She reaches out, her hand finding the flannel of my shirt, her fingers fisting in the fabric. She pulls herself forward, her forehead dropping onto my shoulder again, her breath hot against my neck. I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her down off the stool until she’s on her knees in front of me, her body tucked flush against mine.
She’s warm. So warm. The scent of lavender, cold wind, and woodsmoke surrounds her. Something sweet that doesn’t belong to this mountain. It’s a clean, sharp mix that fills my lungs. I hold her hard, my chest rising and falling against hers, the double rhythm of our breathing matching the skip of the generator under the floor.
I cup the back of her neck, my fingers tangling in the chestnut curls. I press her head closer, my chin resting on her hair, my eyes closed against the orange light of the hall.
We stay like that for a long time. Kneeling on the cold linoleum of a clinic kitchen, in the middle of a Colorado blizzard, holding onto each other like two survivors adrift on a raft.
The storm keeps battering the roof. The timbers groan, the pine framing shifting as the snow packs deeper against the walls. But inside, under the amber lamps, the heat stays. The breathing stays.
“Go back to bed.” My mouth brushes against her temple. “The stove is still warm.”
She doesn’t answer immediately. She just holds on for three more breaths, her fingers tight in my shirt, before she slowly lets go. She stands, her eyes dark, her lips parted. She doesn’t look at the kitchen or the plates. She just turns and walks down the hall, her feet silent on the floor, the bedroom door clicking shut behind her.
I stay on my knees on the floor for a minute, my hands flat on the linoleum where she was standing. The cold of the floor works its way through my jeans, but my palms are still hot.
I stand, clean the plate, and walk back to my bedroom.
My bed is cold, the wool blanket thin. I lie down, my boots still on, my eyes wide in the dark. The generator thrums. The skip in the cylinder is steady, a rhythmic hitch in the dark.
Through the thin pine wall, her soft movements carry.
She’s turning under the quilt. The springs creak. Then the quiet returns, and I listen to the slow, shallow rise and fall of her breath, just three feet from my head. I find the brass whistle on my keyring, the cold metal hard against my palm.
Nobody should have to be afraid alone in the dark.
I close my eyes and let the sound of her breathing carry me down into the first sleep I’ve had in six weeks.
SEVEN
Thin Walls
BELLA
The morning is too quiet.
I lie beneath the weight of the hand-stitched quilt, my eyes fixed on the pine planks of the ceiling. The howling wind that battered the clinic all night has died, leaving a muffled silence that only happens when the snow piles high enough to swallow the world. Under the floorboards, the generator continues its rhythmic, off-beat hum.
A skip in the third cylinder.
Wyatt’s words from last night drift back to me, clear and low in the quiet room. I turn onto my side, the mattress springs creaking. The sound is loud, almost intimate, in the stillness. I look at the wall. It’s nothing but raw pine, thin enough that the pale outline of the studs shows through the seams. Wyatt is on the other side of that wood, three feet away.
My skin prickles, a sudden, hot wave of memory rushing over me. The feeling of his hands on my arms, hard and steady. Thesolid weight of his chest against mine when he pulled me down off the stool.
I spent six weeks wrapped in a cold, numb sheet of survival, counseling strangers through their darkest hours while my own chest felt like hollow ice. Last night, kneeling on the kitchen floor in the middle of a blackout, that ice didn’t just crack.
It shattered.
And now the air in this small bedroom feels thick, charged with the lingering heat of that embrace.
I pull my legs out from under the quilt. The cold hits my bare feet instantly, a sharp shock that brings me back to the present. I reach for the borrowed grey wool sweater draped over the chair, sliding it over my head. It smells of cedar, antiseptic, and the faint, woodsy trace of Wyatt.
I pull the neck up to my chin, breathing it in, before I can stop myself.
Jesse’s dog tags hang against my collarbone. I press my palm over them, the metal edges digging into my skin.
Don’t do this, Bella. You’re here to sign the papers, sell the property, and get back to your life. Don’t get involved. You can’t stay.
I repeat the words like a mantra, but they sound thin, lacking the solid armor they had when I was in the city.
