After we clean up—him washing, me drying this time—he leads me to the back of the ranger station where the firewood is stacked.
“Grab from the left side,” he instructs, demonstrating. “Older wood, more seasoned. Burns cleaner.”
I follow his lead, loading my arms with logs. The wood is heavier than I expected, rough against my palms, and I’m acutely aware of Finn watching me work. Not judging—assessing. Making sure I’m doing it right.
“Good,” he says when I’ve got a full load. “Watch your step on the way back. Floor gets slippery near the door.”
We make several trips, working in companionable silence. The physical labor feels good—purposeful, necessary. My arms ache pleasantly, and despite the cold, I’m warm from exertion. With each load, I feel less like a burden and more like a partner. Someone useful. Someone who?—
I stop the thought before it can finish. I don’t belong here. I’m a stranger who wandered into the wrong cabin during a storm. In a day or two, the roads will clear and I’ll drive back to Denver and this will become a strange story I tell at dinner parties.That time I accidentally broke into a mountain man’s cabin and cooked him short ribs.
That’s all this is. That’s all it can be.
I catch Finn watching me a few times. Not obviously—he’s too controlled for that—but I feel his gaze like heat on my skin.When I glance over, he’s always looking elsewhere, but there’s a new tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before.
On the fourth trip, we both reach for the same log.
Our hands collide. His fingers are warm despite the cold, rough with calluses, impossibly large wrapped around the wood. Neither of us moves. I can feel his pulse through the point of contact—or maybe that’s my own heartbeat, thundering so loud I’m sure he can hear it.
“Sorry,” I breathe, but I don’t pull away.
“It’s fine.” His voice is lower than usual. Rougher.
We stand there for a long moment, the log between us, the cold biting at our exposed skin. His eyes meet mine, and there’s something in them I haven’t seen before. Something hungry.
Then he blinks, and the moment breaks.
“Take that one,” he says, stepping back. “I’ll grab the next.”
I nod, not trusting my voice, and carry the log inside with my heart hammering against my ribs.
The restof the morning passes in a blur of small tasks and careful distance.
Finn shows me how the wood stove works, explaining the dampers and airflow with the same patient precision he brings to everything. I ask questions—genuine ones, not just to fill the silence—and he seems surprised each time that I’m actually interested. Like he expects me to be bored by the mechanics of survival.
I’m not bored. I’m fascinated. Not just by the systems, but by him—the way he moves through this space with quiet competence, the way his hands know every tool and surface, the way he’s built a life here that’s completely self-sufficient and utterly isolated.
It’s impressive. It’s also?—
I catch myself leaning toward conclusions I have no right to draw. I don’t know why he lives alone. I don’t know if it’s choice or circumstance or something else entirely. It’s not my business, and it’s not my place to find it heartbreaking or romantic or anything at all.
He’s showing me how a wood stove works. That’s it. I need to stop turning everything into a story.
By midday, my legs are aching from the firewood hauling, and I catch Finn rubbing his left thigh with a grimace he doesn’t quite hide.
“You okay?” I ask.
He drops his hand immediately. “Fine.”
“You’ve been favoring that leg all morning. I noticed last night too—you have a limp when you’re tired.”
His jaw tightens. I’ve pushed too far. I’m about to apologize, to change the subject, to do whatever it takes to ease the tension suddenly crackling between us.
But then he surprises me.
“IED,” he says quietly. “Same one that—” He stops. Swallows. “Shrapnel. Left side. Mostly healed, but the cold makes it ache.”
“Finn,” I say. “You should have said something. You shouldn’t be hauling firewood if your leg is bothering you.”
