WYATT
The backup generatorskips its regular beat, the low, mechanical hitch vibrating through the timber frame of my bed and settling into the marrow of my collarbone. It’s the only constant in the dark.
Outside, the blizzard has finally spent its fury, leaving behind a silence so thick it presses against the windowpanes like a physical weight. The temperature is dropping fast. I can tell by the way the pine timbers of the clinic frame groan, shrinking under the tightening grip of the mountain freeze.
I stare at the ceiling. The amber glow of the emergency lights from the corridor slips under my bedroom door, casting a thin, sharp line across the floorboards.
Three inches of pine. That’s all that separates my bedroom from the room down the hall where Jesse’s old quilt is draped over Bella. I don’t need the wall to know she isn’t sleeping. Her presence is a physical pull, a low-voltage current that has been humming through the floorboards since she walked out of the kitchen.
I roll onto my side, the springs of my bed creaking in protest. My hand goes to the back of my neck, fingers tracing the jagged line of the scar at the base of my skull—a relic of a mortar blast downrange that aches whenever the weather turns. It’s a habit I can’t break when the ghosts get too loud.
You think you control anything from a phone headset?
My words taste like ash in my mouth. I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have pushed her so hard, but her focus on the budget spreadsheet, her stubborn struggle to calculate the value of Jesse’s life in Cascade’s cold corporate dollars, had set something clawing inside my chest.
Or maybe it wasn’t the spreadsheet.
Maybe it was her face in the firelight, her chin held high and her eyes wide with a quiet, devastating grief that matched my own, even as she told me she was leaving.
She’s leaving.
The pass will clear in a day, maybe two. The county plows are probably already working their way up the canyon. She’ll sign the papers, take her payout, and go back to Denver. She’ll return to her headset, her neat boundaries, and her safety.
A board groans in the hallway.
It’s a tiny sound, the softest whisper of weight on the old tongue-and-groove pine, but it pulls me upright before my brain can process it. I sit on the edge of the bed, my bare feet flat on the cold, frozen boards, my heart hammering a sudden, heavy rhythm against my ribs.
I listen. The silence returns, heavy and expectant, holding its breath.
Then the brass handle of my bedroom door clicks. It turns, slow and deliberate, the latch releasing with a soft, metallic snap.
The door swings open.
Bella stands at the threshold. The amber emergency light behind her outlines her shape, casting her face in soft shadow. She’s wearing the grey wool sweater I gave her. It’s huge on her, the hem falling to the middle of her thighs, her hands completely swallowed by the long sleeves. Her legs are bare, pale and slender against the dark wood of the corridor.
She’s shivering. The tremors are small but constant, a rapid vibration running through her shoulders and down her legs.
I stand. The difference in our sizes is stark in the narrow doorway. My body is broad, hardened by years of tactical deployments and brutal manual labor on this mountain, while she is small and delicate. Standing there in the amber light, she looks impossibly soft—a quiet, fragile contrast to the grit and blood I’ve spent a lifetime wading through.
I step forward, my chest nearly touching hers, my voice a low rumble. “Go back to your room, Bella.”
She doesn’t move. Her fingers curl tighter into the oversized cuffs of the sleeves, anchoring herself. “My room is too quiet. The wall... your breathing carries through the wood. Every creak of the springs. I spent an hour trying to pretend I was in my apartment, but I’m not. I’m here. And I’m tired of sleeping alone in the dark.”
“Go back to bed.” I close the remaining distance until my shadow swallows her. I want to protect her, but more than that, I’m terrified of what will happen if I don't send her away right now.
Her chin lifts, that stubborn defiance flashing in her eyes. “Don’t tell me what to do. Everyone always tells me what to do. Jesse told me he had to leave. My aunt and uncle said I had to be the strong one just once, that I had to hold everyone else up. Don’t tell me to go back to bed. But if you do... don’t make me go back alone.”
My jaw tightens, a hard pulse beating in my temple. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.” She takes a half-step closer, her warm, shallow breath dusting across my bare chest.
My hand wraps around her wrist. My palm is massive against her small bones, my grip firm, checking her, waiting for any hint of hesitation or retreat.
“I’m not like other men, Bella. I don’t do soft. I don’t do easy. I don’t hold back. Do you understand what that means?”
“I’m not scared of that.” Her pulse races wildly against my palm, a frantic, trapped-bird rhythm, but she doesn’t flinch. She doesn't pull away.
“You should be.” I lean down, my face inches from hers, pressing the weight of my presence against her, pushing past her defenses.
