My Greatest Joy

There's a reason I hate the holidays, but nothing could've prepared me for the literal nightmare of flying three thousand miles in the middle of December.

When my coworker gets the flu, I reluctantly volunteer to take their assignment to write a piece on Vermont's most famous Christmas small town.

After a delayed flight and driving through a blizzard in a minivan to a mountain cabin in the middle of nowhere, I find myself mixed up in a rental scam.

It's bad enough the owner walks into my room naked and accuses me of breaking in, but then he tells me all the roads into town are closed. Even if I could leave, all the hotels are booked with tourists for the winter festival.

Even worse, his house is decorated like the North Pole.

Like I said, a nightmare.

The only perk about being snowed in with a lumberjack is that he's accustomed to the cold and lets me steal his body heat in the middle of the night.

But then that turns into more, and even when I try to resist, I can't help getting attached. It'll never work out because we live on opposite sides of the country and have nothing in common.

Except, maybe we do...