father usually does the cooking but he’s recovering from the flu and no one wants to eat my mother’s food. Trust me, the diner’s Thanksgiving special was a thousand times better than anything my mom would have produced.”
“Your mom can’t cook,” Miguel said, moaning as if it were tragic. “I feel for you. You should have come to my house. We have the roasted pork, along with the fried turkey. My grandmother and tías made hundreds of tamales. The pumpkin-pie flan wasn’t such a big hit, but my mother’s chocolate cake more than made up for it.”
“That sounds amazing.” Asa couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a big holiday meal with aunts and uncles and extended family. Most years it had just been his parents and his sister at the holidays, but since Virginia got married she split her time between her and her husband’s family. They saw less of each other now than they ever had and even though he knew that was how things happened, it didn’t sit with him too well. It felt like something had been missing.
“My mother sent you a plate,” Miguel went on. “And by plate I mean the twelve pounds of food she packed in a huge brown paper bag.”
“Your mother is sweet.” All of the Gonzaleses were. Sometimes Asa envied his partner. Miguel always had a big, warm family to go to after the end of a long, hard shift.
“My mother wants to hook you up with my little sister but—”
“You stay away from my little sister,” Asa finished for him, laughing. “I’m not going anywhere near Arianna, trust me.” Arianna was cute, but Asa had been working with Miguel since he joined the FDNY as a rescue paramedic. They were an elite squad of highly trained paramedics that worked alongside the firemen and administered medical care in dangerous, unstable conditions. The last thing he needed was Miguel pissed at him if things didn’t work out. Their job was too dangerous for personal feelings to get in the way of the work. “I think you tell everyone to stay away from your little sister. You won’t be happy unless she decides to join a convent.”
“She’ll be married to God. A man can’t ask for a better brother-in-law.”
“Mine is pretty cool,” Asa said as a call came in from dispatch. “I get box seats to any baseball game in the country.”
“If you were a legendary shortstop, I would let you date my sister.” Miguel picked up the radio.