He stood at the counter in jeans and no shirt, pouring coffee into two mugs like this was something we did every morning.
“Hey,” he said, turning with both mugs. His face was open, relaxed, happy in a way that made my chest tighten. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good.” I took the mug he offered and held it in front of me like a shield. “Thank you.”
He leaned against the counter and watched me over the rim of his coffee. I could feel him registering the shift—the way I’d taken the mug but hadn’t stepped closer, the way I stood in the middle of his kitchen like a guest instead of the woman who’d screamed his name against a hemlock less than twenty-four hours ago.
“I should head back to the inn,” I said. “Hartley and Brooklyn are probably filing a missing persons report. And I need to go through my photos and get my scavenger hunt entry organized. The submission deadline is tonight.”
All true. Every word of it was practical and reasonable.
And every word was a brick I was stacking between us.
Evan set his mug down. “Paisley.”
“I also need to charge my phone properly—my charger’s at the inn—and?—”
“Paisley.”
I stopped. He was looking at me the way he had on the trail when I’d asked him why he cared—steady, patient, like he had all the time in the world and planned to use it waiting for me to stop spiraling.
“You’re doing that thing,” he said.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you start listing tasks because it’s easier than saying what’s actually going on.” He crossed his arms and leaned back. Not confrontational. Just settled—like a man who’d planted his feet and wasn’t budging. “I watched you do it on the tour. Anytime someone got too close to a real conversation, you pivoted to logistics. GPS coordinates, trail conditions, checklist items.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing came out. Because he was right.
“Talk to me,” he said. “Whatever it is.”
I looked down at the coffee. My hands were trembling slightly. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for me to.
“I live four hours from here,” I said. “With my mom. I work two jobs—one at a bookstore, one doing data entry from home at night. Every spare dollar goes toward her medical bills. That’s my life. That’s what I go back to when the festival ends.”
“Okay.”
“And you live here. On this mountain. Running your business with Dash. Your whole life is here.”
“It is.”
“So what is this?” I gestured between us. “Because I can’t afford a distraction right now, Evan. I mean that literally. I can’t afford it. Every dollar, every hour, every ounce of energy I have goes toward digging my mom out of this hole. I don’t have room for?—”
“For what?”
“For someone I have to miss.”
The words came out quieter than I intended.
He uncrossed his arms and crossed the room in two steps. He took the mug from my hands and set it on the counter behind me. His hands settled on my hips—not pulling me closer, just steadying me.
“You’re not going to miss me,” he said. “Because I’m not going anywhere. And four hours isn’t the other side of the planet. It’s a morning drive. I’ve hauled kayaks farther than that for a weekend rental.”
“This isn’t about kayaks.”
“No, it’s about you thinking you have to choose between taking care of your mom and having a life.” His thumbs traced slow circles against my hips. “You don’t. The fifty thousand dollars is going to handle the debt. You’re going to win that scavenger hunt because you’re the most prepared person who’sever entered it—and because I showed you a meadow no one else knows about.”
“A meadow that the organizer of the scavenger hunt apparently saw me leave to go find with you.” My voice sharpened. “Bobbi saw us. That’s in my texts. She saw me leave the parking lot with an employee of a participating business—an employee who’s excluded from competing. I spent three weeks memorizing those rules. If there’s anything in there about assisted entries or outside help?—”
