Snowed In with the Stepbrother

The cabin looked exactly the way Lily remembered it: a sanctuary disguised as architecture.

She stood in the doorway with her suitcase in one hand and her laptop bag in the other, breathing in the familiar scent of cedar and woodsmoke and something faintly vanilla—the candles her mother insisted on keeping stocked, even though no one had been here since last summer. The great room stretched before her, all honey-colored timber and massive stone fireplace, the kind of space that belonged in magazines with titles like Mountain Living or Escape to Nature. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the valley spread out in a patchwork of white and evergreen, the afternoon light already starting to soften toward dusk.

Perfect. Quiet. Completely, blissfully alone.

Lily allowed herself a small smile—the first genuine one in weeks—and stepped inside.

The Blackwood family cabin had been her grandmother’s before it was her mother’s, and her mother’s before it became the designated neutral territory for blended family holidays. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen that still had the original 1970s avocado-green refrigerator because her grandmother had loved it and no one had the heart to replace it. The kind of place where cell service was spotty, WiFi was a polite suggestion, and the nearest neighbor was a forty-minute drive down a road that hadn’t been paved since the Carter administration.

It was also, as of this moment, Lily’s personal fortress of solitude for the next two weeks.

She’d earned this. Twelve weeks of her final semester at Columbia, buried in coursework and research and the kind of academic pressure that turned even the most well-adjusted psychology major into a twitching mess of caffeine and imposter syndrome. Her thesis on attachment theory in adult relationships was due in January, her advisor was making increasingly pointed comments about her “tendency toward perfectionism,” and if she had to spend one more night in her tiny apartment listening to her roommate’s boyfriend attempt to play acoustic guitar, she was going to commit a crime.

So when her mother had mentioned—casually, over their weekly phone call—that the cabin was sitting empty and “someone really should check on it before the deep freeze hits,” Lily had volunteered with an enthusiasm that bordered on suspicious.

“You want to go to the cabin?” Victoria had said, her voice carrying that particular note of maternal skepticism. “Alone? For two weeks?”

“I need to finish my thesis.”

“You could finish your thesis in New York.”

“I need to finish my thesis somewhere that doesn’t have a roommate who thinks ‘Wonderwall’ is an appropriate choice for 2 a.m. serenades.”

Victoria had laughed, warm and knowing. “Fair enough. Just promise me you’ll actually eat something other than coffee and anxiety.”

“I promise.”

She hadn’t mentioned the other reason. The real reason. The reason that had nothing to do with her thesis and everything to do with the fact that Christmas was in two weeks, and Christmas meant family gatherings, and family gatherings meant—

No. She wasn’t thinking about that. She was here to work, to decompress, to spend fourteen glorious days in a place where the only person she had to perform for was herself.

Lily dropped her bags by the couch and did a quick circuit of the cabin, checking that everything was as it should be. Heat pump working, check. Water running, check. Firewood stacked on the back porch, check. The pantry was stocked with the basics—her mother had called ahead to the caretaker—and the bed in the master suite was made with fresh linens.

By the time she finished unpacking and changed into her favorite flannel pajamas—candy cane print, a gift from her mother three Christmases ago—the sky outside had darkened to a deep purple bruise. She could see the first snowflakes beginning to fall, fat and lazy, catching the light from the windows.

She made herself a cup of tea, settled into the corner of the massive leather couch with her laptop, and pulled up her thesis document. Earned Secure Attachment in Adult Romantic Relationships: A Longitudinal Study of—

The crunch of tires on gravel made her freeze.

She looked up, heart suddenly pounding, and saw headlights cutting through the snow. A car—no, a truck—was pulling up the long driveway, moving slowly through the accumulating white.

That was impossible. No one else was supposed to be here. The caretaker had already come and gone, her mother was in Connecticut, and no one—no one—knew she was here except—

The truck stopped. The engine cut. And in the sudden silence, Lily heard a car door slam and footsteps crunching through snow.

She was on her feet before she consciously decided to move, heart hammering against her ribs. Through the window, she could see a figure approaching the front door. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moving with the kind of purposeful stride that suggested—

The door swung open.

Caleb Mercer stood in the doorway, snow dusting his dark hair and the shoulders of his expensive wool coat, looking every bit as stunned as she felt.

For one eternal moment, neither of them spoke. The wind howled behind him, sending a spray of snowflakes into the entryway. The fire crackled. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Then Caleb’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Hello, Lil-bit.”

And Lily’s carefully constructed fortress of solitude came crashing down around her ears.