When Willow Alder comes home to Sugar Hill Hollow, everyone thinks she's there to take some time off before she starts veterinary school, but the truth is—she didn't get in.

Determined to prove she isn't a failure, Willow finds herself chasing a new dream when she hears her brothers are closing their family's maple syrup store.

And she has until the Harvest Festival to revive the store and prove it's worth keeping open.

Except, things are never that easy… and the situation only gets even stickier when Jace Miller walks back into her life.

Her older brother's best friend. The man who was always off-limits.

The man she had the secret, stubborn crush on years ago.

After a career-ending injury, Jace finds himself hanging up his skates and back home in the Hollow, nursing a bruised ego. Willow is the last person he expects to run into, but when he does, he knows he has nothing but time and can't help but offer to help her fix up the shop.

Their arrangement should be simple, but Willow quickly discovers that saving the shop isn't her biggest problem. It's falling even harder for the one man she can't risk wanting. His smoldering eyes and the unspoken electricity between them has her questioning everything she thought she knew.

Because in Sugar Hill Hollow, the sweetest things simmer slowly… and some old feelings can never stay buried.