He plants gardens and leaves before they bloom. She builds things to last and never asks to be one of them.
Harper Aldridge keeps the craft store lights on late, shows up for everyone in Haven Creek, and makes beautiful things designed to outlast her. It has never once occurred to her to want something she gets to keep.
Jax Chester, Mia’s brother, is only here for the summer, a renowned garden designer brought in to restore a Montana garden that’s been waiting eleven years for someone to fix it. He’s fluent in soil and hopeless with people. He designs gorgeous spaces, builds them, and never stays long enough to see them—or relationships—bloom.
Then there’s Rufus, a beagle-basset mix who spends weeks in the back corner of his kennel with his back turned to the world. He won’t let anyone touch him, so Jax sits down outside the kennel and stays. As Harper watches the two of them decide about each other, something she’s kept very carefully closed in her heart begins to open.
Can a woman who’s never let herself want anything, and a man who leaves before anyone can love him, find the courage to stay and make something beautiful they both get to keep?
