“We should get inside the bags,” I said. “It’s going to freeze hard tonight.”
“Right.” She forced a cheery tone. “Because nothing says romance like two people freezing separately in nylon cocoons.”
“We’re not the honeymoon couple.”
“Thank God,” she muttered.
She zipped her bag the last way, and I left her tent.
“Goodnight, Sienna.” I glanced at her and smiled.
She paused in the glow of her headlamp. “Goodnight, Carson.”
I stepped into my tent and zipped it closed.
I lay back on my sleeping pad, staring at the dark nylon ceiling while the cold pressed in around us.
She was ten feet away.
And I had never felt farther.
Or closer.
And if this kept going like it was going, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to pretend that distance was the smart choice.
Outside, the wind whispered over the ridge.
Inside my tent, my heartbeat was the loudest thing I could hear.
And sleep refused to come.
I lay still, listening to the rhythmic whisper of wind moving between branches, the quiet pop of the dying fire outside, and, faintest of all, the sound of Sienna shifting in her tent.
The fabric rustled every few minutes. A sleeping bag zipper tugged, then stopped. A sigh followed. Then silence again. She wasn’t sleeping either.
I should have rolled over and ignored it. Should’ve focused on steady breathing and counting heartbeats the way I usually did when camping with clients or other guides.
But this wasn’t likeother guides.
This was someone who had slipped past my guard without asking permission. Sienna was someone whose laughter kept replaying in the back of my mind. She was a woman who made the wilderness feel different than it ever had before — sharper in some places and softer in others.
I closed my eyes.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
A quiet voice floated through the thin wall of nylon between us.
“Carson?”
It was soft and hesitant.
I exhaled once, quietly. “Yeah.”
Another rustle. “You’re not sleeping.”
“Neither are you.”
