Eddie Rodrigues doesn't stay in one place long enough to get attached. The only time he broke that rule, things went south fast. Now he's on the road again, with barely enough cash in his pocket to hop a bus to Texas after his (sort-of-stolen) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Midwest, USA.


He's fine. He'll manage. Until he watches that girl get hit by a car and left to die.


Local shop owner Grayson Croft isn't in the habit of doing people any favors. But even a recluse can't avoid everyone in a town as small as Clear Lake. And when the cop who played Juliet to your Romeo in the high school play asks you to put up her key witness for the night, you say yes.


Now Gray's got a grouchy glass artist stomping around his big, empty house, and it turns out that he . . . maybe . . . kind of . . . likes the company.


But Eddie Rodrigues never sticks around.


Unless a Christmas shop owner who hates the season can show an orphan what it means to have family for the holidays.