He punched a button to turn on the seat warmer and practiced smiling a few times into the rearview mirror as he drove.

Wonderful to meet you, Zara.

Drumming his restless fingers on the steering wheel, he promised himself to think about it only for a moment. He’d been a Maker’s Mark guy … the soothing clink of ice cubes in a glass … the gentle trickle of the pour. That had been the one good thing to happen after, at least he had stopped drinking.

He was three miles from the house.

Zara, when I built this house, I knew someone extraordinary would live here.

Two miles from the house.

Zara, let me explain how the garden looks in spring, how everything transforms—part of Aspen’s magic.

One mile from the house.

This house becomes part of your very being. You will find happiness here, Zara.

With a deep breath he turned off the highway and began winding up the long drive. Snowdrifts high on either side of the road. At first he caught only tiny glimpses of the house through the trees. The top of the stone chimney. The glow of yellow light, illuminating the front wall of windows. With every switchback, more house flashed by, the higher he climbed.

The inevitability of his situation struck him almost as absurd. He was driving toward the one thing he’d spent so much of his life avoiding. Montague House. But he’d also been its creator. So much time given to its design, drafting, drawing, dreaming. Then building, sanding, carving. If he stripped away the emotion attached to the preceding event, there was a dull ache of longing, almost a magnetic pull the closer he got. It was not only the first house he ever completed; it was his best. Every house after was in the shadow of this first great triumph. He’d peaked at his debut. Like love. He believed you only really fall in love one time. Then, if that doesn’t work out and you go and fall in love again, you are only falling in love with the memory of the first time you did.

Claudine had been his first. The house his second.

Rounding the last snowbank, there it was in its entirety. Montague House. Enormous, thrusting its beauty confidently into the stormy night, demanding to be admired.

He knew he wasn’t going to enter through the front door. To him, a front door was a guest entrance. Even though it meant getting snow on his shoes, he went around to the side and entered through the mudroom, which led to the kitchen. Sneaking in this way would be less jarring than being immediately thrown into the heart of the house. He went in fast and unsentimental, determined to win the first battle of even entering at all. Not yet taking in the room, he automatically hung up his jacket without realizing he hadn’t bothered looking for a hook.