“Now,” Liam said, his voice a soft rumble against her ear,“we go downstairs. I’ll build a fire. We’ll open a bottle of wine I found in the cellar that’s probably older than I am. And we’ll just… be.”
It was the most perfect plan she had ever heard. The hilltop holiday was over, but the life they would build in its shadow was just beginning. And as they walked down the stairs together, hand in hand, Elara knew that the greatest story wasn’t the one about the danger they had faced, but the one about the peace they had found in its wake.
Chapter 13:
The First Page
The fire in Havenwood’s great room crackled, casting dancing shadows on the walls. The old Bordeaux from the cellar was rich and deep, warming Elara from the inside out. She sat curled on the large leather sofa, a blanket over her legs, a brand-new, empty notebook and a pen on the coffee table in front of her.
Liam sat in the armchair opposite, quietly whittling a piece of wood, the rhythmic scrape of his knife a soothing counterpoint to the fire’s pop and hiss. He glanced at the blank page.“Stage fright?”
“A little,” she admitted, tracing the notebook’s cover with her finger.“It feels… momentous. And what if I get it wrong?”
“You lived it,” he said simply.“How can you get it wrong?”
He was right. She wasn’t constructing a plot anymore; she was bearing witness. She picked up the pen, its weight familiar and comforting. She opened the notebook to the first pristine page.
She didn’t start with the locked gate or the storm. She started with him.
His eyes were the first thing I noticed. Not their color, but their watchfulness. The way they saw everything—the locked gate, the city girl shivering in her impractical coat, the threat in the gathering storm. I thought he was part of the mystery. I didn’t know he would be the answer to it.
She wrote about the fear, the chilling discovery of Alex Price’s journal, the terror of being hunted. But as the words flowed, she found herself writing more about the quiet moments. The shared warmth in the mine shaft. The way he’d draped his jacket over her shoulders. The steady pressure of his hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the white hell of the blizzard.
She looked up from the page. Liam had set his whittling aside and was watching her, the firelight softening the hard lines of his face. In his gaze, she saw no expectation, only a deep, unwavering support.
“What?” he asked softly.
“I’m just… realizing something,” she said.“I’m writing a love story.”
A slow smile touched his lips.“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It just happens to have a corporate conspiracy and some attempted murder in the middle.”
He chuckled, a warm, rich sound that filled the room.“Sounds about right.”
She went back to writing, the words coming faster now, no longer hesitant. She wrote late into the night, until the fire died down to embers and her hand ached. When she finally set the pen down, she had filled a dozen pages. It was a beginning. The true beginning.
The next morning, she woke to the smell of coffee and frying bacon. Liam was in the kitchen, moving with an easy domesticity that made her heart ache with a quiet joy. He’d found a radio, and soft, staticky classical music filled the room.
“You’re cooking,” she said, leaning against the doorframe.
“Trying to,” he said, flipping a piece of bacon.“Figured you’d need fuel. For the book.”
They ate at the large kitchen table, sunlight streaming through the windows. It was ordinary. It was perfect.
“I have to go back to the city soon,” she said, the words feeling heavy.“Just for a little while. To tie up loose ends. Talk to my publisher. Pack up my apartment.”
Liam nodded, his expression understanding.“I know. This place… it’ll be here when you get back.”
“I know,” she said, reaching across the table for his hand.“And so will I.”
The first page had been written. The story was underway. And for the first time in her life, Elara wasn’t just writing an ending for her characters; she was writing the beginning of her own.
Chapter 14:
The City of Glass
The city was a shock to the system. The constant, low-grade roar of traffic, the glare of neon, the press of people—it was a sensory assault after the profound quiet of the mountain. Elara’s apartment, once a sleek, minimalist sanctuary, felt sterile and echoingly empty. The view from her window was a canyon of steel and glass, a world away from the endless expanse of forest and sky.
