I killed the engine and shoved open the door, stepping out into the howling wind. Snow drove into my face immediately, stinging my cheeks, but I stumbled toward the front of the car anyway, squinting through the white.
The bear lay on its side a few feet in front of my bumper, one wooden paw still raised toward the sky. Not a real bear. A carved one. A chainsaw sculpture, the kind you see at roadside stands in tourist towns. It had been holding a mailbox, I realized. A regular metal mailbox that was now dented and half-buried in a snowdrift.
I’d hit someone’s mailbox.
The laugh that escaped me was somewhere between hysteria and exhaustion. Of course. Of course, I’d fled my apartment in the middle of a viral nightmare, driven four hours through a snowstorm without stopping, and ended my journey by murdering a wooden bear.
I could just leave.
The thought slithered through my mind like a snake. No one had seen me. The snow would cover my tracks. I could find Dagger’s cabin, pretend this never happened, and deal with everything else in the morning.
But that wasn’t who I was. That had never been who I was, no matter what the internet decided to believe about me based on a fifteen-second clip. I paid my bills—when I could afford to. I showed up to work on time. I didn’t take things that didn’t belong to me, and when I broke something, I owned up to it.
Even when the world didn’t offer me the same courtesy.
I grabbed my hoodie from the passenger seat, pulling it on over my uniform. The thin fabric of my work shorts offered zero protection, and my legs were bare from mid-thigh to my anklesocks. Not exactly snowstorm attire. But a cabin was up ahead—I could see the faint glow of lights through the trees—and I wasn’t going to freeze to death in the thirty seconds it would take to walk to the door.
The wind hit me like a fist as I started walking. Snow drove into my face, stinging my cheeks, and the cold bit through my hoodie like it wasn’t even there. I wrapped my arms around myself and stumbled up what I hoped was a driveway, my sneakers sinking into snow that was already past my ankles.
The cabin materialized out of the white, a solid shadow with warm light glowing behind curtained windows. A porch. Steps. A door. I climbed toward it like a woman possessed, teeth chattering so hard I could barely think.
I knocked. Too loud, probably, but my hands were numb, and I couldn’t feel how much force I was using.
Nothing happened. The wind howled around me, driving snow down the back of my hoodie, and I knocked again.
This time, I heard movement inside. Heavy footsteps. A lock clicking. Then the door swung open, and I found myself staring up at the largest man I’d ever seen.
He filled the doorway like he’d been built to block it. Broad shoulders, thick arms, and a chest that strained against a plain gray T-shirt. His hair was dark and disheveled, like he’d been sleeping, and his jaw was covered in a few days’ worth of stubble.
But it was his eyes that caught me—held me. Dark brown, almost black in the dim light, and absolutely furious.
“It’s midnight.” His voice was low and rough, sandpaper over gravel. “What the hell do you want?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but my teeth were chattering too hard to form words. I must have looked insane, standing there in my tiny shorts and soaked hoodie, mascara probably running down my face, shivering so hard my whole body shook.
His eyes dropped from my face to my bare legs, then lifted again. Something shifted in his expression. The anger didn’t disappear, but something else crept in alongside it—something I was too cold and too tired to name.
“I hit your bear,” I finally managed through my chattering teeth. “The mailbox. I’ll pay for the damage. I just—I couldn’t see, and I thought it was real, and I’m so sorry, but I had to tell you because I’m not the kind of person who just runs away from things she’s done, even though everyone apparently thinks I am now, and I know it’s late, and I know you’re probably really angry, but I couldn’t just leave without?—”
“Get inside.”
He reached out, wrapped one massive hand around my arm—gently, so gently it made me tingle all over—and pulled me through the doorway into the warmth.
2
T.J
The woman was half-frozen, barely dressed, and talking so fast I could hardly make out a word she was saying. Something about a bear and a mailbox and not being the kind of person who runs away.
I didn’t care about the mailbox. I’d hated that damn thing since the day I moved in. It was a remnant from the previous owner that I’d been too lazy to haul to the dump. What I cared about was the fact that this woman—this beautiful, shivering, clearly-in-crisis woman—was standing on my porch in the middle of a snowstorm, wearing nothing but a hoodie and shorts that barely covered her ass.
I pulled her inside before I could think better of it. My hand wrapped around her arm, gentle despite the urgency, and I guided her through the doorway into the warmth of the cabin. She stumbled over the threshold, still babbling apologies, and I kicked the door shut against the wind.
“Stay there,” I said, and went for the blanket draped over the back of my couch.
When I turned back, she’d gone quiet. She stood just inside the door, arms wrapped around herself, shaking so hard herteeth chattered audibly. Snow was melting in her hair, turning the dark strands into wet ropes that clung to her cheeks. Her mascara had run, leaving black streaks beneath eyes that were red-rimmed and swollen from crying.
She was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen.
