"Absolutely not."
Before either of them could escalate into the kind of argument that made lodge desks famous for melodrama, a male voice rolled through the public-address speakers with the weary courtesy of someone reading bad news he had practiced.
"I'm sorry, folks, but all the ski lifts have closed due to the storm."
Briar's shoulders dropped. The sigh left her before she could dress it as something tougher.
"I drove four hours for this."
The man glanced toward the windows, where the snow had thickened into a sideways curtain. "So much for skiing."
He stepped away from the counter. Briar kept her palm on the skis as if the wood might walk. She watched him cross the lobby toward the fireplace, speak briefly with a young woman behind a smaller side counter who was ladling something into mugs, and return with two steaming beige cups. He held one out. Briar took it, surprised by the heat and by the gesture and by the fact that her own hands were colder than she had admitted.
"You can spend the evening being angry," he said.
"And?"
"I was hoping you'd let me sit nearby."
Something in Briar's mouth loosened. Not surrender. A negotiation with herself.
"Nearby is negotiable," she said.
They walked to the fireplace and sat in two plaid armchairs facing the fire. The skis remained on the counter with the white tag catching red light. Outside, the storm wrote its own agenda across the mountain. Inside, the lodge held its breath the way old buildings do when weather decides to keep people longer than they planned.
Briar wrapped both hands around the mug. Cocoa, not tea. Marshmallows had collapsed into a thin sweet foam. She drank carefully and stared at the flames until the orange blur steadied into logs and heat.
"I'm Callum," the man said after a stretch of crackle and quiet. "Callum Reeve."
"Briar Quinn."
"Briar. Like the bush that snags you if you get too close."