All existence wrapped up in one gentle, beautiful moment.
Chapter
Twelve
AUSTIN
Coffee.
Flannel.
Boots and hat.
I slip out into the cold, exhales laced in white puffs of frost. Flesh braces against the cold as I trudge toward the old stump and woodpile, barely able to see my hand in front of my face.
Pogonip. Snow fog. It hangs heavy and eerie on the ridge turning everything—everything—impossibly white in the still of dawn.
Inside, Allie sleeps, cozy and warm. Makes the sacrifice easier somehow. Knowing the logs I bring in will fuel her comfort. Touch her in ways I can’t.
She’s been here for days now. I’ve stopped counting. Because counting feels like measuring, and measuring implies an end.
Can’t explain the feeling. But I don’t want an end. Not with her.
The gondola ride cracked something open inside my chest that I can’t fix. Like a dull ache that won’t go away. The same ache that haunts me when I see her in my flannel. Or hugging herself in the morning chill.
The ache that wants to pull her hard against my chest and keep her there.
We haven’t spoken about her ex. The date. How long she’s staying.
But we have fallen into the kind of rhythm I could get used to. Shared space. Quiet conversation. Understanding masked in calm.
She’s too good for a guy like me. A simple cowboy with small ambitions. But, God, I’d give her the world if she asked.
I go too fast for another log, miscalculate its weight, mind still wandering. Another cracks down on top of it, wedging my hand beneath. Impatiently, I pull it free, knuckles scraping, skin snagging, wood shifting and buckling.
“Dammit,” I mutter under my breath, staring at skinned knuckles and oozing red.
I pull a handkerchief from my Carhartt, wrap it tight and keep working. By the time I head inside, rough wood stacked against straining arms, the handkerchief’s soaked through. I clench my jaw against the angry throb.
As I pile wood against the hearthstones, I mind the drops of blood I need to clean after. Don’t want to alarm my house guest.
Before I finish, the pad of stockinged feet greets me, and I look up into cheeks still pink from sleep, hair disheveled. Curves beneath flannel. God help me, it makes my body boil.
She rubs her face, stretches with a little moan that tightens my throat and my jeans. Her sugarplum fragrance dances toward me, thick with longing.
“Your hand,” she squeaks, groggy-voiced. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” I shrug.
“Not nothing,” she says, eyes dropping to the crimson drops betraying me near the wood stack.
“Let me take a look.”
“It’s fine,” I say, heat crawling up my neck.
“Thought you’d be less stubborn now,” she snaps back, hurt behind her eyes.
“It’s not that, Allie. Just…” I straighten, holding the handkerchief gently with my other hand. “I know how you clean things.”
