“Carson, I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” I said sharply. “Don’t take another step.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, startled by the tone.
I reached her in three strides, braced her elbow, and guided her back off the bridge plank by plank, my boot pressing deliberately on each board to test their weight. Her breathing picked up, not panicked, but rattled.
When her boots finally hit solid snow again, she exhaled shakily and looked up at me.
She was so close, shaken, and too vulnerable in a way I wasn’t prepared to see.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“Don’t thank me,” I said quietly. “I should’ve been in front.”
She swallowed, gaze darting over my face. “I can usually handle myself.”
“I know,” I said. “But you don’t have to today.”
For a moment, something unspoken passed between us.
Something that made every professional wall I’d rebuilt this morning start to crack.
Then—
A second crack echoed sharply across the woods.
Louder.
Not from the bridge.
From the trees behind us.
Sienna jerked her head toward the sound. “What was that?”
I straightened slowly, scanning the shadowed woods, every instinct in my body going still.
“I don’t know,” I said.
But whatever it was…
It wasn’t small.
And it wasn’t far.
Chapter Eleven
Sienna
A second crack echoed across the trees.
Louder than the first.
Closer.
Heavier.
Everything in me froze.
