I take the notebook out of her hands, set it on the shelf where it won't get bent, and answer her the only way I know how. I cup her jaw and kiss her slow, letting her feel that there's no place on this earth I'd rather be than inside a drawing like that one. She makes a small sound against my mouth and her fingers curl into my shirt, and last night I'd have taken over right here. Laid her back. Set the pace. Given her careful because careful was what she needed.
Tonight I feel it in her hands. She's not holding on. She's pulling.
I break the kiss and sit back against the headboard, and her brows knit at the loss of me until I take her by the hips and draw her over my lap, her knees settling on either side of my thighs. Her breath goes shallow. From up there she's looking down at me for once, damp hair falling around her face, and I watch her realize what I'm giving her.
“Your turn to drive, darlin'.” I keep my hands loose on her hips. Present, not steering. “You've had a day and a half of me showing you. Show me what you learned.”
Color climbs her throat, but her chin comes up with it. That spark I saw through the cracked windshield the first day, thestubborn one, the one that means she'll fight if she has to. She reaches for the buttons of the flannel and undoes them herself, one at a time, slower than she has to, and the sight of her taking her own sweet time nearly undoes my patience before we've even started.
“Like this?” she asks, and the innocence in it isn't fake, but the mischief underneath it isn't either.
“Just like that.”
What follows belongs entirely to her, her hands finding their own confidence, her body setting a pace I don't hurry no matter how much every muscle in me wants to. She takes what's hers. I give her my hands where she wants them and follow where she leads, and somewhere in the middle of it she breathes the word mine, testing it out loud for the first time from her side of things instead of mine, and it lands in me like a brand.
“Look at you,” I tell her, because she should hear it. “Riding this like you were born to it. That's my girl. Take your time. Daddy's not going anywhere.”
The word does what it always does to her. Her rhythm stutters and deepens, and I hold onto my own edge with my teeth because I want to watch this, watch her chase it and find it, her head thrown back, my name and Daddy tangled together in her mouth when she finally comes apart above me. I follow her over a moment later, holding her close through it like the world might try to take her mid heartbeat, and when it's done she collapses against my chest, both of us slick and breathing like we ran the ridge trail together instead of just lying here.
I drag a blanket over her back and hold her there, her heart hammering against mine and slowly, slowly settling.
“So,” she says eventually, muffled against my collarbone. “How'd I do, teach?”
“Top of the class.” I press my lips to her damp hair. “Might need to see it again, though. For grading purposes.”
Her laugh moves through both of us, warm and real, and I feel more of the day's tension drain out of me than I have all evening. She goes boneless and quiet after that, tracing lazy shapes on my shoulder, drawing on me now, little invisible cartoons I'll never get to see, and I stare at the fire over the top of her head while the old worry comes back with the dark the way it always does once the good part of the night settles into something quieter.
The storm's finished. Tomorrow, the day after, the roads open all the way. Mason's people come up this mountain with a folder full of new names for her, and the rules say I hand her over and let her disappear into whatever life those names build for her, somewhere I'm not allowed to follow. A week ago I'd have followed the rules without a second thought. That was before a woman crashed into my mountain and started drawing the two of us onto the same page, before she learned to read snow tracks and hold her own weight and take exactly what she wants from me without waiting for permission first.
Her breathing evens out into sleep against my chest. I tighten my arm around her and watch the flames burn down slow, turning the whole problem over again, and somewhere in that slow turning the shapeless worry starts, for the first time, to take an actual shape. Not a plan yet. Not something I'd trust with her life without thinking it through twice more at least. But a direction, finally, instead of just a fear, and that's more than I had an hour ago.
The rules can go to hell. I'm keeping her. I just haven't figured out how yet.
17
Nora
It's been two days since Colt and I first crossed that line there's no walking back from, and time's gone soft and hazy in the best way, a blur of firelight, plates scraped clean, touches that linger like they're leaving marks on purpose. The storm that trapped us here has fully surrendered now, replaced by a sun so bright it bounces off the fresh snow in sharp little shards. The world outside these log walls is waking up, trees shedding their heavy white coats with soft thumps, branches creaking straight again under the sudden warmth. Which means the clock on this bubble we've built is ticking down whether I want it to or not. Soon the Marshals will come for me, and the thought lands in my stomach like one of my own cartoon anvils, the kind that squashes the goofy moose flat while the audience laughs. Except I'm not laughing. I don't want to leave this cabin. I don't want to leave him.
I sit up slow in the big bed that's become our whole universe, the quilts pooling around my waist. My body's sore in the good, deep down way that reminds me exactly how thoroughly the last two days have gone. Morning light comes through the frost lacedwindow in gold stripes across the log walls, catching on Colt's chest beside me, the rise and fall of his breathing, the old scar tracing his ribs that I still haven't gotten the full story on.
His arm's heavy across my waist even in sleep, fingers curled loose against my hip like some part of him refuses to let me drift too far even unconscious. I turn my head and just look at him a while. His face is relaxed in a way I rarely see when he's awake, and I know the worry's still coiled underneath that peace somewhere, in the faint tension at the corners of his eyes, the way his hand twitches against me now and then like he's fighting something in a dream.
I nudge him gently. “Colt?” My voice is still husky from sleep. “Can you walk me through what actually happens when they come for me? I need to know exactly what to expect. It helps me not spiral quite as hard.”
He wakes immediately, no groggy in between, dark eyes finding mine like he was never fully under. His arm tightens, pulling me flush against his chest, his hand splayed warm across my lower back.
“It'll be okay, darlin'.” His voice is low and rough with sleep, and it does something to my insides it probably shouldn't, given the subject matter. “Marshals roll in once the roads clear enough. Safe house first. New identity, new place, a whole list of rules, no contact with your old life, no slipping into old habits. New name, new story, kept close until the trial, if it even gets that far. You'll be safe. I'll make sure of that before I hand you over to anybody.”
I trace slow patterns across his chest while he talks, feeling his heartbeat under my palm. The words twist through me anyway. New identity. No contact. My little apartment, the overflowing sketchbooks, the freelance gigs drawing sassy raccoons in tinyhats for somebody's kids' book, all of it dissolving like it was never really mine to keep. “It sounds so final,” I murmur against his shoulder. “Like I just disappear. Nora Caldwell, graphic artist and accidental murder witness, vanishes into federal protection, never heard from again. Zero cameos from my growly trapper in the sequel.”
He kisses the top of my head, his hand moving in long, slow sweeps down my back. “It's to keep you safe. That's all that matters right now. You're tougher than you know, even if you can't see it yet from in here. And I'll be thinking about you every day. Every hour I'm out checking traps or splitting wood, you'll be right here.” He taps two fingers over his heart.
The worry doesn't leave, exactly, but his arms make it bearable. We stay tangled in the bed a while longer, talking soft about nothing and everything, the fire popping low in the hearth. I trace the scar along his ribs again, and this time he actually tells me the story, a training exercise gone sideways back in his Marine days, the kind of near miss that taught him to listen to wind and branch creak for trouble the same way he now listens for trouble on this mountain.
Eventually the day pulls us out of bed. My legs are a little wobbly when I stand, and Colt wraps one of his flannel shirts around me before the cold can properly land, the fabric heavy and warm, sleeves swallowing my hands whole. “Look at you,” he says, watching me roll the cuffs, something warm and a little rough in his voice. “Swimming in my shirt. Makes me want to keep you right here forever.”
We cook breakfast together in the cramped kitchen, the space forcing us into constant proximity that neither of us seems to mind. His hip bumps mine reaching for the skillet. His hand lingers on my back longer than it needs to. I chop vegetableswith a dull knife, steadier now that two days of practice have actually taught me something. We eat at the rough table, knees touching underneath it, trading bites and quiet laughs, and every small touch between us feels charged in a way it didn't a week ago, like all the shyness got used up somewhere in the last two days and left only this.
