Chapter 1

One

WINTER

T he sways and bumps of the sleeper car put me at ease, like when my mother would rock me as a child. It makes me miss her soothing hushes. A late November rain sprays across the wide windows of the car as I lounge back in the stiff seat. It’s too early to put the bunk bed down. The sun is fading fast, despite us traveling west.

My eyes take a glance at my laptop screen. A cleansing breath helps my mind calm the overwhelming worries threatening to ruin my mood. Should I do this?

Barely audible over my headphones, a small tap comes on the thin door to my cabin. Not even having to move, I slide it partially open and find the car attendant smiling. “Need anything, miss? Just making my rounds.”

“No, thank you. When is my dinner time?”

“Let’s see…” He pulls out a piece of paper from his uniformed coat pocket. “Yours is at six, and it’s in the dining car on the second floor, but you can also have it in your room if you prefer.”

“I’ll go to the car.”

With a nod, he shuts my door, and I clutch my seat arm rests and refocus on the computer.

A jostle on the tracks makes my purse slide out from its cubby and I catch it, my Magic 8-ball keychain landing in my hand. Let’s ask the expert. After a shake, I wait for the little triangle to appear.

It is decidedly so.

Well… if it’s decided , then I have all the answers.

Okay, Winter. How do you feel about that?

The entire trajectory of my life is about to change. But I guess I was already on that path when I bought this train ticket. No, before then.

When I saw Ben in the office. That’s when my life became instantly better.

Sliding my finger over the slick keys, I hit “Submit” and sit back. A slow smile forms on my lips.

“I feel it is decidedly so.”

My mother would kill me if she were alive. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, submitting college withdrawal forms in her first semester in order to pursue a dream. She wanted things to turn out differently for me.

“I just want you to have it easier than I did at your age,” she would say.

Despite nodding along with her mantra, I’d grit my teeth. She never even realized how hurtful it was to hear. “But you had me at eighteen.”

Her shoulders would slump as she would give me a hug. “And that, I don’t regret.”

When she died two years ago and left me with her husband, I had to figure something out. Adulthood was approaching, and college seemed to be what she wanted.

Not me.

So I enrolled for her.

Rowan Kernberg didn’t really want me around. He’s a nice man, but he’d never had children and was much older than my mother. He took good care of us and even hired a housekeeper to be some sort of surrogate, but it didn’t work. Susan was just the woman who cooked and cleaned. She wasn’t my mom.

Most of the time, I stayed at my all-girls boarding school, away from the stuffy townhouse in Verona. Except the summer before I was a senior. My mom had passed the year before, and I was still in my rebellious stage. Well, as unruly as I could get by dying my blonde hair black and wearing a ton of makeup. I didn’t really know the sort of kids to do drugs. And Rowan didn’t have booze in his house. So, really, the worst I did was get a belly button ring.

Rowan thought it would be good for me to get out of my bedroom and said I should work at his architectural office serving coffee and answering phones that summer. It was a decent distraction. But most of the time, I felt hollow, then would hurry back to my room at night and hide.

Until one day, the day. The one in which my memories would spark like a firework, shooting off in all directions in my mind. Excitement flared into my soul, bringing with it a zest for life. Plans played out like movies before my eyes as my breath caught in my chest when he walked into the office. In slow-mo.

Ben Stone.

When he came up to me at the desk, I froze and panicked, not knowing what to say. At first, I hadn’t recognized him. He was older, but so was I. And his muscles were more formed. Like, bigger and more rugged. There was a sprinkling of gray at the temples of his dark hair. His kind blue eyes scanned me as I beheld his structured jaw. Warm memories flooded my mind.

Ben teaching me to ski at Holly Berry Ski Valley in Crystal Frond. Days spent on the lake, swimming and splashing in the water. Christmas at the lodge and the comfort of being with my mom. Ben was happiness personified. And it had been too long since I’d felt that.

So, when he spoke to me with no recognition, I was a little surprised. “Hello, I’m here to meet Rowan Kernberg.”

It had been years since I’d sent him a picture. Even longer since he’d seen me in person. Some guilt hit me as I swallowed, trying to get my voice back. Part of me felt like I was hallucinating and had just dreamed him up in front of me. To check if I were indeed asleep and maybe just to hear some more of his deep voice, I asked, “Sure. Who should I say is here?”

“I’m Ben Stone.”

Instead of confessing everything then and there, I nodded at him with a tightness in my throat and went to get Rowan. My knees shook all the way down the hall. Rowan didn’t know Ben from Adam, and I decided to remain quiet about that. Despite how wrong it would be, I was going to keep Ben to myself. I knew at that moment exactly what I wanted out of life.

And it was Ben.

Not just him, but everything he represented. Safety, stability, and Crystal Frond, the only place I’d ever felt at home.

So, over the next year, I went to work. I gave it my all as a receptionist and tucked away every penny of my earned money in my sock drawer. My mother left me a small sum that I had deposited in the bank. It was enough to purchase the train ticket, as well as provide living expenses for a few months.

The day Ben returned to my life was when I stripped all the black from my hair and returned to who I was all those years ago. Someone lively and carefree. Light, and enthusiastic for adventures.

Scouring the internet, I found the most up-to-date information on him I could find. He was still in the Pacific Northwest town of Crystal Frond and living in the beautiful cabin near the ski resort that supplies the town’s economy. His job was the same, too. Structural engineer, but often he traveled the world for work months at a time. Stone Structures, his company, no longer had my mom listed as a partner, but that was so many years ago. The picture of him on his website showed how proud he was of his work with a broad, gleaming smile. A grin that captured my heart.

We’re meant to be. I just know it.

Whenever I get a glance at his social media accounts, my pulse races with excitement. His beautiful eyes gaze straight through the screen into my own. Like he knows he has a part of my soul and is waiting for me to come to him to get it back. His face makes some foreign heat rise between my legs.

Some nights, I leave my laptop open to his photo and writhe on my pillow or use two fingers on my clit, but stop myself before going over the edge. At the pressure and tightness in my stomach, I’m still too afraid of the threat that something wild and out of control is about to unleash within me.

It’s like standing on top of a tall building and knowing you could jump, but it would end in disaster.

Or I could fly.

Ben is single, and has been for years, though it seems he attends events with a woman named Cindy, who has a helmet of fluffy brown hair. Looking at her profiles, she seems older than him and often possessively lays her hand on his chest in their pictures while he looks away from the camera as if distracted. That’s a good sign.

Ben hasn’t married and has no children. Looking back, I don’t think he and my mother even dated. They were just best friends at the time, but he became a daily father figure I needed in my younger years. When I’d asked about him later, Mom said she couldn’t be with someone gone that much. And he travels all the time.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, but that’s about to change. Despite him only being my godfather, he was the most special man in my life. My mother found a new job in Verona, and we moved when I was eleven.

He’d always asked for pictures and updates from my mom. Texting or calling, sending me letters, cards, and gifts every year on my birthday. But as I got into my teenage years, friends became more important than family. Once my mother married, she lost contact with him, and the memories of my happy childhood days were almost forgotten.

But when I set my sights on him that day in the office last year, I knew what my goal was. Return to Crystal Frond and make him fall in love with me. But this time as a woman and not just his friend’s daughter.