The Thaw at Blackwood Lodge

A ruthless blizzard brings a city architect home to the foundation she never knew she needed. When high-profile architect Elara Vance trades the glass towers of Chicago for the failing granite structure of Blackwood Lodge, she's not looking for permanence—she's looking for professional penance. She needs one final, clean assessment before she walks away from her career forever. But the lodge, swallowed by a brutal Vermont winter, is not a clean calculation; it's a century-old liability crumbling under the weight of debt and deferred maintenance. The lodge's owner, Caleb Price, is as rugged and unyielding as the mountain that surrounds his family's legacy. He doesn't trust the slick city woman who arrives with a clean escape route and a report labeled "terminal liability." He challenges her rootlessness, forcing Elara to face the profound difference between building a structure and building a life. When the bank gives a final, non-negotiable ultimatum, Elara risks her entire savings—her last remaining security—to forge a desperate structural partnership with Caleb. They must work side-by-side in the freezing, failing house, calculating load transfers, replacing rotten foundations, and battling a relentless snow load that threatens immediate collapse. Their synchronized efforts to save the house—from stabilizing a cracked truss to installing a clandestine steel spine—spark an undeniable fire between them. But as the deadlines tighten and the pressure mounts, they realize the ultimate fight isn't against the snow or the bank. It's against their own fears of permanence. Can two people running from their past failures withstand the crushing weight of a shared future, and build a lasting foundation where only ruin remains?