An Unexpected Plan

A Cozy Fall Romance About Finding Home

My plan was simple: fly to Vermont, sketch the sad beauty of my family’s decaying farm, and escape before the first snow. This small-town trip was just another subject to capture and forget.

But the farm’s porch is a structural failure, and the grumpy carpenter hired to fix it is a walking indictment of my entire life. Evan Carter doesn’t do patch jobs. He builds things to last, and he sees the rot I’ve spent a decade painting over.

He’s infuriating, steady, and solid as the foundation he insists we rebuild. He’s everything I’ve run from. But as the autumn chill sets in, his quiet competence starts to feel less like a cage and more like the only home I’ve ever known.

My ambition has always been my compass, but what happens when it points me toward a future in Paris, and my heart refuses to leave this broken-down porch in Vermont?