Chapter 6 - Thawing the Frost
The following morning dawned bright, blinding, and sub-zero.
The storm had passed, leaving behind a pristine, unbroken landscape of white that stretched from the porch steps all the way to the horizon, unbroken by fences or roads. The world outside was dead silent, insulated by three feet of fresh snow.
Cassidy woke up wrapped in a heavy goose-down quilt in the guest room upstairs. The radiator beneath the window hummed with steady, rhythmic warmth—testament to Ronan’s late-night handiwork.
When she came down the stairs fifteen minutes later, dressed in her jeans and a thick wool sweater, she found the farmhouse kitchen humming with domestic life.
Maggie was flipping pancakes on a massive cast-iron griddle, while Luke sat at the kitchen table nursing a mug of black coffee and arguing with Hannah about snow-blower maintenance. Sophie was kneeling on a chair by the window, pressing her hands against the glass to watch a flock of hardy sparrows brave the frozen bird feeder.
Evelyn sat at the head of the table, presiding over the morning chaos like a benevolent queen.
“Sleep well?” Evelyn asked as Cassidy walked into the kitchen.
“Like a rock,” Cassidy admitted, inhaling the rich scent of maple syrup and fried bacon. “Though I think your guest room bed is softer than my mattress in Denver.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Evelyn said, though her eyes twinkled with amusement. “Guests who stay past a snowstorm are expected to shovel the front walkway.”
“Fair trade,” Cassidy laughed.
Breakfast was a lively, informal affair that bore little resemblance to the tense, heavily guarded dinner of the previous evening. The ice had broken. Whether it was the shared survival of the blizzard or the simple passage of time, the Reed family treated Cassidy less like an intruder and more like an eccentric relative who had arrived late for the holiday.
After breakfast, as Luke and Hannah shoveled out the back porch and Maggie busied herself with lunch prep, Cassidy found herself standing by the mudroom door pulling on her boots.
A heavy wool coat was handed to her from behind.
She turned to see Ronan standing there, holding her scarf and gloves.
“The walkway needs clearing before the sun melts the crust and turns it to ice,” Ronan said, his tone neutral, though there was a hint of a challenge in his eyes. “Unless you were planning on spending your snow day drinking tea by the woodstove.”
“I’m from Denver, Ronan,” Cassidy said, taking her scarf from his hands and wrapping it securely around her neck. “I know how to handle a snow shovel.”
“We’ll see about that.”
They stepped out onto the porch together. The cold hit them like a physical blow, crisp and searing, but the sunlight reflected off the endless fields of snow with a blinding, diamond-like brilliance that made the world look completely brand new.
For the next hour, they worked side by side in companionable silence. The rhythmic scrape of metal shovels against packed snow was the only sound in the crisp air. Cassidy threw herself into the task, her muscles warming under her layers as she cleared a wide, safe path from the front steps to the edge of the driveway.
Ronan watched her out of the corner of his eye, noting the determined set of her jaw and the efficient, methodical way she tackled the drifts.
“You didn’t have to stay,” Ronan said quietly, pausing to lean his weight on his shovel handle as he looked out over the white-covered fields.
“Nobody else was offering me twenty-three miles of Nebraska hospitality and a homemade pumpkin pie,” Cassidy replied, pausing as well to catch her breath, a plume of white vapor rising from her lips.
“You could have stayed in North Platte. Checked into a hotel.”
“Hotels don’t have Evelyn telling people they look guilty,” Cassidy pointed out with a grin.
Ronan let out a short, genuine laugh—a rich, deep sound that chased away the last vestiges of the winter chill. He turned to look at her fully, his gray eyes softening as the guard he had worn for six long years finally, truly slipped away.
“My brother Daniel would have liked you,” Ronan said softly, the words hanging in the crisp air with the weight of a long-overdue confession. “He had a habit of dragging people into our lives when we least expected it. We hated it then. But I think... I think we needed to be dragged out of the dark.”
Cassidy stepped closer, the snow crunching beneath her boots. She didn’t offer platitudes or hollow comfort; she simply reached out and gloved her hand over the wooden handle of his shovel, resting her fingers near his.
May you like
“The chair is still empty, Ronan,” she said gently. “And it should be. You don't replace people like Daniel.”
“No,” Ronan agreed, his gaze fixed on her face. “You don't. But you can set another plate.”
