Chapter 1 - The Toast in My Living Room
The winter wind howling off Red Mountain Pass sounded like a dying freight train, but inside the A-frame lodge, the air was sweet with cedar smoke and expensive vintage champagne. I stood rooted to the threshold, snow melting off my heavy Sorel boots and bleeding dark circles into the hand-knotted wool rug I had bargained down from three hundred dollars to eighty at a Montrose flea market.
Every single inch of this home bore the memory of my physical agony. For six years, my hands had been rough, scarred with slivers of treated pine and burns from soldering copper pipes in a crawl space that smelled of damp soil and hibernating insects. I had purchased this 1948 mining foreman’s shack when the roof was caved in and local realtors whispered that only a lunatic would dump a dime into a property sitting at 9,400 feet. I was that lunatic. Commercial insurance underwriting had paid the bills; this mountain had kept my soul from flatlining after my father died.
And now, standing before the soapstone hearth I had hauled up the switchbacks in the back of my rattling Subaru, was my younger sister, Olivia.
She wore a cream-colored Ralph Lauren cashmere dress that had probably cost more than my monthly mortgage payment. Her platinum-blonde hair fell in soft, calculated waves over her shoulders. In her right hand, she cradled a vintage crystal coupe filled with Veuve Clicquot.
"—and we just knew it was meant to be ours," she was trilling, her voice carrying that effortless, melodic lilt that had convinced every teacher, every boyfriend, and our parents that she was made of finer porcelain than the rest of humanity. "Jason and I have been looking for an authentic Christmas sanctuary for years. Somewhere our sweet little girls can have real snow, real fires, real roots. When this hidden gem came across our radar, we took one look at the peaks and said: whatever it takes."
Two dozen heads nodded in reverent adoration. These were Olivia’s people: sleek, manicured couples from the affluent enclaves of Boulder and Cherry Creek, clad in designer shearling and smelling of sandalwood and venture capital. Standing among them were familiar faces that turned my stomach to ice: Aunt Carol, my cousin Michael, and worst of all, my mother, Diane.
My mother was perched by the kitchen island—the butcher block island I had planed with my father’s hand tools—holding a glass of pinot noir. When her gaze swung toward the front door and caught mine, her breath hitched. Her knuckles went stark white against the stem of her glass. She didn't look outraged on my behalf. She looked terrified—not that Olivia was committing a brazen, monstrous lie, but that I had arrived in time to shatter the illusion.
"Becca," my mother whispered, her voice barely a thread, yet the name cut through the laughter like a blade through silk.
The room snapped into silence. The crackle of spruce logs in the fireplace suddenly sounded like gunfire.
Olivia turned. Her composure didn’t even twitch. Her eyes—a bright, predatory hazel—flashed with a microsecond of fury before dissolving into an expression of radiant, patronizing warmth.
"Becca! You made it!" Olivia cried, stepping forward with her arms outstretched, her diamond-encrusted wedding band catching the firelight. "Everyone, this is my older sister, Rebecca! I told you she was driving up from Denver to help us celebrate. Honey, look at you—you’re soaked. Didn't you see the forecast for the pass? I told Mom to text you to wait until morning!"
"You didn't text me, Olivia," I said. My voice was low, flat, carrying the gravel of a six-hour drive through sub-zero blizzards. "And you didn't buy this house."
A collective murmur rippled through the guests. Aunt Carol looked between us, nervous smile wavering. Jason, Olivia’s husband—a man who worked in private equity and dressed like an advertisement for an upscale ski catalog—cleared his throat and stepped to his wife’s flank, planting a territorial hand at the small of her back.
"Becca, come on," Jason said smoothly, flashing a practiced, corporate smile. "It's been a long drive. Let me get you a glass of wine. We’re celebrating a huge milestone tonight. Let’s not get dramatic."
"Dramatic?" I took one step forward. The floorboards—the wide-plank lodgepole pine I had sanded on my hands and knees until my kneecaps bled through my jeans—creaked beneath my weight. "You’re standing on my floorboards, Jason. Drinking out of the glassware I unpacked two weekends ago. In a house whose deed bears my signature and nobody else’s."
My mother darted across the floor, her fingers digging desperately into the wet sleeve of my Carhartt jacket. "Rebecca, please. Step into the back bedroom. Don't do this in front of company. Have some dignity."
"Have some dignity?" I looked at my mother, the sting of her betrayal sharper than the sub-zero frostbite biting at my cheeks. "She broke into my house, Mom. She changed the electronic deadbolt, didn't she? That's why my key code didn't work. You gave her my emergency key."
Diane flinched. She looked away, unable to meet my eyes, her silence screaming louder than any confession.
May you like
Olivia took a sip of her champagne, her smile fading into a mask of cold, venomous superiority. "Becca, darling," she said softly, ensuring every single guest heard every syllable. "We all know you helped manage the renovations while Jason and I were busy closing our fund in New York. We appreciate the manual labor, truly. But trying to claim our family retreat because you can't stand seeing me happy? It’s pathetic. Even for you."
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