“You don’t look particularly suited to hauling timber.”
Her gaze doesn’t drop, though her bottom lip quivers slightly. “I’ll manage.”
The confidence is measured, not reckless. The wind presses harder against the cabin walls.
“I would never ask that of you anyway,” I say too quickly.
“I know,” she says.
I swallow hard, looking past her at the swirling white. “You won’t make it back down today.”
She looks with me now at the whiteout building beyond the porch. “No.”
“You understand that staying here requires discretion?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t discuss my shoulder?”
“No.”
“You won’t discuss why I don’t conduct?”
Her eyes hold mine steadily. “No.”
The storm closes in around us, sealing the ridge in white. That’s when I notice the slight shiver coming from her core, her breath a lacy puff of ice.
“Three days,” I mutter. “Possibly more.”
“That’s fine.” I hear the tremor in her voice now, too. The cold threading it.
Some moments feel like they change everything.Thisis one of them.
I study her one last time. Not romantic. Not intimidated. Not curious in the way most people are when they climb this mountain.
Deliberate. Capable.
The wind howls along the ridge, rattling the porch rail. Snow swallows the road entirely.
I should tell her to leave.
Instead, I step aside. “Come in.”
Her fingers tighten briefly around the violin case strap. Then, she crosses the threshold without hesitation, and the door shuts behind her.
“Let me make a fire,” I murmur, heading for the hearth.
“I can do that,” she catches herself when I wheel around too abruptly. “If it’s part of the job?”
“No.”
The least I can do is keep her warm.
Outside, the mountain buries the path. Inside, the silence shifts.
Not broken. Shared.
And I realize, with a clarity I don’t welcome, that inviting a stranger into this house may unsettle more than the storm ever could.
