I’ve never liked the way snow makes the world go quiet, stifling sound and creating the illusion of stillness. I can’t shake the feeling that the silence is one of waiting. Of watching.

The car crunches implacably along the narrow road. The trees around us are mostly hemlock, wearing capes of snow to conceal their green. Beech and sugar maple appear here and there, branches winter-stripped and grasping. Connor’s family owns this land, all the way to the mountain peak.

“Not far now,” Connor says for the third time since we left the small town at the base of the mountain. “Once you’re out of Datura, it’s only about twenty minutes, even with the weather.”

“It’s a flower, you know,” I note idly. “Datura. Also known as devil’s weed. The Victorians said it represented deceitful charms.”

Connor gives me a look I’ve come to know so well—half-pleased, half-puzzled.

I’ve always liked to know the names of things. It’s the next best thing to knowing my own.

I’m bunching my scarf in my hands again, twisting it up like a cheap rag. It was a gift from Connor, which means it’s anything but. Sometimes I play a game where I guess how much something cost, and then I double it, and then I look up the actual price. I’m usually still a bit low. Red cashmere and wool blend scarf, $490. I wad it up in a ball in my lap.

“They’ll love you,” Connor says, noticing my expression. Connor is a man used to being loved; I’ve known it since the moment I saw him. No scars on that heart, I thought at the time, though later I discovered I was wrong.

“I’ll settle for grudging approval,” I tell him, flicking him a smile to show I’m not nervous, though of course I am. There’s a diamond on my finger that cost as much as a down payment on a house, and I’ve never met my fiancé’s family—other than his sister, Alexis, who swooped into town two months ago for less than twenty-four hours and greeted me with plastic politeness. We’d been together only three months at the time, which makes this not even half a year and already engaged—I’d be worried if Connor’s family wasn’t skeptical.

Hell, I’m skeptical.