So I stay in the hallway, just outside her door, listening until her breathing evens out again. Until the nightmare passes and she settles back into sleep.
Then I return to the couch by the fire and keep watch through the long, dark hours until dawn.
She's mine to protect now. Whether she knows it yet or not.
And I don't let go of what's mine.
Chapter 3 – Nicola
I wake to pale light filtering through a frost-etched window and the muffled quiet of deep snow.
For a moment, I don't remember where I am. The bed is too big, the blankets too heavy, the silence too complete. Then it comes rushing back—the storm, the crash, stumbling through snow that tried to bury me, and the man who opened his door.
I sit up slowly, pushing tangled hair out of my face. My scraped palm twinges under the gauze he wrapped last night. The borrowed flannel shirt has twisted around my body, bunching at my hips. I'm warm, though. Safer than I've been in months. Maybe longer.
I swing my legs out of bed, feet touching cold wood floors, and pad to the window. The storm has eased, but the world beyond the glass looks untouched, prehistoric. No roads visible. No signs of civilization. Just white and trees and the distant shadow of mountains disappearing into low clouds.
We're completely alone out here.
I hear him before I see him. Heavy footsteps crossing the main room, the creak of floorboards under weight, the solidthunkof a log being added to the fire. Then the smell of rich dark coffee hits.
I should get dressed. Find my own clothes, dried by the fire overnight maybe, reclaim some illusion of independence. But his thermal shirt is soft against my skin, and the flannel smells like him.
I leave it on and venture into the hallway.
He's in the kitchen area, broad back to me, pouring coffee into two mugs. He's wearing a dark shirt that stretches across his shoulders, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing those scarred forearms I noticed last night. His hair is damp, like he's already been outside. Snow dusts his boots by the door.
He must hear me, because he glances over his shoulder.
"Morning," he says, voice still rough with sleep. He turns back to the coffee, adding something from a small jar. "How'd you sleep?"
"Better than I expected." I hover at the edge of the kitchen, uncertain. The cabin feels smaller in daylight, more intimate.
He holds out one of the mugs. I step forward to take it, and our fingers brush. The contact is brief, accidental, but it jolts through me like static. I pull back too quickly, nearly sloshing coffee over the rim.
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. "Careful."
I wrap both hands around the mug and retreat to the table, sitting in the same chair I sat on last night. Safe distance. He doesn't follow immediately, just leans against the counter with his own coffee, watching me with that steady, unreadable intensity that makes me feel seen in a way I'm not used to.
"Storm's eased," he says after a moment. "But the roads'll be buried for days. Maybe a week, depending on when they get plows up this far."
A week. The words settle over me with unexpected weight. A week trapped here with him, alone, cut off from everything.
I should be terrified. Iamterrified—of being found, of what comes next, of the fact that I'm sitting in a stranger's cabinwearing his clothes and feeling safer than I did in my own apartment.
"Okay," I hear myself say. Like it's simple. Like I have a choice.
He nods, takes a long drink of coffee, then straightens. "You eat eggs?"
"I—yes?"
"Good." He moves to the stove, pulling out a cast iron pan that looks older than me. "You need food. Real food, not just stew."
I watch him crack eggs one-handed into a bowl, his movements efficient and confident. There's something almost hypnotic about the way he takes up space without apology, the controlled strength in every gesture. He's sobig, all broad shoulders and thick muscle, and yet his hands are soft with the eggs, gentle in a way that doesn't match the violence written into his scarred knuckles.
"Can I help?" The offer escapes before I can think better of it.
He glances at me, something warming in his expression. "You know how to make toast without burning it?"
