The last person Zoe needs cramping her style on this holiday train is the one woman she can't stop watching.

Forty-something Zoe Hawkins has sworn off romance just in time for the most romantic season of the year. All she wants is her annual Christmas escape—several days of twinkling lights and snowy vistas on the rails from Chicago to San Francisco with her train enthusiast club. No complications. No falling for anyone. Especially not Samantha “Sam” Borchard.

The librarian with strawberry blond hair peaking out of her Santa hat landed the AV position Zoe wanted, and now they're stuck working side-by-side. Sam is nursing a broken heart—her ex just got engaged—and bristling every time Zoe tries to help (which may have something to do with Zoe stepping on her ankle during boarding).

But as the train chugs through the winter landscape, something shifts. There's the way Sam's breath catches when Zoe leans in close, the electricity when their fingers brush, and the heat in Sam's gaze when she thinks Zoe isn't looking. This Christmas, love is the one journey neither of them planned to take. All aboard for mistletoe, winter magic, and a second-chance-at-love interracial holiday romance that proves the best gifts are the ones you never saw coming.