At first, I was preoccupied with walking between the trees, comparing their height to Van’s and mine. Even the smaller ones seemed too big when I thought about putting it in the one-room cabin. When I looked up, the cold air caught in my lungs.

The scene before me was simply spectacular—the crystal-clear sky above and the beautiful white bowl.

“This view is gorgeous,” I said, my words floating through the air in puffs of vapors. “I bet it’s amazing in the summer.”

Van pulled me close, looking down at me. “My view is stunning, no matter the season.”

“Honestly, Van, how did you choose which home to keep? If they all had beautiful views like your house, it must have been difficult.”

“Location. I wanted to be remote. Where we are is a lot closer to the edge of the property and to the civilization of Ashland. Some of the homes were older. I weighed the pros and cons. The one where we live won. I had it gutted. The contractor said it had the best bones, making it sturdy. It was also near the size I wanted.” He grinned. “With room for expansion. More. Bigger. Better.”

I spun toward the younger trees. “I feel bad that you’re going to chop down one of these. They’re just babies.”

“There are hundreds if not thousands on the property.” He lifted my chin with his gloved hand. “You have a beautiful heart, Julia. I tell you what, we chop down one for our celebration and in the spring, we plant ten or one hundred more.”

“We can do that?”

“We can do whatever we want.”

After we decided on one of the smaller pines, I stood back as Van knelt in the snow and began chopping the tree. First, he chopped off the lower branches before his ax began notching the trunk.

As the ax flew with vigor and force, I wrestled with the dichotomy of the man Donovan Sherman. The man my parents warned me about was such a small part of him. I truly didn’t know all there was to know about him, but I was getting to know the man that others didn’t.

A smile came to my cool lips as I remembered the way Van warmed our dinner and cleaned the plates after we ate, and the way he fed me with coffee and nectarines. This man working up a sweat in the cold air was the one who chopped wood for a fireplace that saved me from freezing.

Would the people who only know Van as a business tycoon recognize the man before me?

“Timber,” Van called as the pine fell to the soft snow.

He handed me the ax. The pass-off made me wobble as I tightened my grip. “That’s a lot heavier than I thought.”