Prologue
Tessa – Three Years Earlier
No matter how many winters we spent at our family lodge, I could never escape him.
The glass of water sweats against my palm as I hit the switch, bathing the kitchen in darkness. My eyes adjust slowly before I pad down the hallway toward my bedroom. The house is quiet—so quiet that every creak of the old floorboards feels like it echoes through the space. Somewhere downstairs, the faint scent of pine and leftover woodsmoke lingers, mixing with the sweetness of cookies my mom insisted on baking earlier.
I’ve been awake for hours, restless in that way where your body begs for sleep but your mind won’t stop spinning. My thoughts circle back to the weekend, to how everything feels heavier when we’re all crammed under the same roof for the holidays, to the one person I can’t seem to stop thinking about, even when I know I shouldn’t.
No matter how hard I try, my thoughts drift to Clay Barlowe.
I set the glass on my nightstand and peel back the comforter. My knee bumps the mattress, the cool sheet brushing my leg, when a sharp crash shatters the silence.
I freeze.
The sound is jagged, like glass exploding against concrete, loud enough to rattle through my chest. It’s so close that, for a second, I think maybe I dropped the water, but the glass sits untouched beside me, glowing faintly in the slice of moonlight spilling through the window.
Another noise follows—a groan, low and rough, the kind of wounded sound that doesn’t belong in the middle of a sleeping house.
My heart leaps into my throat.
I rush to the window and pull the curtain back just enough to look outside. The yard is dark, shadows cutting across the snow. Clay is sprawled on the sidewalk. He brushes his hands off like nothing happened, but his slumped shoulders give him away.
The curtain slips from my fingers. My feet are moving before I allow myself a chance to overthink it. Down the hallway, down the stairs, the deadbolt sticking as I twist it hard until it finally gives. The door groans on its hinges as I push it open, then race down the driveway toward him.
“Clay?” My voice cracks in the night. “Are you okay?”
He jerks his head up. Moonlight catches the sharp lines of his face, the shadows beneath his eyes. His hand drags up the back of his neck, and a sound rumbles out of him. For a moment, he doesn’t answer.
Clay has barely tossed a word my way since I arrived. It isn’t unusual—he’s always been quiet around me, almost as if keeping his distance on purpose. But this silence feels heavier in a way I can’t ignore.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been avoiding his brother, Evan, for weeks, letting our on-again, off-again relationship unravel without giving it the closure it needed. From the beginning, it was more about our families pushing us together than anything real between us.
We gave it a try, but we were never right for each other, and we both knew it. Evan is the one I keep pushing away—the mistake I keep circling back to even though I should know better. Clay was never an option—seven years older, five years older than Evan, always just beyond reach. He’s the one who never lets me close. With Evan, the distance is a line I draw. With Clay, it’s a wall he builds. And that difference slices deeper than I want to admit.
“You should go back inside,” he mutters finally, his voice low and gravelly.
My heart pangs. I know he’s hurting—not just from his recent ACL surgery but also from the loss of the season. The weight of that hangs in the air like a storm cloud he can’t shake.
Hockey has been his whole life, and from the whispers I’ve overheard, the career he busted his ass to create is starting to slip through his fingers.
The sharp stench of vodka clings to the air, sour enough to make my stomach knot. Shards of glass glitter near his boots, the dark patch on his jeans spreading where liquor must have soaked through when the bottle slipped.
I swallow hard as the memories rush in. The first night I started waitressing at Silver Spur was the night after my first college party. During my shift, a tray slipped from my hands and crashed at my feet, shattering a bottle of vodka. The sharp tang of alcohol stung the back of my throat, and I swore then I’d never get that drunk again. I didn’t like the way it stole my control, the way it left me raw and unsteady.
That same scent drifts through the night now, clinging to Clay as he plants his hands on the ground and pushes up. He wobbles, legs unsteady, fighting to find his balance.
“Let me help you,” I whisper, stepping closer as I reach my hand out.
He mutters a curse under his breath, frustration scraping the words raw. His jaw tightens, and I can’t tell if the anger is for me or himself.
But I can’t bring myself to leave. Not when he looks like he’s breaking in slow motion right in front of me.
“Back up. You’re gonna cut yourself.”
He doesn’t move right away. Crouched low with one hand braced against the sidewalk, he has his ass in the air like he’s trying to gather himself. Finally, he pushes upright, swaying a little before he steadies. A grin cuts across his face, crooked and boyish and so out of place on the Clay I know that it catchesme off guard. It spreads slow, almost smug, like he’s proud of himself for standing, and somehow, it makes me smile too.
A laugh slips out of me before I can catch it. “Well, looks like you’ve had yourself a night.”
