Back to Maple Hill – Volume 3: The Place I Choose: A Love Story Growing in the Softest of Places

Back to Maple Hill – Volume 3: The Place I Choose
A storm passed—now her real choice has arrived.

Cindy Lane didn’t plan on falling in love with a town—or with the man who keeps showing up whenever her world tilts. Maple Hill was supposed to be a temporary one month, one client, one soft place to land after a breakup that left her heart feeling oddly, disturbingly numb.

Instead, her “working retreat” turns into market mornings, gazebo meetings, and slow, steady days that feel suspiciously like a life she could keep. And at the center of it all is Ethan Brooks—quietly capable, infuriatingly thoughtful, and no longer the shy boy who once failed every unspoken test she gave him in ninth grade. Now he’s the one who leaves aspirin by the bed, fixes the Wi-Fi, holds the ladder, and offers her the kind of safety she never learned how to ask for.

When a storm blows through Maple Hill and the power goes out, Cindy finds herself riding it out in Ethan’s cottage—lantern light, shared soup, and a warmth that has nothing to do with the blankets. By morning, something between them has shifted into focus. For the first time in a long time, Cindy isn’t chasing her life; it feels like her life is quietly waiting for her to choose it.

Then a familiar car pulls into the hotel lot.
Adrian—her ex, the man she once imagined forever with—finally arrives in Maple Hill, carrying old promises, unanswered questions, and a version of her past she thought she’d already laid to rest.

Caught between the man who left, the man who stayed, and the town that’s slowly becoming home, Cindy has to decide not just who she wants—but what kind of life she’s brave enough to build.

In this warm, small-town romance about second chances, slow mornings, and the quiet courage of choosing yourself, The Place I Choose asks a simple, impossible
When the storms finally pass, where—and with whom—do you stand?