Chapter 3 - Cold Clean Air
Four hundred miles north, nestled against the rugged shores of Lake Superior in upper Wisconsin, sat Madeline Point.
My grandfather had bought the cedar-shake cabin in the late 1960s, long before the peninsula became an expensive haven for summer vacationers. It sat perched on a bluff overlooking jagged granite rocks and gray, churning water, surrounded by fifty acres of dense birch and towering white pine. After he passed away five years ago, the family had practically forgotten it existed. The roof leaked, the front porch was warped from decades of brutal snowfalls, and the internet connection was essentially non-existent.
It was, without question, the only place on earth where Ryan Cole could never find me.
I arrived just as dawn broke over the tree line, painting the frost-covered grass in hues of pale pink and slate gray. My hands were stiff against the steering wheel, my body aching from six straight hours of driving through dark Wisconsin highways.
The air out here tasted different—clean, sharp with the scent of wet pine needles and woodsmoke. It bit into my lungs, shockingly cold, shocking me awake from the trance that had held me since the elevator doors opened on the fourteenth floor.
The old lock gave way after three hard turns of the brass skeleton key. Inside, the cabin smelled of aged cedar, dried lavender, and old books. Dust danced in the early morning sunlight that filtered through the cracked bay windows. In the corner, a massive stone hearth stood cold, waiting.
I dragged my luggage across the creaking floorboards, dropped it in the center of the living room, and collapsed onto the worn plaid sofa.
For the first time in twenty-four hours, the numbness shattered.
I buried my face in the scratchy wool throw pillows and wept until my ribs ached. I cried for the woman who had walked down that aisle believing every word spoken to her. I cried for the six months I spent obsessing over floral arrangements and seating charts, trying to make everything seamless for a man who couldn't even bother to tell me his college flame was sitting three tables away.
“You're the woman who believes everything can be restored.”
His words echoed in the empty cabin like a slap. I had spent years using my design career to find beauty in neglected structures, fixing broken beams, stripping lead paint, breathing life into crumbling brickwork. And somewhere along the way, I had applied that same naive optimism to Ryan. I had seen the small emotional evasions, the closed-off phone screens, the lingering nostalgia, and I had foolishly told myself: We can renovate this. We can build around it.
You cannot renovate a foundation that was poured for somebody else.
By midday, the weeping stopped. Hunger took over—a sharp, grounding reminder that the body refuses to die just because the heart is cracked open.
I washed my face in icy tap water, tied my dark hair into a messy bun, and drove into the tiny harbor town three miles down the shoreline. The town consisted of a general store, a marina, a bait shop, and a local lumberyard with a weathered sign that read: Vance Timber & Restoration.
The general store owner, an elderly woman named Martha with round spectacles, peered over the register as I placed bread, coffee beans, eggs, and an iron skillet on the counter.
""You look like a Carter,"" Martha observed, squinting at my cheekbones. ""Jack Carter's granddaughter?""
""Hannah,"" I nodded, offering a tight smile. ""My grandfather owned the point.""
""Heard that place was falling apart. Winter's coming early this year, Hannah. If you're staying up there, you need wood, and you need that chimney inspected before you burn the place down. Go across the road to Vance's. Tell Thomas I sent you.""
I hesitated, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into the dusty cabin and hide from the human race. But Martha was right; the cabin was freezing, and the wind off the lake was already rattling the shop’s single-pane windows.
I crossed the gravel road to the lumberyard. The scent of freshly sawn oak and cedar filled the yard. Stacks of reclaimed timber were lined up beneath wide corrugated metal awnings. In the center of the open-air workshop, a man was bent over a sprawling workbench, running a hand plane across an enormous slab of black walnut.
He was tall, broad-shouldered beneath a faded denim work shirt, with dark hair dusted in wood shavings and forearms corded with muscle. As the gravel crunched under my boots, he paused, setting the brass plane down with deliberate care.
When he turned around, his eyes struck me first. They were startlingly amber—the color of whiskey held up to sunlight—and they held a quiet, penetrating stillness.
""Help you?"" he asked. His voice was deep, devoid of customer-service cheer, but steady as stone.
""Martha sent me,"" I said, my voice sounding smaller than I intended. ""I'm staying at the Carter cabin on the point. She said I need firewood and a chimney inspection before the freeze.""
He looked at me closely, his gaze lingering for a fraction of a second on the pale, bare indentation on my left ring finger where a wedding band had sat just yesterday.
""Jack's place,"" he said quietly. ""Chimney hasn't been swept in four years. If you light a fire in that hearth tonight, you'll asphyxiate before sunrise.""
I swallowed dryly. ""Then I suppose I need help.""
""I'll be out there at four,"" he said, wiping his hands on a shop rag. ""Name's Thomas Vance.""
May you like
""Hannah,"" I replied.
""I know,"" he said softly, turning back to his wood. ""Your grandfather built that table you're standing next to. Let's make sure the roof over it doesn't cave in.""
