An hour later, I'm driving back to my cabin with a portable satellite dish, a router, and detailed instructions that Mace made me repeat back three times to make sure I understood. Technology isn't my strength. I can field-strip a rifle in thirty seconds and track a target through dense forest for days, but wifi configurations make my head hurt.
Sadie is worth the headache.
She's awake when I get back, sitting by the fire with her phone in her hands, scrolling through what I assume are the screenshots she's accumulated. She looks up when I come in, her expression cautious.
"You left again."
"Had to pick something up." I set the equipment on the table. "For you."
She stares at the satellite dish, then at me, then back at the dish. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Portable satellite internet. Should give you enough bandwidth to post content, check your accounts, whatever you need." I start unpacking the components, not looking at her. "Mace says the signal's strong enough for video calls too, if you need to talk to your manager or your brand people."
Silence.
I glance up. She's crying. Not sobbing, just silent tears tracking down her cheeks, her hand pressed over her mouth.
"Sadie." I abandon the equipment and cross to her. "What's wrong? If you don't want it, I can take it back. I just thought?—"
"You got me internet." Her voice is thick. "You went to your secret mountain man headquarters and borrowed equipment and you're going to install wifi in your off-grid cabin because I need it for work."
"Yes."
"Wolfe." She laughs through her tears. "You hate technology. You told me you chose this cabin specifically because it was disconnected."
"I did."
"So why would you do this?"
I crouch in front of her, taking her hands in mine. "Because you said you have a life in San Diego. A career. Responsibilities. And I realized I was asking you to give all that up without offering anything in return."
"You offered yourself. That's not nothing."
"It's not enough." I squeeze her hands. "I don't want you to choose between your life and me. I want to find a way to have both. This is me trying."
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she's out of the chair and in my lap, her arms around my neck, her face buriedagainst my shoulder. I catch her automatically, pulling her close, breathing in the scent of her hair.
"You impossible man." The words are muffled against my shirt. "You ridiculous, perfect, impossible man."
"Is that a yes?"
"To what?"
"To staying. Really staying, not just because I asked you to."
She pulls back to look at me. Her eyes are still wet, but she's smiling. "You're going to install satellite internet in your hermit cabin so I can post pictures of hiking trails and talk to brand managers about energy bar sponsorships."
"Yes."
"And you're not going to complain when I video call my brother and talk for two hours?"
"I'll survive."
"And you're okay with me working from here? Creating content? Being loud and chaotic and extremely online?"
"Sadie." I cup her face in my hands. "I want you to be exactly who you are. All of it. The talking, the chaos, the algorithms I don't understand. I spent three years in silence thinking it was what I needed. Turns out what I needed was someone to fill that silence with something worth hearing."
Her breath catches. "Wolfe."
