I grab my coat from the hook by the door. "I need to check the perimeter."
"In a blizzard?"
"Especially in a blizzard."
She watches me pull on my boots with something unreadable in her expression. "Hey, Wolfe?"
I pause, hand on the door.
"Thanks for listening. About Derek and everything. Most people's eyes glaze over when I start talking about my problems."
I meet her gaze. Hold it. "Most people don't pay attention."
"And you do?"
"It's my job to notice things."
"Is that the only reason?"
The question hangs in the cold air between us. I don't have an answer. Or rather, I do, but I'm not ready to admit it.
"Get some rest, Sadie."
I step out into the storm before she can say anything else.
The wind slaps me, snow stinging my face, visibility down to maybe ten feet. I pull up my collar and start walking the perimeter, checking each sensor and tripwire I've set up around the property. Not because I need to. Because I need to get away from her.
She called me sexy. Said I was attractive. Made a joke about chopping enemies, and I almost smiled. Actually almost smiled.
I don't smile. Haven't in years. The muscles in my face have forgotten how.
But she's in my cabin wearing my clothes, and she trusted me with the story of her asshole ex, and she looks at me like I'm something other than a broken weapon that outlived its usefulness.
Dangerous. That's what she is. More dangerous than any enemy I've faced, because those I knew how to fight.
This I don't know how to fight at all.
I finish my perimeter check and stand in the snow for a long moment, letting the cold numb me from the outside in. It doesn't help. I can still feel the warmth of her presence in my cabin, pulling at me like gravity.
Two more days until the storm clears. Maybe three.
I've survived worse.
I'm not sure I'll survive her.
CHAPTER THREE
SADIE
Day two in Wolfe's cabin, and I'm going stir crazy.
Not because of him. He's been surprisingly easy to share space with for a man who barely speaks. He cooks, he cleans, he does mysterious mountain man tasks that involve a lot of staring out windows and checking equipment. And he lets me ramble without once telling me to shut up, which puts him ahead of literally every boyfriend I've ever had.
No, I'm going stir crazy because I can't do anything.
My ankle is better but still tender. I can hobble around the cabin without too much pain, but anything more ambitious is out of the question. No hiking. No exploring. No filming content for the five hundred thousand followers who are probably wondering if I fell off a cliff.
Which, technically, I almost did.
