Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 48518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
“I know what I see,” she whispers.
My grip tightens — not enough to hurt. Just enough that she feels it.
“What do you see?” I ask.
Her lips part. She hesitates. Looks at me like I’m something she shouldn’t want but absolutely does. “I see…” She swallows. “…someone good.”
Damn her.
I close my eyes for half a second, trying not to react, trying not to give away how those words crack straight down the center of me. She pulls gently, and I release her wrist — reluctantly, like letting her go is an act of self-harm.
She takes a shaky breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t apologize.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re… you’re not upset?”
“I’m never upset when you tell me the truth.”
“But you looked—”
“Like I didn’t know what to do with it.” I smirk, humorless. “That’s accurate.”
She stares at me for long, stretched seconds. Like she’s trying to decode everything I’m refusing to say. Then, suddenly, she pushes a thermos toward me.
“Hot cocoa?” she asks, voice trembling just enough to tell me she felt all of that — every charged, unspoken inch of it.
I take the thermos. “You bribing me now?”
“It works on the rest of the crew.”
“I’m not the rest of the crew.”
“No,” she murmurs, eyes dragging over my face, “you are very much not.”
The words hit me like a live wire. I take a slow drink, watching her over the rim. “Be careful with statements like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll start believing them.”
She steps closer, enough that her coat brushes mine. “Ash…”
The sound of my name on her lips is a threat. Or maybe a plea.
I set the thermos on the truck, turning fully toward her. She tilts her head back to meet my eyes. We stand there, locked in something thick and hot and unspoken. The snow falls around us, settling in her hair, her lashes. She looks like something soft, something bright, something I should stay away from. I don’t move. She doesn’t either. Then, she breaks the spell with a shaky laugh. “We should get these supplies inside.”
“Yeah,” I say, staring at her mouth, “we should.”
But neither of us moves.
She licks her lips, a nervous habit probably, but it punches the air out of me. Something in me snaps. I step forward. She steps back. We end up inside the storage room doorway, inches apart, breathing the same air, surrounded by garland and half-lit strings of lights.
“Lucy,” I whisper, “don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re waiting for me to make a mistake.”
“Maybe I am.”
I lean in — not touching, but close enough she feels every word. “If I kiss you,” I say quietly, “it won’t be a mistake.”
Her inhale is a tremor. “Ash…”
“Say the word,” I murmur. “Just one. And I won’t hold back.”
She closes her eyes.
For a heartbeat, she looks like she might say it.
Then, Holly’s voice carries from outside. “UNCLE ASH! ARE YOU DONE HELPING MISS LUCY?”
We both freeze. Lucy’s eyes fly open.
I step back like I’ve been doused with cold water. “Yeah, kiddo,” I call out, voice cracked, “coming.”
Lucy presses a hand to her chest like she’s steadying her heart and then we walk out together, both pretending nothing happened. Holly runs over and grabs Lucy’s hand. “Can she come for cookies?”
Lucy looks at me. And for once, I don’t hide anything — not the want, not the fear, not the edge that’s been wearing itself into me since the minute she arrived in this town. She blushes.
“Sure,” I hear myself say, “she can come.”
Lucy swallows.
And even though nothing happened…
Everything did.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucy
The storm rolls in so fast it’s like someone flipped a switch. Ten minutes ago the snow was pretty—storybook flakes drifting lazily across the pines. Now it’s slamming sideways against my cabin windows like the mountain is shaking itself out.
The power flickers.
Once.
Twice.
Then dies.
Everything goes black.
I stand in the middle of my living room wrapped in a blanket, listening to the wind roar like it’s trying to tear the damn cabin off its foundation. My breath comes out in little white puffs.
“Okay,” I mutter, pulling out my phone to use the flashlight. “Not ideal. But we can improvise.”
Except my phone is at 9%.
I rummage around for the emergency headlamp I saw the day I moved in, and after tripping over a box of ornaments I still haven’t unpacked, I find it.
Headlamp: on. Phone: plugged into a portable charger. Socks: thick, fuzzy, and a humiliation I wouldn’t survive if certain grumpy neighbors saw them. The wind howls harder. The cabin groans. And then a pounding knock rattles the door.
I whirl so fast the headlamp flashes across the walls like a strobe light.
“Lucy!”
Ash’s voice. Deep. Rough. Cutting through the storm like a blade.
My heart leaps straight into my throat.
I fumble with the lock, and when the door swings open, he fills the frame like something carved from the blizzard itself—coat dusted in snow, hair damp and mussed, breath coming out in clouds. He’s the last person I should want to see. He’s the only person I want to see.