Dangerous.
Too comfortable.
Too tempting.
And like Midwestern weather always did, it changed in a new direction, and the first snowflakes began falling suddenly from a perfectly clear sky.
Little flecks of white drifting lazily.
I stared upward. “Was this predicted?”
“No,” Carson said.
He stepped right beside me, close enough that our arms nearly brushed. His warmth radiated through my jacket. The snow fell gently and steadily, clinging to his hair, sparkling on his eyelashes.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t want to move and ruin the moment.
I also didn’t want to acknowledge how badly I wanted to lean into him, just for a second.
A stronger gust cut across the clearing.
The snow thickened. Big, wet flakes now, swirling harder. It wasn’t dangerous weather, but it wasn’tnothingeither.
Carson’s jaw tightened.
“We should head back,” he said.
I nodded once, clutching the warm coffee to my chest like a shield.
As we turned toward camp, I glanced at him again.
He was looking straight ahead.
But his hand, fingers flexing once at his side, told a different story.
He had been standing too close.
He knew it.
And he didn’t trust himself.
Neither did I.
And as the snow kept falling, unexpected and quiet and strangely ominous, I felt a shift inside me:
A warning.
A pull.
A question.
Whatever was building between us wasn’t slowing down.
It was speeding up.
And the storm that was coming, weather or otherwise, wasn’t going to be easy to outrun.
