The bus climbed into the Colorado Rockies like it was being pulled by an invisible hand, higher and higher, away from Denver’s glass towers and espresso schedules, away from the kind of life where you could pretend weather was a suggestion and feelings were a liability.

Garrett Sullivan sat on the right side, three rows behind her, because that was where he could see Victoria Ashford without looking like he was trying to see Victoria Ashford.

She didn’t move like the rest of them. Everyone else shifted, checked phones, complained about the seatbelt that wouldn’t click, laughed too loudly at jokes that weren’t funny. Victoria sat perfectly still, spine straight as a ruler, dark hair twisted into a knot so severe it looked like it had been installed by an engineer. She wore a cream wool coat that probably cost more than Garrett’s monthly car payment, and her profile was clean and calm, carved out of winter itself.

“The Ice Queen,” people called her when they thought she couldn’t hear.

Garrett had heard the whispers for five years. Cold. Untouchable. Impossible to please. A department head who could look at a proposal and find the one seam that would split the whole garment. A woman who never smiled in photos. A woman who never, ever made mistakes.

And still, for five years, she had haunted him, not like a ghost, but like a blueprint you couldn’t stop studying even when you knew it wasn’t yours to build.

His phone buzzed.

A text from Emma, his thirteen-year-old daughter.

Mom says you’re going on some work trip instead of helping me with my science project again.

Guilt settled into his chest with the weight of wet snow. Garrett stared at the message until the words began to blur into accusation.

He typed back fast, thumbs clumsy with urgency.

I’ll be back Saturday morning. We can do it together. I promise, sweetheart.

Three dots appeared. Then vanished.

No reply.

The same pattern for three years. Ever since Rachel left. Ever since she looked at him over the breakfast table, eyes tired, voice oddly calm, and said the sentence that still echoed when his apartment went quiet:

You love your work more than you love us, Garrett. I’m done competing with blueprints for your attention.

Rachel hadn’t been wrong. He had missed Emma’s dance recital. Her first violin performance. The soccer game where she scored her first goal and looked into the stands after, searching for him like a lighthouse searches for shore.

He always had an excuse. A deadline. A client. A meeting that “couldn’t be moved.”

One day he realized he had moved everything that mattered.

Just not in the right direction.

The radio crackled at the front of the bus. The driver turned the volume up.

“National Weather Service warns of a historic blizzard approaching the Telluride region. Expected snowfall eighteen to thirty inches. Roads may close within hours. Residents advised to shelter in place…”

The bus quieted, like everyone had suddenly remembered they were small.

The driver glanced into the rearview mirror at Victoria, as if her approval could override meteorology.

“Miss Ashford… should we turn back if the roads close?”

Victoria didn’t hesitate.

“We continue as planned.”

Her voice was cool, controlled, like snow that had learned to speak.

“This team needs bonding time. A little weather won’t change that.”

Someone in the back, Marcus from accounting, muttered something about forced fun.

Victoria’s head turned slightly. Not enough to show him her eyes, but enough to show him she’d heard.

“Mr. Chen,” she said, and her tone was so polite it became dangerous, “if you’d prefer to return to Denver, the next bus leaves in twenty minutes. Otherwise, I expect full participation.”

Marcus went silent. Nobody challenged Victoria twice.

Garrett stared out the window at the dark pines and the white sky, watching the snow begin to thicken, watching the world turn slowly into a closed door.

And in the reflective glass, he saw his own face, older than he felt, etched with regret he never talked about.

He wondered if this trip was going to cost him something else.

Mountain Ridge Resort sat tucked into the landscape like a secret kept by evergreens: a main lodge, nine scattered cabins, a kind of luxury that pretended it was rustic. The bus rolled to a stop, and cold air slammed into them the moment the doors opened, sharp and immediate, like the mountain itself had teeth.

Victoria stood at the front as if she’d been waiting for the moment to command the room.

“Welcome to Mountain Ridge,” she said. “The next three days are about building trust as a team.”

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small bag.

“You’ll notice cabins instead of hotel rooms. You’ll be paired randomly. No phones. No laptops. No distractions.”

A few groans. A few nervous laughs. A few people already plotting mutiny.

Victoria ignored it all.

“Draw a number. Find your partner. Collect your keys from the front desk. Dinner at the lodge at seven. Don’t be late.”

The bag moved down the aisle. Paper squares were drawn like fate in miniature.

Garrett watched Timothy Bradford draw first, unfold his slip, grin. Timothy was all polished confidence and country-club ease, the kind of man who never had to earn the air he breathed. He was also Garrett’s main competition for the Riverside project, a two-hundred-million-dollar development that could define a career.

Garrett needed it. Not for ego. Not even for money.

For proof.

Proof that all the birthdays missed and nights late at the office had meant something.

The bag reached Garrett. He pulled a folded square, opened it.

CABIN 9.

Victoria’s voice cut through the murmurs.

She held up her own paper, expression unchanged.

“Cabin 9. Who drew that number?”

Garrett’s hand went up before his brain could fully catch up to his body.

For two seconds, Victoria’s eyes met his.

Not long enough to reveal anything.

Too long to be completely neutral.

“Mr. Sullivan,” she said, and something in her tone made the air feel thinner, “it looks like we’re bunkmates.”

Laughter rippled through the bus. Someone called out a joke about performance reviews and sleeping arrangements. Another voice shouted that Garrett better not snore.

Victoria’s face didn’t move.

Garrett’s stomach turned over like a page being forced.

Three days sharing a roof with the woman who could fire him with a signature. The woman who had lived in his head for five years, always out of reach, always sharp-edged and untouchable.

They filed off the bus into the snow.

At the front desk, the resort manager, a woman named Margaret with worry lines etched deep, greeted Victoria with a handshake.

“Miss Ashford,” Margaret said quietly, “the weather report has me concerned. If the roads close…”

“Then we’ll enjoy the isolation,” Victoria replied. “That’s rather the point, isn’t it?”

Margaret hesitated as she handed over the keys.

“Cabin 9 is the furthest out. Beautiful view, very private. But if the weather turns bad, it may be difficult to get back to the lodge. There’s a radio in the kitchen. Firewood in the shed.”

Victoria nodded as if she was accepting an agenda item.

“I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Garrett took the second key. Margaret’s fingers trembled when she passed it to him, like she wanted to say good luck but didn’t want to be sued for emotional honesty.

The SUV ride up the winding mountain road felt like traveling into an alternate version of their lives, one where time moved slower and consequences moved faster. Victoria sat in front with the driver. Garrett sat in back, watching the lodge shrink until it disappeared behind snow and trees.

When they reached Cabin 9, it was smaller than he expected and more isolated than his imagination had dared. It sat nestled among pines, a warm wooden box in a world becoming white.

The driver unloaded their bags and pointed at a faint trail of markers.

“Dinner’s at seven. Follow the trail back down if you’re walking. Takes about twenty minutes. Radios are on the kitchen counter.”

Then he was gone, taillights vanishing into the storm like a sentence cut short.

Victoria walked to the cabin door and unlocked it.

Inside, the space surprised Garrett. Not the sterile luxury he expected, but something older, lived-in: stone fireplace, worn counters, a vintage stove, two bedrooms flanking a central living room. A cabin that felt like it had held other people’s stories and didn’t mind holding more.

Victoria set her leather weekender bag down and surveyed the room like she was inspecting a deal.

Then she opened the door to the smaller bedroom.

“You should take the master,” she said. “You’re taller.”

The consideration caught him off guard, like finding a soft lining inside a hard shell.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m five-six, Mr. Sullivan. I’ll fit.”

Practical. Not generous.

But her voice didn’t sound cruel.

Garrett carried his duffel into the master bedroom, then returned to the living room. Victoria had removed her coat. Underneath, she wore a cream sweater that made her look younger, less like a department head and more like a woman who might laugh at the wrong time and not apologize for it.

She loosened her hair from its knot. It fell past her shoulders, dark and heavy, threaded with silver she didn’t bother hiding.

Garrett looked. Of course he did.

She caught him.

Something flickered in her expression, quick as a match strike.

“We have three hours before dinner,” she said. “I’m going to inventory supplies. You’re welcome to explore or rest.”

Translation: I need space.

Garrett nodded and grabbed his coat.

“I’ll check firewood,” he said. “It’s supposed to get colder.”

Outside, the shed stood fifty feet behind the cabin, already dusted white. Inside, stacked cordwood reached the ceiling. Enough to last a week.

He carried in armful after armful until the pile by the fireplace looked like survival.

By the time he came back inside, the snow was falling harder. The wind had found its voice.

Victoria had lined up supplies on the counter: canned goods, pasta, coffee, protein bars.

“We could survive a week,” she said, as if she was making a business forecast.

Garrett struck a match and lit the kindling. Fire caught, spreading warm light like a small rebellion.

Victoria moved to the window, arms crossed, watching the snow thicken.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then, softly, she said, “My father used to bring me up here.”

Garrett turned. Her gaze was still on the storm.

“Before he remarried,” she continued. “Before everything fell apart. We’d spend weekends in cabins like this. He’d point out constellations. Teach me the stars.”

Her voice stopped abruptly, as if she’d surprised herself by letting anything out.

Garrett wanted to ask what happened. He wanted to ask why her tone carried loss like a hidden bruise.

But questions can be knives if you’re not careful.

So he offered his own truth instead, a quieter blade turned inward.

“Emma used to love camping,” he said. “Before the divorce. We’d go to Rocky Mountain National Park. She’d collect rocks and tell me they were dragon eggs.”

Victoria turned from the window. Her eyes found his.

“Children remember what we teach them to expect from us,” she said. “If we teach them disappointment…”

The unfinished sentence landed like a stone.

Garrett exhaled, throat tight.

“I’m trying to do better,” he said. “But it’s hard to rebuild trust once it’s broken.”

She stared at him for a beat too long.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I know.”

The radio crackled. Static. Then a voice cutting through:

“All roads to Telluride now closed. Highway 145 impassable. Mountain Ridge Resort advising all guests to shelter in place. Do not attempt to drive…”

Victoria adjusted the dial. Only white noise returned.

Garrett checked his phone. One bar flickered like a dying candle. He tried to call Emma. The call dropped instantly.

Victoria lifted her own phone. No signal.

“We’re effectively cut off,” she said, and instead of fear, something like relief crossed her face, as if isolation was finally honest.

Dinner at the lodge became impossible. The trail markers vanished under new snow, and the wind bullied the trees into frantic motion.

So they stayed.

At five, Victoria stood, arms folded.

“I should make something resembling dinner,” she said. “Do you have preferences?”

“I can cook,” Garrett offered.

“Really?”

“Single dad skills,” he said, and heard how the words carried both pride and confession.

He boiled pasta. Heated canned sauce. Baked frozen garlic bread. It wasn’t impressive, but it was warm, edible, and made with the kind of attention that said, I’m here.

Victoria moved around him in the small kitchen with careful distance, but she handed him utensils when he needed them. Opened the drawer before he asked. Found a pan without comment.

It felt domestic in a way that made Garrett’s chest ache, like he’d stumbled into an alternate universe where he hadn’t ruined his marriage with a thousand small absences.

They ate at the small table while wind howled outside.

Victoria set down her fork.

“When I took over the department,” she said, “half the partners assumed I got the position because of my last name.”

Garrett waited.

“My grandfather founded the firm,” she continued. “My father nearly destroyed it. I spent ten years rebuilding what he broke, and they still whisper that I’m only here because of family connections.”

Garrett leaned forward.

“Your Riverside proposal is brilliant,” he said. “The sustainable materials, the public spaces, the green tech without sacrificing aesthetics. That isn’t a last name. That’s vision.”

Victoria’s eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in assessment.

“You’ve read it,” she said.

“Three times.”

“Most people don’t look past the dollar amount.”

“Then most people are idiots.”

The laugh that escaped her sounded rusty, like a door opening that hadn’t been opened in years.

“Careful, Mr. Sullivan,” she said. “Some of those idiots sign your paycheck.”

“Some of them need truth more than they need ego stroked.”

Victoria shook her head, but her smile lingered like warm ash.

“You know what I appreciate about your designs?” she asked. “They don’t scream for attention. You make spaces where people want to live.”

Praise from Victoria Ashford was not something Garrett had ever expected to receive. It hit him like sunlight in winter: rare and startling.

“I learned it from my father,” he said before he could reconsider. “He was a carpenter. Took me to job sites when I was a kid. He said the best buildings make people forget they’re in a building at all. They just feel right.”

Victoria’s expression softened.

“Your father sounds wise.”

“He was,” Garrett said. “He died when I was nineteen. Heart attack on a job site.”

Silence fell, but it didn’t feel hostile. It felt like shared gravity.

Later, as the cabin cooled despite the fire, Victoria wrapped herself in a blanket on the sofa.

“I hate cold,” she admitted, voice smaller than he’d ever heard it. “When my father worked late… which was always… I’d be alone in that huge house. Fourteen rooms. I’d huddle in one to stay warm.”

The image hit Garrett hard: a child surrounded by wealth but starving for comfort.

“What about friends?” he asked gently. “Sleepovers?”

She gave a hollow laugh.

“Friends were complicated. Everyone either wanted something from me or resented me for having it. Isolation was safer.”

“That’s not living,” Garrett said.

Her gaze lifted, sharp, but not angry.

“Sometimes existing is all you can manage,” she replied.

He felt the truth of it in his own bones. He had existed for years, too, just in a different kind of cold.

That night, the fire died to embers. Garrett woke shivering and rebuilt it, hands numb, breath visible in the dim light.

Behind him, a door opened.

Victoria stepped into the living room wrapped in her blanket like a cloak, hair loose, face pale in firelight.

“Can’t sleep either,” she said. “Too cold.”

“Same,” he admitted.

She stared at the couch, then the floor near the fireplace.

“This is ridiculous,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’re both freezing. We’re both adults. The smart thing would be to share body heat.”

Garrett’s mouth went dry.

“Victoria, I don’t think…”

“Not like that,” she cut in quickly, but color rose in her cheeks. “Pragmatically. We pull cushions to the floor. We share blankets. We survive the night. Nothing more.”

So they made a makeshift bed near the fire, two couch cushions, every blanket they could find, pillows from both bedrooms. They lay down side by side with careful distance, staring at the ceiling while wind attacked the cabin like it was personal.

After a long silence, Victoria spoke.

“Why did your marriage really end?”

Garrett could have dodged. He should have.

But something about the storm, the fire, her earlier confession of loneliness, pulled honesty from him like a splinter.

“I chose work over family,” he said. “Rachel gave me chances. I kept choosing wrong.”

He swallowed hard.

“When Emma was five, she had a dance recital. I promised I’d be there. A client called with changes. I took the call. I missed it.”

His voice cracked.

“Emma cried for two hours. Rachel filed for divorce when Emma was ten. She said Emma deserved a father who showed up.”

Victoria was quiet.

Then, softly: “At least you’re trying now.”

Garrett turned his head to look at her profile.

“Your father?” he asked.

Her jaw tightened.

“He resented me from the moment my grandfather’s will was read,” she said. “Everything went to me. My father got nothing except a salary he had to earn. He spent years trying to undermine me. When that failed, he left. Arizona. Wife number three.”

Her voice flattened, like it had been filed down over time.

“We haven’t spoken in eight years.”

“I’m sorry,” Garrett said.

“Don’t be,” she replied, and her eyes shifted toward him. “I learned something valuable. Blood doesn’t guarantee loyalty. Trust has to be earned.”

Garrett hesitated. “Is that why you never married?”

Victoria’s breath hitched.

“I was engaged once,” she said. “Ten years ago. Dominic Rothschild. Old money. Perfect connections. Three days before the wedding, I found him with my executive assistant. They were laughing about how easy it was to convince me he loved me. How after the wedding he’d have access to my inheritance.”

Anger flared in Garrett so hot it felt like it could melt the snow outside.

“What did you do?”

“Called off the wedding,” she said. “Destroyed him socially. Fired her. Then I went home and cried for three days.”

Her eyes burned in the firelight.

“After that, I built walls. High ones. Thick ones. Because the alternative was letting someone close enough to destroy me again.”

She rolled onto her side, facing him.

“So yes,” she whispered. “Trust is too hard.”

Then, after a pause that felt like a door creaking open:

“Or it was… until tonight.”

Garrett’s heart thudded.

“Until tonight?” he asked.

Victoria swallowed.

“Until I sat across from you at dinner and realized I’ve been watching you for years,” she said. “Not as a boss watching an employee. As a woman watching a man who talks about his daughter with guilt and love tangled together. Who makes buildings that feel like home. Who doesn’t perform.”

Her voice trembled, small and furious at itself.

“You feel real.”

Garrett didn’t remember moving, but the space between them shrank, as if warmth had a gravitational pull.

“I’m not perfect,” he whispered.

“I don’t want perfect,” Victoria said, eyes shining. “I want honest.”

A moment later, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. Her breath hit his skin like confession.

“I’m terrified,” she whispered.

Garrett’s chest tightened with a feeling so sharp it bordered on pain.

He lifted his hand, not daring too much, but not daring nothing.

“Me too,” he breathed.

Then, in the firelight, with the blizzard screaming outside and no audience to impress:

“But I’d rather be afraid with you than safe without you.”

Victoria’s breath caught. Her fingers clutched his sleeve like an anchor.

“Then don’t stop,” she whispered.

He didn’t.

Their kiss wasn’t frantic. It was careful, deliberate, two people testing the edge of a cliff and choosing, together, to step forward anyway.

Morning came gray and heavy. The radio still insisted the roads were closed. The world outside remained erased.

Inside the cabin, something had shifted. Not suddenly, not magically, but unmistakably, like a wall that had been supporting all the wrong weight finally cracked.

They made coffee. Played cards. Talked about architecture like it was a language only they shared. At one point, Victoria disappeared into her room and returned with a worn leather portfolio.

She opened it with hesitation.

Inside were sketches, dozens of them: small houses built from stone and light, cabins that looked like they grew out of the mountains, clean lines and clever spaces that made Garrett’s throat tighten.

“These are incredible,” he said.

Victoria’s voice turned guarded.

“Department heads manage. They don’t create.”

“Says who?” Garrett asked.

She didn’t answer, because they both knew the answer was a long list of men in suits and one father who had left.

Garrett tapped a sketch of a cabin with soaring windows.

“This isn’t a dream you should hide,” he said. “This is the work you’re supposed to do.”

Her eyes shimmered, and she looked furious at the emotion.

“I spent twenty years proving I was smart enough,” she whispered. “And somewhere in that… I forgot why I wanted to be here.”

“Then remember,” Garrett said. “Build a life where you can be both.”

Victoria stared at the portfolio like it was evidence.

Then she looked at him.

“And what life do you want, Garrett?”

It was the kind of question that demanded blood-level honesty.

“A life where Emma doesn’t look at me like she’s waiting for me to disappoint her,” he said. “Where I show up. Where work supports life instead of consuming it.”

He swallowed.

“And I want a life where loving you isn’t something I have to hide.”

Victoria’s hand found his. Her grip was tight.

“We can’t,” she said. “Not while I’m your superior.”

“Then change it,” Garrett replied, voice rough. “Resign. Start your firm. Choose yourself.”

Victoria’s laugh sounded broken and brave.

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is simple,” he said. “It’s just not easy.”

Outside, the storm kept raging. Inside, they built something quieter and stronger: a small, terrifying hope, fed by honesty, warmed by the fire.

When rescue finally came, when the helicopter lifted them away from Cabin 9 and returned them to Denver’s polished world, they sat across from each other like strangers, masks back in place, professionalism rebuilt like a wall.

But when the pilot turned away, Victoria’s foot brushed Garrett’s.

A brief, deliberate reminder:

The wall is there. But it’s not the truth.

The truth, unfortunately, did not stay private for long.

Timothy Bradford noticed the way Victoria’s gaze lingered half a second too long. He noticed the tension in rooms they shared. He noticed Victoria recusing herself from the Riverside decision.

And Timothy, hungry for a project and not picky about the ethics of his hunger, used that noticing like a weapon.

On January 2nd, the board chose Timothy for Riverside.

Garrett read the email at his desk and felt something inside him crack, not just disappointment, but an old familiar grief: Of course. Of course I don’t get the thing I’ve sacrificed for. Of course someone else takes it.

A text buzzed.

Come to my office.

Victoria stood at her window when he arrived, shoulders rigid.

“They chose him,” Garrett said.

“I know,” she replied, voice tight. “And they told me they have concerns about my judgment lately.”

Garrett looked at her.

“The rumor,” he said. “He planted it.”

Victoria turned, face pale with fury.

“Then I’m done,” she said.

“Victoria…”

“I’m resigning today,” she snapped. “Not February 1st. Today.”

He tried to stop her with logic. With strategy. With fear of consequences.

But Victoria Ashford had lived inside consequences her whole life. She was finally tired of renting space in other people’s expectations.

Twenty minutes later, she walked out with two cardboard boxes.

In the parking garage, she faced him.

“I’m not your boss anymore,” she said. “So… us is whatever we make it, if you still want there to be an us.”

Garrett’s chest felt too small for his heart.

“I want it,” he said. “I want you.”

She kissed him right there, in public, where anyone could see, because she was done hiding true things behind professional courtesy.

Three days later, Garrett resigned too.

Not as a dramatic sacrifice, but as a choice.

Because for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t chasing proof.

He was building a life.

The hardest part wasn’t the firm. The hardest part wasn’t money or reputation.

The hardest part was Emma.

When she found out, she didn’t explode. She didn’t cry. She did something worse.

She went quiet.

Silence from a teenager is not peace. It’s a storm warning.

Garrett sat with her one Saturday morning, their science project untouched on the table, and told her the truth he should have told her years ago.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Not the casual sorry. The real one. I taught you to expect disappointment. I’m trying to teach you something new.”

Emma stared at him for a long time, then said, “Are you happy?”

The question hit him like a bolt.

Kids shouldn’t have to ask that.

But here they were.

“I’m learning how to be,” he said. “And I’m learning how to show up.”

Emma’s eyes watered, furious at the weakness.

“Then show up,” she whispered. “Don’t just say it.”

So he did.

One promise at a time.

Victoria didn’t try to replace Rachel. She didn’t push. She didn’t buy Emma’s affection with gifts.

She did something rarer.

She listened.

She sat beside Emma with a laptop open, teaching her basic architecture software, letting her design a little cabin with too many windows and a roof that looked like a spaceship, praising her ideas seriously, like Emma’s mind was worth respecting.

Because it was.

Slowly, almost invisibly, Emma began to soften toward the woman who had once been “the Ice Queen.”

Maybe because Emma recognized something familiar in her: a person who had survived by being hard, learning, painfully, how to be soft again.

By February, Ashford Design Studio was real: a small converted space in Denver’s art district, exposed brick, tall windows, the kind of place that smelled like sawdust and possibility.

Victoria handled business like she was born with a contract in her hand.

Garrett designed buildings the way he always had: not to impress, but to shelter.

They weren’t just building projects.

They were building a new version of themselves.

One afternoon, Emma came by after school, backpack slung over one shoulder.

She looked at Victoria’s sketches spread across the table.

“These are yours?” she asked.

Victoria nodded.

Emma leaned closer, studying the lines.

“They feel… warm,” she said, as if surprised by the word.

Victoria’s expression softened.

“Architecture,” she said, “isn’t about walls. It’s about what you make possible inside them.”

Emma glanced at her father, then back at Victoria.

“So… families too,” she said.

Garrett felt his throat tighten.

“Yes,” he said. “Families too.”

That spring, Rachel finally met Victoria for coffee. Not a courtroom war, not a dramatic showdown. Just two women sitting across from each other, both tired of fighting the wrong battles.

Rachel watched Victoria for a long time, then said, bluntly, “Emma is happier. And Garrett is… different.”

Victoria didn’t gloat. She didn’t defend. She just nodded.

“I’m not trying to take your place,” she said. “I’m trying to be a safe place.”

Rachel exhaled slowly, like she’d been holding her breath for years.

“Then don’t make me regret it,” she said.

“I won’t,” Victoria replied.

They didn’t become friends. But they became something more practical and more precious.

Adults who chose, for Emma’s sake, to stop turning love into a battlefield.

A year after Cabin 9, they returned to the resort.

Not for a retreat.

For something quieter.

Garrett, Victoria, and Emma sat inside the cabin with a small fire burning and snow tapping at the windows like a gentle knock instead of a threat.

Emma was building a model house from cardboard, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.

Victoria sat with her sketchbook open, drawing a community center that would serve families who couldn’t afford “beautiful spaces,” because Victoria had learned beauty wasn’t a luxury, it was dignity.

Garrett watched them both and felt something settle into place inside him, something he hadn’t felt in years.

Home.

Not the apartment. Not the office. Not a structure.

A choice. A daily decision.

A family built not by perfection, but by repair.

Victoria looked up from her sketchbook and caught Garrett staring.

This time, she didn’t freeze.

She smiled, small and real.

“You know,” she said softly, “a blizzard is supposed to be destructive.”

Garrett reached for her hand, fingers threading with hers like a promise.

“Some storms,” he said, “destroy the things that were already breaking.”

Emma looked up, deadpan.

“Are you two being poetic again?”

Garrett laughed. Victoria laughed too, and the sound filled the cabin with warmth that had nothing to do with the fire.

Outside, the snow fell steadily, patient and quiet.

Inside, they kept building.

Not just spaces.

Not just careers.

But something human, imperfect, and worth fighting for.

THE END