Sunday comes with fresh snow and bright winter sun that turns everything into glittering perfection. It’s so pretty it makes me angry.
Because my nerves are not pretty right now.
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror in Bluebird Cabin, tugging at the hem of a fitted sweater dress that hugs my curves like it was designed specifically to ruin a man’s self-control.
I glare at my reflection.
“June told me to wear something that makes him sweat,” I mutter to myself. “June is a menace.”
My reflection looks back like,and you’re doing it anyway.
I pull on boots and a coat and check my phone for the time for the tenth time.
No message from Beau.
No “I’ll pick you up.”
No “See you there.”
Nothing.
Which makes sense, because Beau gives off strongI don’t text feelingsenergy.
Still.
I’m nervous enough that when my stomach flips, I actually consider staying home and eating pot roast alone in bed like a goblin.
Then headlights sweep through the window.
I freeze.
A truck pulls into the clearing. Big. Dark. Familiar.
My heart kicks hard.
I open the door before I can talk myself out of it, and there he is—Beau in a clean dark jacket, hair slightly damp like he showered and didn’t like it, beard trimmed like he fought with the idea of effort and lost.
His gaze lands on me and stops.
Just… stops.
Like his brain goes blank the same way mine did.
He looks at my sweater dress. My boots. My hair down for once, brushed and soft.
His jaw flexes.
And his eyes—those sharp blue eyes—go darker.
Heat crawls up my neck so fast I feel like I’m overheating in the snow.
“Hi,” I manage.
Beau steps up onto the porch like the cold doesn’t touch him. “Hi.”
We stare at each other for an extra beat—too long for strangers, too charged for anything else.
Then he clears his throat, rough. “You ready?”
