The Snowbound Heart

Part 1: The Whiteout

Chapter 1: The Figure in the Gray

The heater in my 1998 Ford F-150 was broken again. It rattled and coughed, spitting out lukewarm air that did nothing to combat the biting Montana chill.

I, Jack Dawson, gripped the steering wheel with gloved hands. I was thirty-two, a carpenter by trade, and currently driving home from a job site three towns over. The radio was warning of a “historic blizzard,” a whiteout condition that would bury the county by midnight.

It was only 4:00 PM, but the sky was already a bruised purple, heavy with snow. The flakes were coming down thick and fast, hypnotic in the headlights.

I was thinking about my empty fridge and the stack of overdue bills on my kitchen counter when I saw it.

A splash of color against the endless gray-white landscape.

It was red. A bright, cherry red coat.

I squinted. Standing on the shoulder of the desolate highway, miles from the nearest gas station, was a figure. A woman. She had her thumb out, but it was a half-hearted gesture, her arm heavy with cold.

I didn’t pick up hitchhikers. It was a rule. In this part of the country, you mind your own business.

But she wasn’t dressed for a hike. She was wearing heels. I could see them sinking into the snowbank. And she wasn’t carrying a backpack; she was clutching a small, silver purse.

“She’s going to die out here,” I muttered to myself.

I couldn’t leave her. My conscience, inherited from my mother, wouldn’t let me.

I slowed down, the truck tires crunching on the ice. I pulled over about twenty feet ahead of her.

I watched in the rearview mirror. She hesitated. She looked terrified. Then, realizing she had no choice, she ran toward the truck, stumbling in the deep snow.

She opened the passenger door and climbed in. A blast of freezing wind followed her.

“Thank you,” she gasped, her teeth chattering so hard the words were barely intelligible. “Oh God, thank you.”

She slammed the door.

I looked at her. She was young, maybe mid-twenties. Her hair was a pale blonde, wet and matted. Her face was alabaster white, her lips blue. And beneath the red coat, she was wearing… silk? A dress?

“Where are you headed?” I asked, turning up the heater fan, useless as it was.

“Away,” she said. She didn’t look at me. She stared straight ahead at the swirling snow. “Just… drive. Please. Anywhere but here.”

“Anywhere is a big place,” I said gently. “The storm is getting worse. The highway patrol is closing I-90.”

“I have money,” she blurted out, fumbling with her frozen fingers to open the silver purse. “I can pay you. Five hundred dollars. A thousand. Just get me to… to a bus station. Or an airport.”

I looked at the purse. It was tiny. It probably cost more than my truck.

“I don’t want your money,” I said. “And we aren’t making it to an airport tonight. Look.”

I pointed out the windshield. The visibility was zero. The road had disappeared.

“We have to stop,” I said. “My cabin is five miles up this logging road. It’s not much, but it has a wood stove. We can wait out the storm there.”

She looked at me then. Her eyes were a startling shade of violet. Fear warred with exhaustion in her gaze. She was assessing me. Was I a savior? Or a predator?

I took off my gloves. I showed her my hands—rough, scarred, worker’s hands.

“I’m Jack,” I said. “I’m a carpenter. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She held my gaze for a long moment. Then, she slumped against the seat, her energy spent.

“I’m Ava,” she whispered.

Chapter 2: The Cabin

The drive to the cabin took an hour. We crawled at five miles per hour, navigating by the tree line.

When we finally pulled up to the small log structure, the snow was already knee-deep.

“Come on,” I said.

I helped her out of the truck. She stumbled, her legs numb. I caught her. She was light, fragile. I ended up carrying her up the porch steps, kicking the door open with my boot.

Inside, the air was stale and cold, but dry.

I set her down on the old leather sofa. “Stay there. I’ll get the fire going.”

I worked quickly. I built a fire in the cast-iron stove. Within minutes, the heat began to radiate outward. I lit a kerosene lamp, casting a warm, golden glow over the room.

I turned to Ava. She was still shivering.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” I said.

She flinched, pulling the red coat tighter.

“I’ll give you something of mine,” I added quickly, walking to the dresser. I pulled out a pair of wool socks, thick sweatpants, and a flannel shirt. “The bathroom is through there. There’s no running water—pipes freeze—but you can change.”

She took the clothes. “Thank you.”

While she changed, I heated up a can of soup on the wood stove. It was tomato bisque. Not fancy, but hot.

She emerged ten minutes later. My clothes swallowed her. The sleeves of the flannel shirt hung past her hands. She looked… younger. Softer.

She sat by the fire, holding her hands out to the warmth.

“Here,” I handed her a mug of soup.

She drank it greedily. Color began to return to her cheeks.

“So,” I said, sitting in the armchair opposite her. “Ava. Do you want to tell me why you were walking on a highway in heels in a blizzard?”

She lowered the mug. She looked at the fire.

“I ran away,” she said.

“From who?”

“From a wedding,” she whispered.

I looked at her feet. The heels she had discarded by the door were satin. White satin.

“Your wedding?” I asked.

“No,” she shook her head. “My sister’s. But… the groom. He wasn’t supposed to marry her. He was…” She trailed off. “It’s complicated. My father… he arranges things. Lives. Mergers. He treats his daughters like currency.”

“Sounds like a charmer.”

“He’s a monster,” she said, her voice hardening. “He told me today that I was next. That he had found a ‘suitable match’ for me. A man who is forty years older than me. A business partner.”

She looked at me.

“I couldn’t do it. I just… ran. I ran out the back door of the venue. I kept running until I hit the highway.”

“In heels,” I noted.

“Adrenaline is a hell of a drug,” she managed a weak smile.

I looked at this girl. She was obviously from money. The coat, the purse, the way she spoke with that crisp, educated diction. She was a princess running from a castle.

And I was the peasant who found her.

“Well,” I said, standing up to put another log on the fire. “You’re safe here. No one is going to find you in this storm. Not even a monster.”

“Do you have a phone?” she asked. “I need to call… someone. A friend.”

“Cell towers are down,” I said, checking my phone. “No signal. We’re off the grid until the storm breaks.”

She nodded. She looked relieved, strangely.

“Good,” she said. “I don’t want to be found.”

Chapter 3: The Night Watch

We spent the night talking.

It was strange. We were strangers from different worlds, trapped in a 500-square-foot cabin, but the conversation flowed easily.

I told her about my woodshop, about the furniture I built by hand. I told her about losing my parents. I told her about my dream of building a house by the lake one day.

She told me about her love for painting—something her father forbid because it wasn’t “productive.” She told me about the pressure of being perfect. She told me she had never eaten soup from a can before.

“It’s not bad,” she laughed, licking the spoon. “It tastes like… salt. And comfort.”

“That’s the MSG,” I joked.

She laughed. It was a beautiful sound, like wind chimes.

Around midnight, she fell asleep on the sofa. I covered her with a heavy quilt.

I sat in the armchair, watching the fire, watching her.

I felt a fierce protectiveness rising in my chest. She was running from a life that viewed her as a commodity. I had nothing to offer her but a warm room and a can of soup, but for tonight, that was enough.

I didn’t sleep. I kept the fire going. I kept watch.

Chapter 4: The Sound of Rotors

I woke up to a sound that wasn’t the wind.

It was a rhythmic thumping. Low at first, then deafening. It vibrated in my chest. It shook the windowpanes.

Thwup-thwup-thwup.

A helicopter.

I jumped up. It was morning. The storm had broken. The sun was blindingly bright on the snow.

I looked out the window.

A sleek, black helicopter was hovering over the clearing in front of my cabin. It kicked up a whirlwind of snow.

It began to descend.

“Jack?” Ava woke up, rubbing her eyes. “What is that noise?”

“Company,” I said grimly.

I grabbed my hunting rifle from the rack above the door. I didn’t load it, but I held it.

“Stay inside,” I told her.

I walked out onto the porch.

The helicopter landed. The door slid open.

Three men jumped out. They weren’t police. They weren’t rescue workers.

They were wearing black tactical gear. They carried assault rifles.

And behind them, a man in a long cashmere coat stepped out. He was tall, silver-haired, with a face that looked like it was carved from marble. He wore sunglasses despite the glare.

I knew that face. Everyone in America knew that face.

It was Arthur Sterling.

The CEO of Sterling Global. The richest man in the country. The man who owned half the tech industry and most of the politicians.

He walked toward my cabin, his boots sinking into the snow. He didn’t look at the gun in my hand. He looked at the door behind me.

“Where is she?” Sterling asked. His voice was calm, but it carried over the rotor wash.

“Who?” I asked, gripping the rifle.

“Don’t play games, son,” Sterling said. “We tracked the GPS in her earrings. Is she alive?”

“Earrings?” I blinked.

The door behind me opened.

“Daddy?”

Ava stepped out onto the porch. She was still wearing my oversized flannel shirt and sweatpants. She looked small. Vulnerable.

Sterling’s face softened for a fraction of a second, then hardened again.

“Seraphina,” he said. “Get in the chopper.”

Seraphina. Not Ava.

“No,” she said. She stepped closer to me. “I’m not going back.”

Sterling looked at me. He looked at the girl standing next to the carpenter.

“You,” Sterling said to me. “What do you want? Money? A ransom?”

“I don’t want anything,” I said. “She was freezing. I gave her soup.”

“Soup,” Sterling scoffed.

He snapped his fingers. One of the guards stepped forward, holding a briefcase.

“There is one million dollars in this case,” Sterling said. “Cash. It’s yours. For your trouble. And for your silence.”

He looked at Seraphina.

“Get in the chopper, Seraphina. Or I will have this man arrested for kidnapping. I will bury him. I will burn this cabin to the ground.”

“You wouldn’t,” she gasped.

“Try me,” Sterling said. “You know what I am capable of.”

I looked at Sterling. I looked at the armed men. I looked at the briefcase.

Then I looked at Seraphina.

She was terrified. She was shaking.

“Take the money, Jack,” she whispered to me. “Please. He’ll destroy you.”

“I don’t want his money,” I said.

I looked Sterling in the eye.

“She’s an adult,” I said. “She can leave if she wants. But you aren’t taking her by force. Not on my property.”

Sterling laughed. “Your property? I can buy this mountain in five minutes.”

He signaled to the guards. They raised their rifles.

“Jack, no!” Seraphina screamed. She ran down the steps. She put herself between me and the guards.

“I’ll go!” she shouted. “I’ll go! Just leave him alone!”

She turned to me. Tears were streaming down her face.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For the soup. For the fire.”

“Seraphina…”

“Goodbye, Jack.”

She walked to her father. Sterling grabbed her arm, none too gently. He shoved her toward the helicopter.

He paused and looked back at me.

“You’re lucky, boy,” Sterling said. “You touched the sun and didn’t get burned. Stay down here in the dirt where you belong.”

He threw the briefcase into the snow at the foot of the stairs.

“Consider it a severance package.”

They got in. The helicopter lifted off, blasting me with snow and wind.

I watched them disappear into the blue sky.

I stood there for a long time.

I looked at the briefcase. I opened it. Bundles of cash. A million dollars.

It was enough to fix my truck. Enough to build my dream house. Enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life.

But as I looked at the money, I didn’t feel rich.

I felt robbed.

I walked back into the cabin. It smelled of her. The flannel shirt she had worn was folded neatly on the chair.

I picked it up.

“Seraphina Sterling,” I whispered.

The billionaire’s daughter.

I wasn’t going to stay down in the dirt.

I closed the briefcase. I grabbed my keys.

I had a truck to fix. And then… I had a princess to rescue.

End of Part 1