She got out of bed and dressed methodically, the thick wool of her sweater soft against her skin, and her jeans still holding the crisp cold of the unheated floor.
Moments later, as she stood in front of the small mirror in the bathroom brushing her teeth, her green eyes looked back, guarded but clear.
Good,she thought.This is better.
Korrak’s restraint, intentional or not, had given her a gift. Space. Room to remember who she was without the distorting lens of a man’s attention. For two years under Bracken’s thumb, she’d been slowly erased—her opinions, her friendships, her autonomy all sanded down to fit his design. In just three days of steady, quiet, and purposeful work, pieces of herself were clicking back into place.
She walked into the main room, where Ellie was already at the samples station, a steaming mug in hand.
“You look… refreshed,” Ellie said, her red ponytail a bright splash against the gray consoles.
“I feel refreshed. Three days of honest hard work is exactly what I needed,” Winslet replied, and it was the truth.
She moved to the kitchen area, grabbing a quick cup of coffee and a breakfast bar, and consuming them with practiced efficiency. “Solar panel check today, right? After the storm drift clearing?”
“Yep. They’re probably buried. I’ll handle the data uplink if you can tackle the physical sweep. Bundle up good. The wind’s picking up.”
The normalcy of her new lifestyle was a balm. The predictability. The routine. The safety. She could build something sturdy here.
As she pulled on her parka, her mind drifted. Not to Korrak’s intense blue eyes, but to the lesson his absence taught. If he’d stayed close, if that electric tension in his cabin had snappedand pulled them together, she might have mistaken him for salvation. She might have leaned into his strength and forgotten her own.
She zipped her coat with a definitive sound and reached for her snow shovel. When Korrak eventually reappeared—and he would, he’d promised Gerri he’d keep an eye on her—she would be ready. Not as the woman who’d slept safely in his shirt and bed, but as the woman who’d used his absence to rebuild her own foundation.
She wouldn’t expect anything from him. Wouldn’t hope for a repeat of that charged moment by his fire. The attraction she felt was just a byproduct of finally feeling steady. It was situational chemistry, not destiny.
She swung open the outpost door and stepped into the blinding white morning, squinting against the glare. She took a deep, bracing breath that crystallized in her lungs.
She had work to do. And distractions were not on the agenda today.
The wind had sculpted the snow against the research outpost’s eastern wall into a solid, glittering drift that buried the bank of solar panels completely. Winslet attacked it with her shovel, each thrust of the blade a satisfying release. The rhythmic scrape-thud of compact snow hitting the ground was better than any meditation. Her blood soon pumped hot under her layers, her breath a steady plume in the crystalline air.
The world had narrowed to this simple, vital task. She was so deep in the zone, her muscles singing with the effort, that the low voice behind her didn’t register as sound—it registered as an electric shock to her system.
A scream ripped from her throat before she could stop it. She whirled, shovel half-raised like a weapon.
He stood five feet away, a monolith of solid stillness against the white.
Korrak.
He was dressed in dark, heavy-duty gear, his golden hair bright against the hood’s fur trim. His ice-blue eyes were fixed on her, an unreadable intensity in their depths. The sheer, silent power of his presence hit her like a physical force, and the careful calm she’d cultivated all morning shattered. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, betraying rhythm.
So stupid. It’s just him.
But the jolt of primal fear wasn’t about him, not really. It was the old wiring, the part of her that still expected Bracken’s hand to clamp down on her shoulder at any moment. The part that had forgotten what it felt like to be safe.
“I called your name. Twice.” His voice was a low rumble, carrying easily over the wind. He didn’t move closer, but his gaze tracked the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Winslet forced her grip on the shovel handle to relax. She lowered it, feeling a flush of hot embarrassment creep up her neck. “I was… focused. The air is so crisp, it’s easy to get lost in it.” The excuse sounded weak, even to her.
She tried to summon the cold clarity from her morning reflections, to rebuild the wall his sudden appearance had toppled.
He’s just a man. An annoying, presumptuous, vanished-for-days man.
But his scent—pine, cedar, and something wilder, something uniquelyhim—wrapped around her, dismantling her rational thought one nerve ending at a time. She hated it. Hated how her body responded to him on a level her mind couldn’t override.
“I’m pretty busy today,” she said, her tone sharper than she intended. She gestured vaguely at the half-cleared drift. “Was there something you needed? I can’t really afford distractions.”
A faint, knowing smirk touched his lips. It was infuriating. “I didn’t realize I was a distraction.”
