“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
Dagger’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “You want to explain to me why I shouldn’t knock your teeth down your throat right now?”
“Because your sister is a grown woman who makes her own choices. And because I’m not going anywhere.” T.J. held Dagger’s stare without flinching. “I know how this looks. Stranger in the woods, your sister shows up in a crisis, one night together. I get why you’d want to hit me. But I’m telling you right now—this isn’t a one-night thing. Not for me.”
My breath caught.
Dagger’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve known her for what, twelve hours?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“It doesn’t.” T.J.’s voice dropped, rough and certain. “I spent three years on this mountain not feeling a damn thing. Then she showed up on my porch, freezing and crying and apologizing for hitting my mailbox when she should’ve been furious at a world that treated her like garbage for defending herself. And something in me woke up.” He glanced at me—just for a second—and what I saw in his eyes made my chest ache. “I’m not letting her go. Not now. Not ever. So you can hit me if you need to, but it’s not going to change anything.”
The silence stretched between them, thick with tension. I watched Dagger’s jaw work as he weighed his options. He was protective—I’d learned that much in the few months since we’d found each other. Growing up in foster care had done something to him, made him fierce about the family he’d never had. I understood it because I felt the same way.
Finally, Dagger let out a long breath. His fists unclenched.
“You hurt her,” he said quietly, “and I will end you. We clear?”
“Crystal.”
They stared at each other for another beat. Then Dagger nodded once, short and sharp, and some of the tension bled out of the room.
“Coffee?” T.J. asked.
“Yeah. Coffee would be good.”
T.J. moved toward the kitchen, leaving me alone with my brother in the doorway. Dagger looked at me—really looked—and his expression softened into something almost vulnerable.
“You okay, Ris?”
The nickname hit me somewhere tender. He’d started calling me that at Christmas, said it felt right, and every time he used it, I had to blink back the sting of tears. Twenty-three years without a family, and now I had a brother who’d driven through a snowstorm to look for me.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Better than okay, actually.”
“Yeah?” He studied my face like he was looking for cracks. “Because when you called me yesterday, you sounded like your whole world was falling apart.”
Yesterday. God—was it only yesterday? The video, the comments, the frantic drive through the storm—it felt like a lifetime ago.
“It was,” I admitted. “But then I hit a bear, and everything changed.”
Dagger blinked. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”
“Later.” I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my face into his shoulder. He hugged me back, tight and fierce, and for a moment I let myself just be held by my brother. “Thank you for coming to find me.”
“Always,” he said roughly. “That’s what family does.”
Family. The word still felt foreign on my tongue, but it was starting to fit. Starting to feel like something I could believe in.
From the kitchen came the sound of the coffeemaker gurgling to life. I pulled back from Dagger and glanced toward the kitchen, where T.J. moved around with easy familiarity—pulling mugs from cabinets, completely unbothered by the fact that he’d just declared his intentions to a stranger who’d wanted to punch him.
And that’s when it hit me.
The doubt. The fear. The ugly voice in the back of my head that had been whispering since the moment I woke up.
You just met him. You slept with him after knowing him for a few hours. You gave him something you’ve never given anyone, and now you’re standing here in his shirt like this means something—but what if it doesn’t? What if you imagined the connection because you were desperate and lonely and he was kind?
