“What if this blows up?”
“Then it blows up,” I say with acceptance. “But we won’t lie. Not about this. Not aboutus.”
She studies me with that astute, searching look that used to terrify me when she was sixteen and already smarter than all of us put together.
Then she exhales, presses her palm to my cheek, and whispers, “OK. We tell them.”
The weight of it settles between us. We’re real. It’s heavy. Terrifying. Exhilarating.Everything I never dared hope for.
I kiss her palm.
And for the first time since she walked through the cabin door in a blizzard, it feels like we’re not hiding inside a temporary world anymore. We’re building one, just for us.
And when the snow finally melts?
We’re walking out of this cabintogether.
CHAPTER 10
Ally
The snow stops at last sometime before dawn.
The silence is the first thing I notice; no wind, no distant groan of shifting drifts, just a quiet so deep the cabin itself feels like it’s holding its breath.
The second thing I notice is theping. A tiny, blessed, treacherouspingfrom my phone on the nightstand.
Signal. At last. Too soon.
Civilisation. Contact. Consequences.
Reality.
I groan and burrow deeper into the blankets, but Nate’s arm tightens around my waist, dragging me back against his chest.
“No,” he mumbles into my shoulder. “Ignore it. Cabin rules.”
“Cabin rules don’t apply to returning phone signal,” I whisper. “That’s the law.”
“Coward.”
“Smart woman,” I say, echoing his response earlier.
His breath huffs against my neck, half laugh, half resigned exhale. “Fine, fine,fine. Grab it. Let’s see how much our lives are about to fall apart.”
I roll over, kiss the tip of his nose because I can, then reach for my phone.
Fifty-three notifications. Fifty. Three. I make a sound like a dying teakettle.
Nate winces. “That bad?”
“I don’t know yet. But it looks like it.”
I sit up, pulling the blanket with me. He follows, propping himself on one elbow, warm hand sliding absently down my spine. “Who first?” he asks.
“Mum,” I say immediately. “Otherwise she’ll kill me before Mac can.”
He kisses my shoulder, slow and grounding. “I’m right here.” It shouldn’t help. But it very much does.
