Loura Bellamy runs her family’s hotel on Santa Aurelia, an island off the Southern California coast, far enough out to discourage a casual visit. When a man whose face everyone knows rents every room for October and asks that no one make a fuss, she agrees. Bellamy House is very good at leaving people alone.

Julian Mercer arrives with three children, an assistant on the phone, and a life arranged so that nothing ever asks him to stay. He has never been in one place long enough to learn where his daughter wants her chair. A house with a temperamental hot-water system and a woman who will not be managed was not what he booked.

A slow-burn romance of found family and second chances—a woman who has spent years keeping a place for everyone, and the first man to ask where she belongs.