The tears stop, and he wipes my cheeks. I press my face into his chest, and he rests his chin on the top of my head.
We stay like that.
The fire dies to ash and faint smoke. The cabin cools, but I’m warm thanks to him. Spool has moved to the armchair and watches us.
My laugh is shaky, small.
“I don’t know how to do this.” Jace’s words vibrate through his chest into my cheek. No side-eye. He stares at the beams of the cabin. His expression is vulnerable. He looks lost, more real. “You just did.”
His chest rises and falls. A corner of his mouth lifts.
Spool sighs from the armchair. Loudly.
“He’s judging us,” I whisper.
“He judges everything.”
I smile against his skin. He traces slow circles on my shoulder. As his breathing evens, his heartbeat soothes me.
In the morning, I wake up alone on the couch.
He’s gone. The cabin is warm, the fire relit, a heavy wool blanket tucked around me.
His absence leaves a chill, though his scent still clings to the blanket. That warmth has to be enough...
For now.
ten
. . .
Jace
I don’t becomea different man overnight. Still up before dawn. Light the stove. Make coffee. Drive to my claims, where I find a flat, smooth piece of aspen in the slash pile. It’s pale, fine-grained, and the length of my index finger. I place it in my pocket.
After ten hours with the chainsaw and the axe, I come home with sawdust in my hair and a body too tired for thought.
Though I reach for Rosalind now. On the porch, as the peaks bled from gold to purple, I shift closer. My pinky, callused and rough, brushes hers on the railing. A quiet jolt hums through my hand.
She presses her finger to mine and keeps reading. The small gesture steals my breath.
I need no one. I let no one close. I give no one anything they can take when they go.
I cross those lines every day. I don’t know how to stop. I’m not sure I want to.
After dinner, the fire burns low, a soft crackle in the cabin. Rosalind reads on the couch. A few strands of hair have fallen across her face, catching the firelight.
I reach out, my fingers clumsy to tenderness, and tuck the strands behind her ear. She leans into my hand, a small movement. Her gaze stays on the page.
Her cheek against my palm hollows me. I want to anchor her to me, to feel her touching my skin.
I pull her gently into my lap, and she gasps, a soft sound, then settles. Her body molds to mine.
Rosalind tucks her head under my chin and curls into me. I wrap my arms around her and hold on.
The fire pops. Spool stretches on the floor. The cabin has never felt more like home.
Desire flares in her eyes. She inhales. “Can we…”
