Chapter 3
MARCELLA
“I can make it.”
The words tumble out before I’ve fully thought them through. “Two miles isn’t that far,” I continue. “I have four-wheel drive. I’ll just—”
“No.”
One word. Flat. Final. The man—I don’t even know his name, I just broke into his house and I don’t know his name—moves past me toward the window, his body radiating tension.
“It’s already whiteout conditions on the ridge,” he says, not looking at me. “That road has three switchbacks and a fifteen-hundred-foot drop on one side. You won’t make it a quarter mile.”
“But my date—Boyd—he’s waiting for me at the actual cabin, and I can’t just—”
“Your date can wait out the storm like everyone else.”
He turns then, and I get a better look at him in the warm light of his kitchen.
Tall—at least six-three—with broad shoulders and dark hair that’s longer than I’d expect for someone with his military bearing.
Gray eyes that seem to see right through me.
A short beard, neatly trimmed. Hands that look strong and capable and slightly terrifying.
He’s beautiful. In a rough, dangerous, completely inappropriate to notice right now kind of way.
“What’s your name?” I ask, because I need to call him something other than intimidating mountain stranger in my head.
Something flickers across his face. Surprise, maybe, that I asked. “Finn. McGrath.”
“Finn.” I test the name, find it fits him. Short. Strong. No-nonsense. “I’m really sorry about all this. The breaking in, the cooking, the—” I gesture vaguely at everything. “I swear I’m not usually this chaotic.”
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “You always cook elaborate dinners for blind dates?”
“Only when I’m trying to impress someone.” Heat creeps up my neck. “Which, clearly, was a waste of short ribs.”
“The ribs smell good.”
Four words. The way he says it—gruff, almost reluctant, like the admission costs him something—makes my face light up before I can stop it.
“They’re my signature dish. Braised for three hours with a red wine reduction. The secret is letting the fond—you know, the flavorful brown bits left in the pan—develop before you deglaze, and using a really good cabernet, not cooking wine, because you can always taste the difference—”
I stop abruptly, pressing my lips together. “Sorry. I ramble when I’m nervous. My ex used to say I talk too much.”
The words are out before I can catch them, and I want to sink through the floor. Why did I say that? Why am I talking about Stephen to this stranger whose house I invaded?
But Finn doesn’t look annoyed. If anything, his jaw tightens, something hard flickering through those gray eyes.
“You don’t,” he says.
“Don’t what?”
“Talk too much.”
I stare at him, trying to process what he just said.
Three years of Stephen sighing every time I got excited about something, rolling his eyes when I shared too many details about my day, telling me I exhausted people with my enthusiasm.
And this man, this stranger, just dismantled all of it in three words.
The wind howls, breaking the moment. Finn moves to the window, his body tense with a different kind of alertness now—not wariness of me, but something more primal. Weather awareness. Survival instinct.
“How bad is it?” I ask, moving to stand beside him.
Instead of answering, he grabs a pair of binoculars from a shelf near the window. He scans the valley below for a long moment, jaw tight, then lowers them with a grunt.
“There’s a break in the clouds moving through. Won’t last long.” He glances at me, his eyes narrowing. “You said you were looking for Cabin 7? At Cascade Pines?”
“Yes. That’s where Boyd—my date—said to meet him.”
Finn points toward a cluster of buildings barely visible through the swirling snow. “That’s Cascade Pines. The rental cabins. Cabin 7 is the one on the end, with the green roof.”
I squint, but I can barely make out shapes, let alone colors. “How can you even tell from here?”
“I know these mountains.” He hands me the binoculars. “Take a look. The storm’s giving us a window.”
I raise the binoculars, squinting until the shapes sharpen through the swirling snow. Finn was right—there’s a brief clearing, and I spot the cabin with the green roof at the end of the row.
A man stands on the porch, tall and dark-haired, posture crisp even in the blowing wind. Finance bro, every inch of him: designer boots, an overpriced parka, that polished look you only get from someone who’s never chopped a log in his life. My pulse jumps. It’s got to be Boyd.
But then I see he isn’t alone. A woman stands at the bottom of the steps, her back to me. She’s bundled in a puffy coat, but I can tell—she’s curvy, plus-size. Not just plus-size—my size. My shape. From here, we could be sisters, or at least shopping in the same department.
There’s a flash of something bright in her gloved hand—red, maybe pink—a little gift bag or maybe a box, the kind you only carry for a reason. Valentine’s Day. I feel it like a bruise.
I can’t hear a thing, but Boyd is talking with his hands—wide, impatient gestures, chopping the air, then a dismissive flick of his wrist like he’s swatting away a gnat. The woman flinches back, shoulders curling in, but she doesn’t budge. I can tell she’s holding herself together by a thread.
Boyd’s gaze drops, trails slowly down her body and up again—obvious, exaggerated, even from this distance. He gives a slow, dramatic shake of his head, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. I don’t need sound to know that look: I expected more. I expected better.
The pit in my stomach goes cold.
The woman says something—her chin lifts, stubborn, maybe asking a question, maybe defending herself. Boyd laughs. Not a real laugh—a big, theatrical pantomime for effect, head thrown back, hand planted on his chest. The kind people do when they want to make fun, not share a joke.
He makes a sweeping gesture, like he’s shooing her offstage. Done. Get lost. Not even worth the effort of a civilized goodbye.
She freezes. Just for a second. Then she turns and walks away, stiff and determined—quick, but not running. Dignity barely intact, the red bag swinging at her side as she goes.
My throat tightens. I know that walk. God, do I know it.
The walk you do when someone’s just made you feel very, very small, but you refuse to let them see you break.
A cold realization trickles in: Was he planning to meet her before me? Did he set up back-to-back Valentine’s dates, just cycling through women in case the first one didn’t measure up?
My stomach twists. If I hadn’t gotten lost, that could have been me—gift bag in hand, or worse: me, arms full of groceries and a Dutch oven, ready to cook him dinner like some hopeful romantic, while he laughed me off his porch.
The humiliation wouldn’t just have been public—it would’ve been total.
Every bit of care I put into the meal, every hour spent braising and planning, would’ve just made it sting that much more.
I lower the binoculars. My hands are shaking.
“That’s him,” I say, my voice hollow. “Coralyn said he had dark hair, finance job, green roofed cabin. That has to be Boyd.” My stomach lurches. “That was supposed to be me.”
Four hours of driving. The perfect short ribs.
The green sweater I picked because it makes me feel confident.
The pep talk in the mirror: You deserve someone who sees you.
The tote bag of groceries waiting in the back seat.
I was ready to walk up like some eager fool, arms full and heart wide open, to cook him a dinner he didn’t even deserve.
“I was supposed to be standing there,” I whisper. “I was supposed to walk up and introduce myself, and he would have looked at me like—” I gesture weakly at the window, to the scene now swallowed by snow. “Like that. Because she looked like me. And he looked at her like she was nothing.”
My mind flashes through Coralyn’s description. Shy. Wanted it private. Now I see it: not for romance, but because he wanted to make sure there’d be no witnesses. No one to step in while he tore someone down.
“Coralyn said he was nice.” I can barely get the words out. “She just thought he was shy. She couldn’t have known.”
I stare as the clouds close in, the whole scene erased by white. But I saw enough.
“That man,” Finn says, voice low and certain, “isn’t worth driving through a blizzard for.”
I look at him. No pity, just a steady, grounded certainty.
“No,” I say, steadier now. “No, he isn’t.”
I glance back at the storm, at the place where humiliation could so easily have been mine. What I feel isn’t disappointment. It’s relief—a tidal wave of it.
“The universe,” I murmur, “has a real sense of humor. Wrong address, wrong cabin, and it turns out the guy my best friend thought was perfect…” I gesture out the window, “He’s probably proud of himself right now. Dodged a bullet.”
We both did, I think. He just doesn’t know it.
“Women like me aren’t his type,” I say, trying to keep it light and failing. “You saw how he looked at her. At her body.”
Finn’s jaw tightens. “I saw.”
“She looked like me. Same build. Same—” I wave a hand at my curves, the body I’ve spent years learning to love and then unlearning and then trying to love again. “Too much, according to my ex. Too big, too loud, too everything.”
The words hang in the air between us. I don’t know why I’m telling him this.
Maybe because I’m shaken. Maybe because this whole situation is so absurd that my usual filters have completely failed.
Maybe because something about Finn McGrath—this quiet, guarded stranger whose kitchen I invaded—makes me want to be honest.
He’s silent for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough, almost angry—but not at me.
“You’re not too much.”
I stare at him. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.” His eyes hold mine, steady and sure.
“I know you drove four hours to meet someone. I know you cooked a meal that takes real skill because you wanted to share something you’re good at.
I know you’re standing in a stranger’s house handling this situation with a lot more grace than most people would.
” He pauses. “And I know that any man who looks at a woman the way that guy looked at her isn’t worth a damn. His opinion doesn’t mean anything.”
The words land somewhere deep, in a place I’ve kept carefully guarded since the divorce papers were signed.
I want to believe him. God, I want to.
But I’ve been here before. Stephen said kind things too, in the beginning. You’re so passionate about cooking, it’s adorable. I love how you light up when you talk about food. You’re not like other women—you’re real.
Sweet words that slowly curdled into sighs and eye-rolls and do you have to be so much all the time?
Finn McGrath doesn’t know me. He’s seen me at my most chaotic—invading his home, rambling about braising techniques, falling apart over a blind date gone wrong.
If he’s saying nice things now, it’s probably because he feels sorry for me.
Or because he’s a decent person who doesn’t like seeing women get torn down. It doesn’t mean anything about me.
I force myself to look away from those gray eyes before I start reading things into them that aren’t there.
“So,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I expected, “what happens now?”
I don’t miss the way he seems almost surprised by the shift—like he expected a different response. A warmer one, maybe. The kind of response I would have given a year ago, before Stephen taught me that charming words from attractive men are just the opening act.
But I’m not that woman anymore. I can’t afford to be.