I drop to my knees, pride be damned. This isn't weakness, because without her, I'm nothing. I've buried this guilt for too long, afraid of what her rejection might break in me. But she deserves better than silence. I don't deserve her forgiveness, but I'm going to fight for it anyway.
She shakes her head, stepping back from the railing and wrapping her arms around herself like armor. "I want to do the rest of this tour alone. This is too much too soon."
"Savannah..." I jump up. Not knowing what to do.
"Please," she says quietly, her voice breaking on the word. "Just... give me some space to think."
The drive back down the mountain starts in suffocating silence. I can feel the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on us like the snow-heavy clouds overhead. Savannah has pressed herself against the passenger door, as far from me as the confined space allows, her arms wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold the pieces together.
My hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles have gone white, and my cedar and leather scent probably reeks of guilt and frustration. The mountain road winds through stands of pine and aspen heavy with snow, the trees creating a tunnel of white that feels claustrophobic rather than beautiful.
As we round the final curve before the main road, Savannah suddenly straightens, her hand shooting out to grab my forearm with surprising strength.
"Stop," she says urgently, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade.
I slam on the brakes, the truck skidding slightly on a patch of ice before coming to a halt on the narrow shoulder. My heart hammers against my ribs as I follow her gaze to where a small orange tabby cat is clinging to a branch about fifteen feet up in a massive pine tree.
The cat is mewing pitifully, a sound of pure distress that cuts through the mountain air. Its tiny paws are scrabbling for purchase on the snow-covered bark, and I can see it trembling with cold and fear.
"Oh my God," Savannah breathes, already opening her door. "That's Mrs. Patterson's cat. Mr. Darcy."
She's out of the truck before I can respond, her boots crunching in the snow as she hurries toward the tree. The crisis seems to have snapped her out of her emotional spiral, giving her something immediate and concrete to focus on.
Sure enough, the cat is wearing a tiny blue collar with a silver bell that jingles pathetically with each desperate movement. Its orange fur is fluffed out with cold and fear, making it look like a small, terrified puffball against the dark green pine needles.
"How the hell did he get up there?" I ask, getting out to assess the situation. The tree is ancient and massive, its trunk easily three feet in diameter, its lowest branches still a good ten feet off the ground.
"Probably chased something up there and then got scared," Savannah says, tilting her head back to study the problem. The afternoon light catches in her hair, and there's something about the way she's biting her lip in concentration that makes mychest tight with memory. "Cats are great at going up, terrible at coming down."
Mr. Darcy lets out another pitiful wail that echoes off the surrounding trees, and I see Savannah's expression immediately soften despite everything that's happened between us in the last hour.
"Mrs. Patterson is going to be beside herself if anything happens to him," she continues, already shrugging out of her expensive peacoat and tossing it onto the hood of my truck.
"What are you doing?" I ask as she starts examining the tree trunk like she's planning to scale it.
"Someone has to get him down," she says matter-of-factly, testing the bark with her hands.
"Not you." The words come out more forcefully than I intended, my alpha instincts flaring at the thought of her in danger. "That tree's got to be forty feet tall."
She turns to look at me, bown eyes flashing with something that might be annoyance or might be amusement. "I've climbed higher trees than this, Logan Pierce."
"Yeah, when you were sixteen and had more flexibility than sense."
"Are you calling me old?" There's a spark of her old fire in her voice, the first real emotion I've heard from her since our confrontation.
"I'm calling you smart enough to know that climbing a pine tree is a good way to end up in the emergency room."
Mr. Darcy chooses that moment to let out another desperate cry, and both of us look up at the small orange form clinging to the branch. Snow is starting to accumulate on his fur, and he's clearly getting weaker.
"We can't just leave him," Savannah says, and I can see the internal war playing out across her features.
"We're not going to leave him. But we're also not going to risk breaking your neck trying to be a hero."
I study the tree, noting the spacing of the branches, the way the snow has made everything slippery and treacherous. "I'll go up."
"You?" Her eyebrows shoot up. "Logan, you're twice my size. Those branches won't hold you."
"They'll hold me better than they'll hold a cat and you."
