I closed my eyes. “Goodnight, Sienna.”
The distance between our tents remained the same.
But the distance between us?
That had changed completely.
Chapter Fifteen
Sienna
I woke before sunrise with a vivid round ofRemember When.
Between the wolf and bear encounter and the way Carson looked at me by the fire, like he was trying to solve a puzzle he already knew the answer to? I’d barely slept a wink.
Thanks, brain. Perfect timing.
I unzipped my tent as quietly as possible. The air that hit my face was sharp but still warmer than last night. The sky held that pale violet shade that meant dawn wasn’t far away.
Carson’s tent was zipped and unmoving.
Good. I didn’t want witnesses to my reflective spiraling.
I slipped on my boots, grabbed my jacket and hat, and headed toward the small lake just west of camp that was tucked away near a pocket of water ringed with thin pines. I’d stopped there on past hikes, usually late spring or early fall, when the wind shimmered across the surface in silver ripples.
Now it looked frozen around the edges, a perfect circle of glass fractured with delicate spiderweb cracks. When I reached it, I stood at the shoreline and wrapped my arms around myself.
I didn’t come out here because of the cold or the sunrise.
I didn’t even have the need for space after spending half the night listening to Carson breathe through the nylon wall between our tents.
I came because my emotions were misbehaving.
Yesterday had shaken something in me. The wolves. The moment on the bridge. The way Carson had stepped in front of me before he even consciously chose to, like some part of him was wired for it. For protecting. For shielding. For being steady.
I wasn’t used to steadiness.
I wasn’t used to someone reading danger faster than I did, either.
Alaska had sharpened me. Toughened me. I’d stared down storms, climbed ice-slick ridges, wandered alone for days without fear. I’d talked to Mortimer the moose and barely blinked.
But yesterday?
The wolves weren’t even aggressive. Just curious.
And still, something in me had cracked open.
Not out of fear of the wolves, but from the feeling afterward. When Carson looked at me like he could tell I wasn’t okay, or the way he could see deeper than anyone else ever bothered to look.
The lake was quiet except for a few tree branches creaking. I crouched and touched the thin ice with a gloved fingertip.
“I don’t get rattled,” I whispered to myself.
Except… I did.
Not by animals.
Not by danger.
