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- Herausgeber: Velvet Ink Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Cassie Lin never planned to come home—not for the holidays, not to run her grandmother’s candle stall, and certainly not to face the charmingly chaotic ornament maker next door. A numbers-first accountant with a polished life in the city, Cassie is all logic, control, and carefully measured steps.
Noel Whitaker is Evergreen Hills’ most relentlessly festive vendor, known for his handmade ornaments, pine-scented optimism, and a habit of challenging Cassie’s every carefully drawn line. When a record-breaking snowfall traps the market vendors overnight, the town’s holiday scavenger hunt turns into something more—something that nudges open old memories, buried wishes, and feelings Cassie never accounted for.
As warm lights flicker and secrets rise with the storm, Cassie begins to question the life she’s been chasing—and the one she might be missing. But when trust is fragile and timing uncertain, can a woman who measures everything in neat rows of numbers learn to let go and follow her heart?
One booth. One snowstorm. One dare that changes everything...
Will she walk away again—or choose to stay where wonder first found her?
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Mistletoe at Midnight Market
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Love Brewed Here
Sophie Claire Whitmore
Copyright © 2025 by Sophie Claire Whitmore
All rights reserved. This book, including all individual stories and original content, is protected under international copyright law. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from the author, except for brief excerpts used in reviews or academic commentary, which must be properly credited.
Fiction Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Creative Tools Notice:
Some aspects of this book including cover artwork, illustrations, or other visual and creative elements were developed with the assistance of licensed generative technologies under appropriate commercial-use terms. These elements are original compositions intended solely for this publication.
Thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoy every page inside.
Table of Contents
Mistletoe at Midnight Market
Description
Chapter 1: A Ledger Full of Glitter
Chapter 2: Holly, Jolly, and Infuriating
Chapter 3: Numbers and Nostalgia
Chapter 4: The Dare Begins
Chapter 5: Frosted Clues and Soft Confessions
Chapter 6: Snowbound Secrets
Chapter 7: Mistletoe Clue Mishap
Chapter 8: Lights Out, Hearts On
Chapter 9: The Final Clue and the Real Prize
Chapter 10: A Ledger Rewritten
Chapter 11: Mistletoe at Midnight
Epilogue: One Year Later
Mistletoe at Midnight Market
Description
Cassie Lin never planned to come home not for the holidays, not to run her grandmother’s candle stall, and certainly not to face the charmingly chaotic ornament maker next door. A numbers-first accountant with a polished life in the city, Cassie is all logic, control, and carefully measured steps.
Noel Whitaker is Evergreen Hills’ most relentlessly festive vendor, known for his handmade ornaments, pine-scented optimism, and a habit of challenging Cassie’s every carefully drawn line. When a record-breaking snowfall traps the market vendors overnight, the town’s holiday scavenger hunt turns into something more something that nudges open old memories, buried wishes, and feelings Cassie never accounted for.
As warm lights flicker and secrets rise with the storm, Cassie begins to question the life she’s been chasing and the one she might be missing. But when trust is fragile and timing uncertain, can a woman who measures everything in neat rows of numbers learn to let go and follow her heart?
One booth. One snowstorm. One dare that changes everything...
Will she walk away again or choose to stay where wonder first found her?
Chapter 1: A Ledger Full of Glitter
Cassie
The garland drooped like a tired smile over the market stall’s arch, held up by a single piece of fraying twine and what looked suspiciously like a candy cane hook. Cassie Lin stood in the middle of Evergreen Hills' cobblestone town square, her boots crunching over a scatter of tinsel, and exhaled into the chill. Her breath turned white against the air, curling like fog before vanishing much like her patience.
She adjusted her scarf and stepped closer to the booth, ducking under the droopy garland with a sigh. It was worse up close. The handwritten signs leaned at odd angles, inventory overflowed in chaotic heaps, and the back table sagged beneath unsorted candle jars and homemade gift tins. Her grandmother’s neat cursive was nowhere in sight neither was any sense of order.
Cassie pulled a ledger from her tote bag and flipped it open. She’d brought her own, of course gridded columns, color-coded by inventory type, and a crisp monthly revenue breakdown already formatted. When she'd agreed to manage the booth for a few weeks to give her grandmother a break, she’d expected some level of disorganization.
But this was a full-blown crisis.
“No system,” she muttered, scanning the last two years of inconsistent earnings. “No tracking, no margins, no SKU identifiers. This stall’s operating on sugar and sentiment.”
A jingle of bells caught her attention.
“Morning, neighbor!” a voice called bright, lilting, like a song breaking through fog. “Don’t worry. The garland only falls when it’s trying to say hello.”
Cassie turned and blinked.
The ornament booth next door looked like someone had broken into a holiday daydream and decided to live inside it. The roofline glittered with faux snow, twinkle lights blinked in cheerful chaos, and strands of popcorn looped between candy cane poles. The man leaning casually against one of those poles wore a sweater with three knitted snowmen and a scarf that might’ve doubled as a blanket.
He grinned. “Let me guess. You’re Cassie. Accountant extraordinaire. Back to save the family stall?”
Cassie narrowed her eyes. “And you are?”
“Noel. Noel Whitaker.” He offered a mittened hand. “I run the sparkle explosion next to you.”
She shook it briefly, noting the warmth of his grip. “Nice to meet you. And it’s not about saving anything. I’m just stepping in.”
Noel tilted his head. “Ah. Temporary savior. Got it.”
His smile lingered a beat too long. Cassie turned back to the ledger, hoping he’d take the hint.
“I took a peek earlier,” he continued. “Your booth’s got some charm. Rustic chaos is the trend now, right?”
She resisted the urge to correct him. “It’s not chaos. It just needs realignment.”
Noel chuckled. “You sound like my sister. She color-codes her grocery list.”
Cassie’s pencil paused. “That’s… reasonable.”
He laughed, full and unrestrained. Cassie fought the heat rising to her cheeks and straightened a stack of candle tins with extra force.
“Anyway,” Noel said, still smiling, “welcome back to Evergreen Hills. We’re a little allergic to spreadsheets, but you’ll get used to us.”
***
By noon, the market had fully opened. Holiday music filtered through old speakers tied to lampposts, and the scent of roasted chestnuts and cinnamon swirled in the air. Cassie had reorganized half the inventory and updated all the price tags. A woman in a red coat bought three cinnamon tins and called the booth nostalgic.
That, at least, was promising.
She was sketching out a daily earnings chart when a shadow crossed the page.
“You know,” Noel said, setting a peppermint hot chocolate on the table beside her, “most people just wing it.”
Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Wing what?”
“Life. Business. Joy.”
She stared at him.
He gestured toward her ledger. “I mean, that thing looks like it could calculate tax returns in its sleep. Does it have room for a cocoa column?”
“I track beverage expenses separately,” she said, deadpan.
Noel beamed like she’d given him a gift.
He leaned in, eyes glinting. “You know there’s a vendor competition, right?”
“I saw the flyer.”
“Whoever sells the most by Christmas Eve gets the prime corner stall next year. High traffic. Great visibility.” He pointed behind him. “That one.”
She glanced at the spot. It sat directly beside the town square’s entrance arch strategic and central. Her grandmother’s stall had always hovered on the edges. She imagined it there, bathed in light, organized and thriving.
Noel tapped the table. “I’m thinking we make this interesting.”
“I’m not interested in games.”
He arched a brow. “Says the woman color-coding candle inventory.”
Cassie looked away. “I have work to do.”
But his voice followed her like a melody.
“If you change your mind winner gets the spot, loser buys hot cocoa all winter.”
She didn’t respond, but her fingers froze briefly over the calculator. Something stirred annoyance, maybe. Or anticipation.
***
She caught herself watching him later.
Noel moved like someone who belonged in the cold effortless, hands tucked in his coat, a faint line of flour dusting one sleeve. He waved at every customer, remembered names, laughed with a boy about reindeer trivia, and let a toddler touch a glass ornament before gently trading it for a wooden one.
His booth sparkled literal and otherwise.
Cassie looked down at her reorganized shelves. Sleek. Efficient. Precise. It wasn’t the kind of booth that drew stories.
But it worked.
It always worked.
Didn’t it?
Her phone buzzed.
