Then something smacks into my shoulder.
Cold. Sharp. Explosive.
I spin around just in time to see her lowering her hand, snow still clinging to her fingers. She’s smiling. Wide.
“Did you just—” I start.
She shrugs, my girl is innocence and menace wrapped into one tiny package.
Then I bark out a laugh before I can stop myself. A real one. Hearty, surprised and entirely against my will.
“Oh, you didnot—”
She’s already backing away, grinning. “What are you gonna do about it, Bear?”
I lean down, scoop snow into my hand and fire back. She squeals and ducks, nearly losing her footing as she takes off across the clearing. I chase her, boots slipping, breath burning, the tension cracking open with every step.
She turns just as I catch her, momentum taking us both down into the snow in a tangle of limbs and laughter. I land half over her, one knee between hers, palms planted on either side of her shoulders.
We freeze.
Her laughter fades into breathless silence. Snow dusts her lashes. Her cheeks are turning rosy from the cold. For a second, the world narrows to this—her beneath me, my pulse loud, all fight and fury drained clean out of my system.
She swallows, eyes searching mine. “Is that better?” she whispers.
I don’t answer right away. I lean down instead, forehead brushing hers, breathing her in.
“Everything is better with you,” I admit—quiet, unguarded. To her. And to myself.
She pulls my face between her wet palms and kisses me. And for a heartbeat, I feel young again. Giddy, like a kid stealing a kiss after school with nowhere else to be and nothing to lose.
I kiss her back once more, deeper this time. Urgent. Because one will never be enough, and I don’t think she realizes that yet.
I stand and help her to her feet. “Come on,” I say, brushing snow from her coat. “Let’s get you back to the car.” I promise hot cocoa on the way home, and she smiles like that’s exactly what she needed to hear.
As we walk back to the truck, I lace my fingers through hers and send up a quiet thank you—for this woman, this beautiful enigma I found on the side of the road.
Sugar and Salt
Max
The sky has tipped into honey-gold, streaked with the last light of day, softening everything it touches. Smoke from the grill drifts in from the deck.
Eli stands at the grill, hair pulled back, body moving with that controlled ease that makes every motion feel intentional. His muscles flex as he works, precise without being showy. His brow is furrowed the way it always is when he’s focused, like whatever he’s tending matters. Like, in this moment, the world could be held together by nothing more than heat and his hands.
He looks like something out of a painting. A man carved from mountain and fire. Rugged. Safe. But a little untouchable, too. And Lord, he’s wearing a turtleneck, which should honestly be illegal. It clings in all the right places, turning his arms into a personal attack and doing dangerously sexy things to his back. I’ve never been a back girl, but the way he stands there—tall, masculine, framed by firelight, completely unaware of the effect he’s having on me—does something feral to my brain. He’s a mountain I’d happily climb again and again.
Meanwhile, I’m in his kitchen, barefoot, hair a mess, chopping cucumbers and cherry tomatoes into a bowl. Could this be my life? In this quiet house tucked in the mountains, making dinner with a man who takes me apart and breaks me down with a look.
I try to focus on the chopping, the persistent rhythm of the knife hitting the cutting board, but my brain won’t shut up. It’s a full-blown riot in there. A loop of every moment from this insane week playing on repeat.
I blame those stupid romance novels for this. For the way I started romanticizing Eli the moment I laid eyes on him. The brooding, flannel-wrapped lumberjack rescuing me from a ditch like a hero straight off a book cover. The insta-attraction. The slow-burn tension. It all felt like a setup for a fairy tale I never asked for but quietly dreamed of. Eli is everything I imagined he’d be when I laid eyes on him in the magazine and I’m still having a hard time believing any of this is real.
As he comes back inside from checking on the meat, we continue to work side by side in the kitchen, the quiet between us doesn’t itch or demand attention. It feels like we’re both turning the week over in our heads, letting it settle where it needs to without forcing conversation into the gaps. Which is wild, considering how loud I can be. How quick I am to speak first, joke first, strike first.
But Eli changes things. His calm is a terrifying intrusion, seeping into me, settling deep in my chest.
And now, in this quiet mountain house with this quiet mountain man, I’m starting to wonder what it would feel like tonothave to be strong all the time. To be held instead of holding. To lean instead of lead.
