Her breath catches. “And if I do?”
I look at her—really look. At the way my shirt drapes over her collarbones. The way her lips are parted. The way she’s already leaning toward me, just a fraction, like gravity’s changed direction. “Then we got bigger problems than whoever’s following you,” I tell her, honestly.
She sets the mug down. Slowly. Deliberately. “Too late,” she whispers.
And she’s right.
Because the second her hand finds my wrist—like she’s anchoring herself to me—the last thread of distance snaps.
I don’t kiss her.
Not yet.
But I don’t move away either.
Outside, the storm screams. Inside, the fire crackles, and the cabin feels smaller, warmer, inevitable.
Sabrina Hart isn’t leaving Timber Creek without a story.
And I already know I’m going to be the one telling it with her.
Right here.
For as long as the snow keeps falling.
TWO
SABRINA
The firelight dances across Beck’s face like it’s trying to figure him out too. He’s still holding my wrist—barely. Just enough that I feel the rough pad of his thumb against my pulse point, steady and warm and completely unaware of how fast it’s racing under his touch. Or maybe he does know. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t let go.
I should pull away.
I don’t.
The storm keeps pounding the cabin like it wants in, but in here everything feels strangely still. Just the crackle of logs, the low hum of the generator outside, and the way Beck’s eyes keep sliding to my mouth every time I speak, then snapping back up like he’s reminding himself not to.
I clear my throat. “You’re staring.”
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he says, voice gravel-rough. Like that’s an explanation.
I glance down at myself. The flannel is soft from years of wear, sleeves rolled three times to keep them from swallowing my hands, hem brushing the tops of my thighs. No pants. No bra. Just his shirt and a pair of his thick wool socks I found in the bathroom drawer. I look ridiculous. I also feel… safe. Ridiculously, unreasonably safe.
“It smells like you,” I say before I can stop myself.
His jaw flexes. “That a problem?”
“No.” My voice comes out softer than I mean it to. “It’s nice.”
He exhales through his nose, short and sharp, like he’s trying not to react. But I see it—the way his shoulders drop half an inch, the way his grip on my wrist tightens for one heartbeat before loosening again.
I should be terrified. I should be cataloging exits, calculating how long the food will last, wondering if the black SUV is still out there somewhere, waiting for the snow to stop so it can finish what it started. Instead I’m sitting on a stranger’s couch in the middle of nowhere Montana, heart hammering because a man who looks like he was carved from the mountain itself is looking at me like I’m the dangerous one.
“Tell me about the SUV,” he says suddenly.
I swallow. “It started in Missoula. I noticed it when I left the hotel—same one that followed me out of the parking garage two nights before that. Tinted windows. No plates I could read clearly. I thought I was being paranoid at first. Then it was behind me on the interstate. Then it was gone. Then it wasn’t.”
Beck doesn’t interrupt. Just watches. Listens. Like every word is evidence he’s filing away.
