“You could have turned it down,” Meg said, but her tone said she knew how unlikely that was.

  “I could have. But I didn’t. And I have to live with never knowing if I could have made it on my own.” And that was the crux of it. Meg thought that the situation had only messed up her career, but it lingered over his as well. He would never know if they would have chosen him or Meg for the position; he would never know if he would have been promoted to Senior Architect if he didn’t have a famous name. And he certainly would never know if he had true talent or if people just expected him to because of his father.

  That was the funny thing about architecture. Just like art, it was so subjective that the line between brilliance and trash was razor-thin and entirely in the eye of the beholder. It was just that people tended to look at him through Colum McKenzie-colored glasses.

  Meg kept walking, the snow crunching beneath her snowshoes, while she digested this information. “You know I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “But I kind of understand.” She glanced up at him, and surprisingly, he didn’t see suspicion in her face. “You’re here for the same reason I am.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To prove ourselves. Me, I have to prove myself to my firm. You have the harder job. You have to prove it to yourself.”

  Declan smiled. It was a far more gracious take on the situation than he deserved. He might not have meant to hurt her, he might not have actually taken her job since it was always meant to be his, but she was right. He could have turned it down. He could have made his own way, without his father’s help. He could have changed his name and cut off contact with his dad, had he really been so concerned. But it had been convenient. All their classmates had gone on to find jobs, but almost none of them were working in the field they’d originally intended. And when it came down to it, if Klein & Company had judged exclusively on merit, he’d be hard pressed to guess whether he or Meg would have come out on top. He was good, he had no doubt about that . . . but he had a suspicion that someday Meg would be great.

  “You know, I give you a hard time, but you’re really good, Declan.”

  Wait. Was she actually trying to make him feel better?

  “I’ve been mad because you sold me out, but I really think it could have gone either way had your dad not intervened. I was hoping I’d get it, because of course I was. But it’s not like you’re dead weight. That house you did up in Bennett . . . what was it called?”

  “Little Creek?”

  “Yeah, Little Creek. It was . . .”

  “Don’t say innovative. It was not innovative.”

  “But it was exactly what the owners wanted. It was cozy and warm and fit with the landscape and . . .” She shrugged. “I’d totally Airbnb it.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “That’s a high compliment, coming from you. How do you even know about it?”

  Her cheeks were pink, but it was hard to tell whether it was because of the cold or the question. “I might sometimes follow your work on Klein’s website.”

  “Really?”

  Now her expression turned wry. “Don’t give me too much credit. I think I’ve always been hoping to see something really horrible so I can say you only got ahead because of your family connections. Alas, no such luck.”

  He couldn’t help but grin. “Now that really is that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “What can I say? The bar was set low.”

  They exchanged a grin and then settled into companionable silence, the crunch of snow underfoot melding with the sound of their breathing. Puffs of frozen air clouded around their heads as they approached the markers that indicated the end of the estate’s driveway and the start of the county road. And then Meg pulled up short. “Look.”

  Declan followed her gaze, and though he knew it shouldn’t, his heart sank.

  The road. It was plowed.

  Of all the things Meg expected to feel, disappointment was last on her list.

  But there it was. She’d convinced herself that she had no choice but to stay another night at the house with Declan, something that she was going to endure rather than enjoy, but the sinking in her heart seemed to indicate something completely different. Something complicated that she wasn’t quite ready to confront.

  “Do you want to keep going and see if they’ve already tagged your car?” Declan asked.

  She glanced at him questioningly.

  “You know, they put a little streamer on to indicate they’ve already checked for stranded people.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

  “Unless you’re already tired . . .”

  “No, I’m fine.” She seemed incapable of speaking in anything more than two-word phrases, but Declan apparently attributed that to her being out of breath rather than completely taken aback by her realization.

  She actually enjoyed Declan McKenzie’s company.

  That really shouldn’t be a surprise. She’d always enjoyed Declan’s company, when he wasn’t being a jerk. And why shouldn’t she have? He was smart and funny and handsome. It wasn’t exactly a chore to be in his presence. And for a while there, while they were both interns at Klein & Company, they were starting to become something she would have considered friends. Which was why his actions had hit her doubly hard. To be betrayed by a rival was one thing; it was cutthroat but not particularly surprising. But by a friend?

  She had already bought him a birthday present by then, a sleek fountain pen that she’d had to sell on eBay just so she didn’t have to stare at the reminder of him.

  “I guess this is good timing,” she said finally. “I still need to digitize my sketches for my proposal and finalize a floor plan. Which would be a lot easier if I’d ever gotten the drawings I asked for.”

  He frowned at her. “No one ever sent you the architectural drawings from the current house?”

  Meg shook her head. “No. I asked about them but no one replied.”

  “Well, I just got them last night. Maybe your signal isn’t good up here or something.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen a few times before she heard the whoosh of an email being sent. “There. I just forwarded it.”

  “Thank you.” Meg frowned and studied his profile. He could have just held onto them, made her job harder, forced her to turn in an incomplete proposal. But that idea hadn’t even occurred to him, it seemed. Maybe he really was sorry about his previous actions.

  She was still mulling this thought when she caught a glimpse of the bend where she’d slid off the road. Sure enough, there was her car, cocked at a strange angle in the ditch. Except, instead of having the two feet of snow that had fallen on it, it was buried in a snow drift, courtesy of the plow that had come through and shoved the entire contents of the road up against her driver’s side door.

  Meg blinked and stared. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  Declan started to laugh. “Wait for the spring thaw?”

  “Not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  “It’s annoying is what it is.” She clomped closer. “Were there any snow shovels in the garage?”

  “Given what I’ve found so far? I’m sure there are. But maybe you should call roadside assistance and see when they can come out to help. No use doing it now and then having to do a second round before they can winch it out of the ditch.”

  Now Meg pulled out her own phone and saw that the email Declan forwarded had arrived, but she ignored it in favor of her phone book, where she’d stored the number of roadside assistance. She’d never actually had to use it—had been thinking of canceling her membership, actually—but now she was glad she’d kept it around. Not that it would help her much if they found damage and her Jeep wasn’t drivable. She shuddered to think how much it would cost to have it towed to her mechanic in Denver.

  With some help from Declan to brush the snow off the mile-marker sign just ahead, Meg managed to tell the dispatcher where her car was and what kind of assistance she would need. She was beginning to think she would be on her way back home within the hour when the dispatcher said, “Great, we’ve got you in the system. We should be able to get to you by tomorrow morning, but we’ll call you before we come out.”

  “Wait. Tomorrow morning?”

  “There are cars stranded all up and down I-70, and unfortunately, that’s the priority. But don’t worry, we’ll get to you. You can call and check with us later tonight if you want a more accurate estimate.”

  “Thanks,” Meg said, not a little sourly. She clicked off the line.

  Declan raised an eyebrow. “Not rushing over here, I take it?”

  “Apparently, there are cars stranded all along I-70 so all the tow trucks are busy.”

  “That seems unreasonable to me. Why should anyone need to drive on the interstate?”

  Meg shot him a look and then rolled her eyes. “I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Well, look at the upside. You’ve got a chance to sample another one of my delicious pantry meals.”

  Meg turned herself around on the snowshoes and started off the way they’d come. “Just because I’m stuck here doesn’t mean you have to be. Now that the roads are plowed, you can go anytime you want. Don’t let me keep you here.”

  Declan stared at her as if she’d grown another head. “There’s no way I’m leaving you here by yourself.”

  “Why? I’ll be fine. I would have been fine if you hadn’t been here. I did figure out how to light the fireplace, remember?”

  He held up his hands. “I never said you wouldn’t be fine. I’d be happy to drive you back to Denver, but you probably want your vehicle.”

  “I do. But still. Really. Don’t stay on my account.”

  “What if I want to?”

  She glanced at him, expecting him to look teasing or even mocking. But his face was serious, intense. A chill rippled over her skin, one that even she couldn’t convince herself was due to the frigid temperatures. “Why would you want to?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, and the silence stretched, filled with the crunch and squeak of their snowshoes on the hard packed road. “I really have always regretted what happened between us. How the whole internship thing went down. I’d thought that if things were different . . . well, I thought we might have been friends.” He looked a little abashed. “I thought we were friends.”

  “Yeah,” Meg said slowly. “I thought we were too.”

  Declan just nodded, a melancholy mood falling between them as they reached the turnoff to the house’s drive. As Meg stepped onto the deeper, unplowed snow just past the gate, she lost her balance for a second, and Declan grabbed one of her flailing arms to steady her. But when she righted herself, he didn’t let go, his gloved hand sliding down to wrap around her cold, bare one. Her heart gave a frantic little flutter, her cheeks burning suddenly hot in the cold air, but she made no move to pull away.

  Having her hand in his felt more right than she could have possibly imagined.

  When they reached the house, they circled around back to the garage again, where they divested themselves of their snowshoes, stamping off the snow from their boots and leaving them by the back door as they entered the house in their stocking feet. After the frigid air outside, even the cold house felt warm, and slowly, the feeling started to come back to Meg’s fingers. For a second, she allowed herself to feel disappointed that her hand wasn’t still wrapped in Declan’s, but there was no way she was actually going to touch him. Maybe what she’d interpreted as a subtle overture was simply him not wanting to watch her struggle through her first experience in snowshoes all the way back up to the house.

  “I’d normally suggest hot chocolate, but that is the one thing Mrs. Gratz doesn’t actually have in her pantry. We do have tea, however.”

  Meg threw him a teasing look. “You Irishmen and your tea.”

  He laughed. “I do not apologize for it. Though, technically speaking, I’m just as American as I am Irish, and I’ve lived here for longer.”

  “Then what’s with the accent?”

  “Oh, that? That’s put on to pick up women.”

  A smile threatened at the corner of Meg’s lips. “Does it work?”

  “Not as well as you’d imagine.”

  “Now I know you’re a liar.”

  “Why? Because it works on you?”

  “Worked on me. Past tense.” Meg brushed by him and started up the stairs to the main level of the house. Declan hung back and then rushed to catch up with her.

  “Wait, what? What are you talking about?”

  She paused on the step and threw a chiding look over her shoulder. “Come on. You knew I had a—” she waved her hand—“thing for you in grad school.”

  His eyes grew wide. “I certainly did not know about any thing in grad school. I thought you despised me.”

  That was later, when he didn’t respond to any of her friendly overtures, she wanted to say. When she thought he was purposely picking on her in class, which she now knew not to be true. She was embarrassed to let on how much she’d built up a history and an animosity that might not have actually existed. “No. I may have felt many things, but I did not despise you.” She turned and kept on climbing, then headed for the kitchen.

  “Wait a second. I want to talk about this.”

  Meg took the teapot from where he’d left it on the range and filled it with water, just for something to do. “There’s nothing to talk about. It was ages ago. We’re . . .”

  “We’re what?”

  “Rivals.” She didn’t know what she'd been about to say, but this word explained the situation as well as anything. They were rivals, and there was too much water under the bridge and too many years to roll back time to where they might have been friends.

  “We don’t have to be rivals, you know.”

  She lit the burner under the teapot with a match and then turned to face him, an eyebrow raised. “Is this where you suggest that we join forces and design this house together?”

  He laughed and it turned into a snort. “Hardly. Not even if we were at the same firm. I still want this job and so do you. But just because we’re in competition for the same job doesn’t mean there have to be bad feelings between us.”

  “There are no bad feelings between us. At least not on my side.” Maybe earlier, but now Meg realized that it was true. Her fury and bitterness had begun to evaporate the moment he revealed the truth about the internship. After he apologized. She still thought it had been a crummy thing to do, letting her potential boss blame her for something for which they’d both been responsible, but it hadn’t really affected her. She’d still gotten a decent recommendation from Klein, she’d added some work to her portfolio, and if she really hadn’t had a chance at the job, it made no difference. She just wished he had communicated that a lot earlier. It would have saved her from wasting all the energy disliking him.

  Which, now that she thought about it, was really more of her problem than his. She’d conflated his unfriendliness in school into a concerted campaign to make her life miserable. It seemed that she was as much a conspirator in her own unhappiness as he was. “I do have a question for you, though.”

  “Anything.”

  “Why were you so dismissive of me the first semester during our design seminar?”

  Declan settled onto a chair at the island. “I didn’t know I was, to be honest.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I was preoccupied. There was something messed up with my financial aid, and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stay in school. My dad certainly wasn’t going to pay for it—he’s all about using his name to get me ahead, as long as it doesn’t involve his money—and I was already working part-time to pay for my housing.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “How would you? I didn’t tell anyone. In the end, I managed to find a grant to make up the shortfall and all was well. But by that time, apparently I had pissed you off.” He threw her a rueful smile. “I missed my window.”

  Meg just gaped at him. She was forming some sort of meaningful response to that statement when the teapot’s quiet purr escalated into a full-fledged whistle. She whipped around and turned off the burner before looking for cups. Declan beat her to it and pulled out two mugs and a selection of teas.

  “Maybe we should go into town and replenish all the things that we’ve swiped from Mrs. Gratz’s cupboards,” Meg said wryly.

  He looked at her. “You know, that’s actually not a bad idea. The road is plowed, we have my car . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “How do you feel about a field trip?”

  * * *

  It was a Hail Mary, that was for sure. But something had shifted between them in the last few hours, and Declan wasn’t about to lose his chance.

  The fact was, he’d been interested in Meg for much longer than she knew, but the ever-present contempt she’d radiated had always stayed his hand. He was confident, but even his ego was not that suicidal. He’d never in a million years make a move when he thought she would reject him faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

  He grinned at the metaphor. Seemed his four years in Alabama really had left their mark.

  But Meg still seemed doubtful about his suggestion. “I don’t know. I really think I should stay here in case roadside assistance calls.”

  “It sounds like you’ll be lucky to get a call from them by the time it’s dark.” Declan pulled up a listing on the map on his cell phone and showed it to her. “Look. There’s a market about twenty minutes from here, thirty at the most considering road conditions. Even if we mess around in the store, we’ll be back in an hour and a half.” He fixed her with a significant look. “And I can do much better than dried pasta and jarred chilis for dinner if we go.”

  Apparently, a man’s heart wasn’t the only kind unlocked by food, because she looked sorely tempted by the offer. “I don’t know . . .”

 

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