The One Who Stayed

Jude Mason has spent his whole life being the funny one. Ellie Hart has spent hers leaving before anyone can ask her to stay.

The youngest Mason brother is the one everybody likes and nobody quite takes seriously, and he has made peace with it, mostly. Then Golden Ridge gets a new teacher who is only passing through, who is quick enough to keep up with him, and who looks at Jude like she can see the part he keeps behind the jokes.

Ellie has a good reason for never unpacking. Jude has never once been the thing anyone chose first. What builds between them is not a grand gesture but a habit, made of showing up, day after day, until leaving stops being the obvious thing to do.

The fourth book in The Golden Ridge Series. Cozy-hot, slow burn, no cheating, no cliffhanger and a guaranteed happy ending.