The silence was the worst part.
Whispering Pines Lodge was designed for noise—the happy clamor of families in the dining hall, the low murmur of conversation around the great stone hearth, the clatter of boots on the polished wood floors.
Now, the quiet was a heavy blanket, smothering the life out of the place. The canceled corporate retreat had left behind a cavernous emptiness, each vacant room a testament to their mounting troubles.
Cole, sanding a rough spot on the porch railing that didn’t need sanding, watched Maya through the grand lobby window. She stood with her back to him, staring at the accounting ledger on her desk, her shoulders a tight line of tension.
She’d been like that for two days, a ghost haunting her own domain, trying to outwork a problem that couldn’t be solved with spreadsheets and sheer will. Every so often, her hand would drift up to rub the back of her neck, a gesture of defeat that twisted a knot in his gut.
He was part of this. His family’s company, with its cold, analytical approach to acquisitions, had set this chain of events in motion.
He was here to assess a property, but he was assessing a home. He was evaluating a manager, but he was watching a woman fight with everything she had to protect her world.
The lie he was living felt less like a disguise and more like a betrayal, sharp and bitter on his tongue.
He finished his pointless task and walked inside, the squeak of his work boots loud in the stillness. “Coffee’s fresh,” he said, his voice softer than he intended.
Maya didn’t turn around. “Thanks, Cal.” Her own voice was thin, frayed at the edges.
He hesitated, a hundred useless platitudes dying in his throat.
It’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.
They were hollow words. Instead, he walked over to the large map of the surrounding wilderness that hung on the wall, tracing a faint trail with his finger.
“I was thinking of stretching my legs. That last storm probably brought down some branches on the north trail.”
She finally turned, her dark eyes tired but sharp. He saw the flicker of suspicion—was he trying to get away?
But it was quickly replaced by a profound weariness. “The trails are the least of my worries right now.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Sometimes you have to worry about the little things to forget the big ones for a while.”
He saw the wall around her crack, just a little. He pressed his advantage gently.
“Come with me. Show me your favorite spot. An hour, that’s all. The paperwork will still be here when we get back.”
Maya looked from his earnest face to the accusing ledger on her desk. The lodge felt like a cage, its silence a constant reminder of her failure.
An hour. An hour away from the suffocating weight of it all. It was an indulgence she couldn’t afford, which was precisely why she needed it so desperately.
A slow nod was her only answer. “Fine. Give me five minutes to change my shoes.”
The air on the trail was cool and clean, thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. The forest floor was a soft carpet of fallen needles, muffling their footsteps and creating a world of intimate quiet.
For the first ten minutes, they walked without speaking, the rhythm of their stride and the chirping of unseen birds filling the space between them.
Cole could feel the tension slowly seeping out of Maya, her posture straightening, her gaze lifting from the path to the canopy of green above.
“My father cut this trail himself,” she said, her voice clearer now, stronger. “He and my mother used to walk it every Sunday. He said it was the only board meeting that ever mattered.”
Cole smiled. “He sounds like a good man.”
“He was,” she said, a sad smile touching her lips. “He loved this place. He believed it had a soul. Some days, I think he’s right.”
They walked on, Maya pointing out landmarks—a lightning-scarred oak, a patch of wild lady slippers, a granite outcrop that looked like a sleeping giant. She spoke of the lodge not as a business, but as a living entity, a member of her family.
Cole listened, absorbing every word. He was seeing the full picture now, the heart behind the balance sheets his company obsessed over.
Whispering Pines wasn’t just an underperforming asset; it was a legacy.
Finally, a new sound reached them, a low, steady rush that grew louder with each step. They rounded a bend, and the trail opened onto a hidden glen.
A curtain of water cascaded over a moss-covered cliff face, tumbling into a crystal-clear pool below. Sunlight filtered through the trees, making the mist sparkle like diamond dust.
It was breathtaking.
“Whispering Falls,” Maya announced softly, a note of pride in her voice. “My spot.”
She led him to a flat, sun-warmed rock near the water’s edge and sat, pulling her knees to her chest. Cole settled beside her, leaving a respectful distance between them.
The roar of the water was a constant, powerful presence, washing away the oppressive silence of the lodge.
“Whenever things got to be too much,” she said, her eyes fixed on the falling water, “I’d come here. It’s hard to feel overwhelmed when you’re next to something so much bigger than your problems.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a long time. Cole felt the muscles in his own back and neck unwind.
Here, away from the lodge, he wasn’t Cal the handyman or Cole the billionaire. He was just a man sitting next to a woman in a beautiful place.
It felt more real than anything he’d experienced in years.
“What about you, Cal?” she asked, turning to him. Her gaze was direct, curious.
“What’s your story? You’re good at what you do, too good to be just a drifter handyman. Where’d you come from?”
The question landed like a stone in his chest. Here it was. The precipice.
He could tell her a fabricated story, a simple lie that would satisfy her curiosity. Or he could tell her a version of the truth, carefully edited, and risk her seeing the holes.
He chose the latter. The honesty of this place, of this moment, demanded at least that much.
“I’m from the city,” he began, his voice low. “My dad… he ran a company. A big one. It was his whole life.”
He looked out at the falls, not at her. It was easier that way.
“He always wanted me to follow in his footsteps. Pushed me into business school, boardroom meetings, the whole nine yards. He wanted me to be him.”
“But that wasn’t you?” she prompted gently.
He shook his head, the motion small but definite.
“I hated it. The endless meetings about profit margins, the politics, the feeling that you’re just moving numbers around on a screen. It felt… empty. I was good at it, but it was hollowing me out.”
He took a breath, the confession feeling heavy and freeing at the same time.
“My father and I… we never saw eye to eye. He passed away a while back. After that, I just… left. Sold my apartment, put everything in storage, and hit the road. I wanted to do something real for a change. Fix things with my hands instead of a spreadsheet.”
Everything he said was true. It was just an elegantly filigreed frame around a massive, gaping hole.
He waited for her reaction, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Maya was quiet for a moment, her expression soft with an understanding that made his guilt flare. “I’m sorry about your dad,” she said.
“It’s hard when the people we love want us to be something we’re not.” She looked back at the waterfall.
“My mom wanted me to go to law school. She worried this life would be too hard, too unstable. Sometimes I think she was right.”
“She was wrong,” Cole said, the words coming out with more force than he intended. She looked at him, surprised.
“Look at what you’ve built. What you’re fighting for. This isn’t just a place, Maya. It’s a community. It matters. That’s not unstable; that’s the most solid thing in the world.”
Her eyes held his, and in their depths, he saw a mixture of gratitude, surprise, and something else—something that mirrored the fluttering in his own chest. The roar of the waterfall seemed to fade into the background, leaving only the space between them.
He could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the faint scar above her eyebrow, the way a stray piece of hair curled against her cheek.
He had the overwhelming urge to reach out, to tuck that piece of hair behind her ear, to tell her everything. To tell her that he was Cole Sterling, and he would burn his family’s company to the ground before he let them take this place from her.
But he couldn’t. The truth would sound like the ultimate deception.
I own the company that’s trying to squeeze you out, but trust me, I’m on your side.
It was ludicrous. The truth would destroy this fragile, beautiful thing that was growing between them.
So he held his tongue, and the weight of his secret settled back onto his shoulders, heavier than ever.
The walk back was different. The silence was no longer empty but filled with unspoken thoughts.
The distance between them had shrunk, and when he held a branch back for her to pass, his fingers brushed her arm. A jolt, small but electric, passed between them.
She glanced at him, a faint blush on her cheeks, before quickly looking away.
When the lodge came into view, its sprawling form a familiar silhouette against the afternoon sky, the spell was broken. Reality rushed back in, cold and unforgiving.
They stopped at the edge of the woods, neither of them wanting to step back into the world of sabotage and financial ruin.
“Thank you, Cal,” Maya said, her voice sincere. “I needed that. More than you know.”
“Anytime,” he said, and he meant it. He would give anything for more moments like the one they had just shared.
She gave him a small, genuine smile—the first he’d seen in days—and it was like the sun breaking through the clouds. Then she turned and walked toward the main entrance, her steps more purposeful, her shoulders a little less burdened.
Cole watched her go, a fierce, protective feeling rising in him. He was in deeper than he’d ever imagined.
This mission was no longer about assessing an asset for his company. It was about protecting Maya and this lodge.
But as he stood there, watching the woman he was falling for walk back into the home he was deceiving her about, he felt an icy dread.
He was trying to be her ally, her protector, but he knew, with sickening certainty, that his secret was the biggest threat of all.