One Week at a Time

[HE FALLS FIRST & HARDER • REVERSE AGE GAP • SLOW BURN]

At twenty-eight, Ella is a ghost running from a devastating past. Fleeing to a secluded South Carolina cottage, she hides behind rigid routines and cold numbers, determined to let no one close enough to see the cracks in her foundation. 🏚️🔒

At twenty-three, Caleb is a steady framing carpenter who knows how to build things from the mud up. He's patient, quiet, and exactly the kind of uncomplicated local boy Ella should avoid. But when her carefully constructed walls shatter in the cab of his truck, Caleb doesn't try to fix her grief. He just holds the space for it. 🌧️🔨

To Ella, Caleb is a safe harbor-a sweet friend who expects nothing. To Caleb, she is everything. Knowing she is barely surviving, he locks his roaring desires in his chest and offers her a lifeline: a deal to try one new thing together every week. 📝🥑

It's a pact designed to help her find herself again, but as the boundaries of friendship begin to blur under the heavy lowcountry moss, Caleb is left walking a razor-thin line. He's falling first, and he's falling twenty times harder-but how do you convince a woman who is terrified of the future that you're the foundation she's been searching for? ⚓❤️