Not because I wanted to.
Because I couldn’t even picture myself close enough to try.
Still, something uneasy coiled low in my stomach, a warning I didn’t know how to interpret. A feeling I hadn’t felt in years.
An ache for something I shouldn’t want. A fear of something I couldn’t name.
A pull toward someone I wasn’t supposed to keep.
I slid off the stool, nodding a thanks as I zipped my jacket.
“See you around, Carson,” Abby said lightly.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “See you.”
But as I pushed open the mint-green door and stepped back into the cold afternoon air, one truth followed me out onto the street:
I wasn’t sure if I could walk away from Sienna Harper as easily as I’d promised myself.
And for the first time since taking this job…
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sienna
I already had a headache when I reached the lodge. It was forming behind my right eye and was the kind that felt like a tiny woodsman inside my skull was chopping firewood with poor aim.
Tomorrow was the big day.
The first guided retreat of the season.
Our firstjointgroup trip.
Our first real test of how well we mixed professionalism with… whatever the hell the past week had been.
I dropped my binder of guest notes onto the desk and rubbed my eyes. The Butterfields — our honeymoon couple — were lovely on paper. Newly married. Nature lovers. Low-maintenance. Up for adventure.
Perfect clients.
The opposite of the tornado of emotions inside my chest.
The past few days had been a mess in slow motion. Carson had been quiet. He wasn’t unfriendly, not cold, just… stiller than usual.
He didn’t linger or ask questions. He didn’t sit beside me at lunch anymore. He showed up for the dry-run hikes and the gear shed reorganizing sessions like a consummate professional, which should have calmed me down.
It didn’t.
Because I could feel him watching me sometimes, from the corner of his eye, like he was trying to figure out how much space he needed to keep between us to avoid recreating the Hungry Buck Situation.
And I could feel myself trying to fill that space with jokes and sarcasm and whatever emotional dodgeball move I’d perfected over the years.
But none of that solved the biggest problem.
I wanted him, and he was pulling back.
Not to mention that I had no idea what to do with that combination except panic and reorganize the gear shed another sixty-two times.
