POV Charlotte
Three days into festival planning, I cornered Dean outside the equipment shed with my tablet clutched like a shield.
"I need you to do something for the marketing campaign," I said, blocking his path before he could disappear into another endless repair job. "Behind-the-scenes content. The rugged handyman fixing things in the snow, that whole aesthetic. It sells incredibly well on social media."
Dean's expression didn't change. He shifted the toolbox in his grip and looked at me the way one might examine a particularly irritating splinter.
"I'm good with my hands, not posing for cameras. Find someone else to be your model."
"There is no one else. You're the only person here who actually looks the part, and the algorithm favors genuine content over staged—"
"The outdoor market structures won't survive heavy snow if we don't reinforce them by next week," he cut in, already moving past me. "And the backup generator's been running rough since October."
I followed him, my boots crunching through the packed snow.
"None of that matters if no one knows this resort exists. You can build the most beautiful Christmas market in Colorado, and it won't mean anything if the only guests are tumbleweeds and your wounded pride."
He stopped walking. We'd reached the base of the old ski lift—the one on the eastern slope, tucked away from the main runs. The one where he'd taught me to really ski nine years ago, where he'd caught me when I fell and held on longer than necessary.
"This lift needs a full overhaul before the festival," Dean said, his voice carefully neutral as he examined the mechanism. "The cable tension's off, and two of the chairs have structural damage from last winter's ice storm."
Something ugly rose in my throat, something that had been festering for days.
"Of course you'd notice that. You've always been good at pretending things matter when they don't."
The words hung in the frozen air between us.
Dean's composure cracked—but not the way I expected. He turned slowly, and there was nothing neutral in his expression now.
He stepped toward me, and I stepped back, and then my shoulders hit the lift station wall and he was still advancing, that familiar dangerous energy radiating off him.
"You don't get to talk to me about pretending, Lottie." His voice dropped low, intimate, the same tone from that closet seven years ago, from that bedroom door. "You want to know what I did after you stood in that kitchen and called me a rat?"
His hands came up, bracing on either side of my head, caging me in without quite touching.
"I made up myself three rules," he went on, eyes locked on mine. "Rule one: I don’t let you close enough to hurt me like that again."
My breath stuttered, but he didn’t give me time to catch it.
"Rule two: I don’t put my hands on you unless I’m prepared to ruin myself over you." His gaze dropped, just for a second, to my mouth before dragging back up. "So right now? This is me trying really fucking hard to keep them to myself."
Heat flooded my face, my chest, everywhere his body wasn’t touching and still somehow was.
He swallowed, the muscle in his jaw ticking. "Rule three: I don’t help you pretend that night meant nothing. Not then. Not now. Not while you’re standing here acting like I’m the only one who lied."
He was close enough that I could smell him, close enough that my body remembered things my mind had tried to forget.
My pulse hammered against my throat, and I hated myself for the way my breath caught.
"You were bragging to your friends about nailing the rich hottie," I fired back, and my voice wavered despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "Collecting your fifty dollars each like I was some kind of prize at the county fair—"
"I never—"
He stopped himself, jaw clenching so hard I could see the muscle jump. The space between us felt like it was burning, his arms still caging me in, his hands flexing against the weathered wood like touching me would break every rule he’d just thrown in my face.
Neither of us finished our sentences. Neither of us explained.
Dean pulled away first. The heat vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and bitter, scraped raw in a way that made my chest ache despite everything.
"I've poured seven years into this place while you were off building your fancy career. Maybe ask yourself who actually showed up when it mattered."
He walked away before I could respond, leaving me pressed against the cold wood of the lift station with my heart pounding and my hands shaking and absolutely no idea what had just happened.
That evening, Peyton found me in the lodge's small bar, already halfway through my first glass of wine.
"You look like someone ran over your cat and then backed up to make sure," my sister announced, sliding onto the stool beside me. She'd just returned from three days of scouting competitor spa centers in Aspen and Vail, her cheeks still pink from the cold. "Rough day with the marketing strategy?"
"Something like that." I took a long sip and changed the subject. "How was the reconnaissance mission? Anything we can use?"
Peyton's eyes lit up the way they always did when discussing her wellness center—the yoga retreats, the meditation workshops, the organic treatments she'd been slowly building into something special.
"Actually, yes. None of them are offering what we could offer. Authentic mountain wellness, not that overpriced spa nonsense where they charge two hundred dollars to rub crystals on your forehead. We could be their alternative—rustic luxury, real connection to nature. It's our trump card, Lottie. If we position it right."
We strategized for nearly an hour, mapping out packages and partnerships and social media angles. It felt good—productive, sisterly, almost like the years of distance had never happened.
Then Peyton refilled my wine with careful deliberation and asked, "So. How does it feel seeing Dean again?"
My warmth vanished like snow under a blowtorch. "You knew he worked here. You could have warned me."
She shrugged, utterly unapologetic.
"What difference would it make? Would you have come? Even though you were in love with him, you still managed to hate him at the same time. Some warning wouldn't have changed that particular emotional cocktail."
"I was never in love with him," I said flatly. "It was one night. A mistake."
Peyton's expression made it clear she didn't believe a single syllable.
"Mom and Dad have been talking, you know. About how sweet Dean is with the twins. How Leah follows him around asking questions about everything, and how even Noah—Noah, Lottie, who barely speaks to anyone—opens up to him like they've known each other forever." She paused, letting that sink in. "He's a good guy, Lottie. Even the children can see it."
"He's convenient." The words came out sharper than I intended, defensive in a way that probably proved her point. "They're bored and he has interesting tools. It means nothing. The kids only need their mother. They found someone to bother while I'm busy with actual work."
Peyton's knowing silence felt worse than any argument. She simply refilled my wine again and let the moment stretch until I couldn't stand it anymore and excused myself to check on the twins.
The cabin was quiet when I returned, the only sound the soft whisper of the heating system Dean had fixed two days ago.
Noah lay curled in his bed, fast asleep, and clutched against his chest was his truck—the one that had been missing its wheel until three days ago. Until Dean's patient hands had guided his smaller ones through the repair.
I stood in the doorway, watching my son sleep with something whole in his arms for the first time in months, and felt something crack in my chest.
Then I walked to the kitchen for water and stopped dead.
Leah's drawing was taped to the refrigerator, done in her favorite bright markers.
Four stick figures stood in the snow beneath a crooked Christmas tree. The first was small with yellow hair—herself. The second was smaller, dark-haired—Noah. The third wore a dress and had the word "Mommy" scrawled beneath it in wobbly letters.
The fourth figure was very tall, with broad shoulders and eyes colored in careful steel-blue.
"Dean," the label read.
I stared at that drawing until my vision blurred with something I refused to call tears. My daughter had drawn our family, and she'd included a man who had shattered me seven years ago without a second thought.
The worst part wasn't the drawing.
The worst part was how right it looked.