I mean, objectively, I’m out in the middle of the woods, up in the mountains, trapped in a cabin with a man I don’t know. But he showed me how to lock the guestroom door, didn’t seem bothered by my comments about pepper spray and fighting.
There’s just something about him that makes me feel peeled wide open. Like all the layers I’ve learned how to apply don’t work here.
“All right. Good night.”
With that, he shuts the door and I hear his footsteps echo down the hallway, his voice softly calling to Blue, who sniffs curiously under my door before trotting along after him, her nails clicking softly on the hardwood.
I stand in the middle of the guestroom with his shirt and the towel clutched to me, my heart hammering in my chest. When I move, the floor creaks, and I wonder if he can hear it all the way in his room.
After a moment of silence, my brain comes flying back to me. I need to get ready for bed, so I can wake up early in the morning, get out of here and get back to the office to talk to Don about all this. I go into the bathroom, surprised to find it sparkling clean and somehow cozy like the rest of the place.
I take a quick shower, and when I return to the guestroom, I try to call Kirstin. Even though I know she’s frustrated with me, it would be helpful for someone to know where I am.
But I have no reception.
It’s fine.
My phone is hovering around seventy percent. I had it charging the whole drive up here, but having the flashlight on for ten minutes in the snow obviously didn’t help.
I turn on airplane mode—since I’m not getting a signal, anyway—and set it on the nightstand, setting the alarm as early as I can stomach and tucking into the bed.
Even with the fire, the room is still relatively chilly, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about Evan down the hall in his room. As I drift off to sleep, my mind keeps wandering back to him, wondering whether he’s warm, and, somehow, what it would be like to cuddle under a quilt like thiswithhim.
There’s no time for me to scold my brain for the thought. I’m already passed-out, lulled to sleep by the crackling of the fire and comforting, warm thoughts of the body down the hall.
When I wake up,it’s to the smell of bacon and coffee drifting into my room. The fire in my fireplace burns low, and I feel the effects. The room is frigid when I finally gather the courage to sit up, swing my legs over the side, and stand.
Despite the fall and slide down that little hill, and the fact that I was stuck for a few minutes before Evan found me, I’m not sore at all. Not a single bruise on my body and no headache like I’d expected. Actually, that might have been the best night of sleep I’ve gotten in a long time.
I cross the room, shaking out the cold from my limbs, and open the curtains to find the sun shining merrily at me, glinting through icicles on the trees and shining against the snow. It’s a beautiful scene, and I take it in for a moment before I realize why there’s an alarm bell ringing in the back of my head.
It’s sunny.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, turning and crossing the room quickly, picking up my phone, heart leaping at the time. I haven’t slept in this late in years. Don is waiting on a debriefing, even though it’s Sunday. We’d made explicit plans for me to email him the moment I got back to town and to get on a call this morning.
My heart continues to pound at the realization that I’ve already missed that meeting, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
The only thing I can do is try to make up for it, get back to Denver as soon as possible. My best option is to leave now.Rightnow.
No matter how badly I want to try the mountain man’s coffee.
CHAPTER 7
EVAN
Idon’t normally sleep in this late.
Normally, if I’m in danger of outsleeping the sun, Blue wakes me up to go outside, or my internal clock starts to chime, reminding my brain that, usually, it’s better to get chores done in the morning. That sleeping in just means less daylight.
But, for some reason, Blue was quiet this morning. As was my internal clock. Which meant that by the time I woke, the sun was already coming up over the hills, shining over the snow. And by the time I got back from doing what needed to be done, my head was starting to ache from caffeine withdrawal.
There are a lot of things about the “modern” world that I don’t bother with. Gramps raised me without a TV in his living room, so I don’t have one either. My internet is a satellite that I only set up when I really need it. I don’t bother with smart appliances, or personal assistants, or automatic lights.
But I am absolutely a caffeine addict.
Just like Gramps, I drink coffee at the same time every day, and when I don’t get it, my body makes it known that I am trying to run without a very, very important fuel.
So I go to the kitchen and start making coffee, and, on instinct, I start cooking my normal breakfast—two eggs, two pieces of bacon, two slices of toast. I am nothing if not a man of habit.
