Chapter 6
Graham
I’ve walked these halls three times before today.
First, with my acquisitions team. Second, with a structural consultant.
Third, with Holden and his notes. Each time, I saw the same thing: risk and opportunity.
A decaying asset with good bones. A challenge worth the investment.
A chance to prove again that I can take what other people abandoned and turn it into something remarkable.
Today, I see something else. Today, I see it with her. Willow’s presence changes everything.
She moves through the lodge like someone walking through a half-remembered dream. Each room seems to pull a different memory from her – tiny flinches of emotion she clearly doesn’t want me to notice. I notice anyway.
In the great room, when she talked about the tree, something in my heart actually twisted. I didn’t know memories could sound like that. I sensed ache wrapped in warm, nostalgia.
We’re in the east wing now, picking our way through a corridor of faded wallpaper and warped floorboards. Holden drones about load distribution and reinforcement costs, while Atlanta snaps photos and sketches, eyes wide.
“I’ve heard the suites on this side were the most popular,” Atlanta says. “Best light, best views. If we can restore the original window lines …”
“We can,” I say. “We’re not chasing a modern glass box. We’re honoring what worked and building around it.”
Willow laughs softly. “That almost sounds like compromise.”
“It’s called design,” I correct. “You should see some of my other projects.”
“I’d rather see what you plan to do with this one.”
Of course she would. I stop at the threshold of a corner suite and gesture for her to go in first. The room is a mess with peeling paint, exposed insulation from a broken section of wall, and an old mattress half-collapsed in the corner.
But the view steals even my breath. The mountains stretch out beyond the cracked glass, endless and snow-capped, the sky a hard, bright blue.
Willow steps closer to the window, fingers hovering near the pane but not touching. Her reflection stares back at us faintly, her expression caught somewhere between grief and awe.
“I stayed in this room once,” she says quietly. “We couldn’t afford it most years, but my grandparents saved up for our last Christmas here. I remember waking up and thinking this was what magic looked like.”
I lean against the doorframe, watching her instead of the view.
“It still can,” I say.
She glances back, skeptical. “With a champagne bar and luxury shopping downstairs?”
“With investment,” I counter. “Without it, this place rots until the roof caves in. Then someone less interested in preservation comes along and flattens it.”
She flinches. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “So those are my choices? Your version or total destruction?”
“No.” I push off the frame, stepping into the room. “Your choice is whether you stand on the sidelines and watch someone else dictate what happens here … or you help shape it.”
Her jaw tightens. “Is that what you’re offering? Partnership?”
“I’m offering reality,” I say. “You know this town better than anyone. I know what it takes to make a project like this survive. We can waste time fighting each other … or we can argue our way into something that works.”
She studies me, eyes searching my face for whatever she’s afraid she’ll find. I let her look.
What I don’t say – what I can’t say – is that somewhere between the lobby and this room, my reasons shifted. The first time I came here, all I saw was potential profit. The second time, architectural opportunity. The third, structural viability.
This time, standing beside Willow in a ruined suite that still manages to feel sacred to her, I see something else: Legacy. Belonging. A chance to build something that means more than occupancy rates and investor reports.
I also see the way her hand trembles slightly as she lowers it from the window. I want to steady it. I want to steady her. Instead, I shove my own hands into my coat pockets and focus on the pitch.
“In the latest revision,” I say, “I scale back the lower commercial area. Fewer shops. More emphasis on local partnerships. The lodge stays the visual centerpiece, not an afterthought.”
Willow’s brows knit. “And the people you’re courting? The ones with more money than sense?”
“Discerning travelers,” I correct. “Who will spend in town, not just on the mountain. You want Hope Peak businesses to survive the next decade? They need new customers, not just the same locals and occasional road trippers.”
Her shoulders sag the slightest bit. “I know that.”
“Then let me help bring them here,” I say. “Without turning this into the caricature you’re afraid of.”
Silence stretches between us. There’s dust in the air, glittering in a stray beam of light. Something about this moment feels suspended, like the entire lodge is holding its breath. Willow looks back at the view, then at me.
“I don’t trust you,” she says.
I nod once. I expected as much. “I know.”
“But …” She exhales slowly. “I’m starting to think you might actually care about more than just the bottom line.”
The admission lands like a small, fragile victory.
“I do,” I say quietly.
Her eyes widen a fraction at the honesty. Atlanta’s voice drifts in from the hall. “Holden, you have to see the framing on this door. It’s still in incredible shape!”
Spencer calls something back, his footsteps echoing farther down the corridor.
For a brief, dangerous moment, it feels like this room is its own world … just Willow, me, and the ghosts of what Hearthstone used to be.
“You know,” I hear myself say, “the first time I walked this place, it was just another property. Old, neglected, full of headaches. I saw numbers. That’s it.”
“And now?” she asks, and I don’t answer instantly.
Now I see the way your voice breaks when you talk about the tree. I see the way this view lives in your memory. But more than anything, I see that if I bulldoze the past, I bulldoze you with it.
“Now,” I say instead, “I see … why people fought so hard to keep it alive as long as they did.”
Her gaze softens, just a fraction.
“Keep talking like that, Sinclair,” she says, “and I might stop assuming you’re the villain in this story.”
I allow myself a real smile this time. “Careful. I’m not used to playing the hero either.”
She huffs out something that might be a laugh, turning back toward the doorway. “We’ll see which role you earn.”
As she passes me, her shoulder brushes my chest. If I were a braver man, I’d reach for her, pull her close.
But that would be inappropriate. No woman has affected me like Willow.
My money doesn’t win her over. And who knows about the rest of me.
She’s her own woman, the town manager who will fight the town’s battles.
She makes my heart feel something it’s never felt.
But I can’t act on it. Not now, probably ever.
I watch her walk down the hall, boots leaving fresh prints in the dust. The lodge groans softly in the wind, a tired old beast waiting to be woken. And God help me … I’m beginning to wonder whether she’s the only one who knows how to tame it.