I should turn away. I should hand them blankets, point them toward the spare room, and retreat into silence until they leave.
Instead, the girl steps a little closer, tugging off her hat with fingers still stiff from the cold. Curls tumble out around her face.
“Um… hi,” she says, offering a small smile that somehow manages to be both shy and brave. “I’m Violet.”
The name hits like a small, unexpected punch. Soft. Barely spoken. Completely disarming.
I clear my throat. “Jax.”
Her smile widens by the smallest fraction—just enough to tighten something low in my chest.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she says.
I can’t remember the last time someone said that to me and meant it without an agenda or pity.
Ava glances between us, something unreadable flickering in her eyes, before she turns and helps Violet out of her soaked boots. The cabin warms around them, shifting in a way I can’t quite explain.
And suddenly I’m aware of how small the space is. How warm it feels.
How different it feels.
“You saved us,” Ava says quietly.
I shake my head. “You’re the one who dragged me out of the snow first.”
“Still,” she says, “you didn’t have to open the door.”
No. I didn’t. But I did. Something in my chest shifts again—subtle, dangerous, unwanted.
I clear my throat. “I’ll get the fire going. You can take off your boots near the stove. It’ll keep them from freezing.”
Ava nods.
And the girl gives me that small, shy smile again, the kind that cracks through every layer of ice I’ve spent years building. It hits me square in the sternum. Hard enough that I have to look away.
I cross the room and kneel by the hearth, stacking kindling with practiced efficiency, grateful for something to do with my hands.
Behind me, I hear them settle in.
And for the first time in a long time, I’m not entirely sure I want the sound of the wind to drown out the sound of someone else breathing in my home.
Something has shifted. Something I cannot name.
But it’s here now—quiet, warm, persistent as the fire catching in the grate.
And whether I like it or not…
I let them stay.
Chapter Eight
Ava
Moving into a stranger’s cabin—especially a grumpy, half-frozen stranger I dragged off a mountainside—should feel dramatic.
But mostly it just feels… awkward.
Not the kind that makes you want to crawl into the floorboards. More like the kind where you keep bumping shoulders with someone in a narrow hallway, both of you muttering “sorry” until language stops meaning anything.
