Chapter 5
Madison
I wake up alone.
For a moment, I'm disoriented. Wrong ceiling, wrong bed, wrong everything.
Then the memories come flooding back. The storm.
The cabin. Jake Morgan's fingers tracing my jaw in the firelight like he was memorizing me. His thumb brushing across my lip. His voice, rough and honest: I’m trying to talk myself out of something.
Oh God.
I press my hands to my face. I can still feel the ghost of his touch. The way he looked at me when he said it. The way he pulled back like it cost him something.
And then we just... went to sleep. Like two mature adults who definitely weren't lying awake for hours vibrating with unresolved tension.
His side of the bed is empty. Gray light filters through the windows, and the fire has burned down to embers again. The cabin is quiet.
Too quiet.
Then I hear it—a rhythmic thunk from somewhere outside. Wood on wood. I push back the covers and pad to the window, rubbing sleep from my eyes.
My breath catches.
Jake is in the side yard, splitting firewood. Without a shirt.
It's maybe twenty degrees outside. There's still snow on the ground.
And he's standing there in just jeans and boots, swinging an axe like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Steam rises off his skin in the cold air, curling around shoulders that are frankly ridiculous.
His back flexes with each swing, muscles I didn't even know existed shifting under skin that's flushed from exertion.
He sets another log on the stump. Swings. The wood splits clean.
I should look away. I should definitely look away.
I don't look away.
He pauses to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand, and I get a full view of his chest. Defined. Sculpted. Lightly dusted with dark hair that trails down his stomach and disappears into his waistband.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
This is bad. This is very bad. Because last night I could almost convince myself that the attraction was circumstantial. Proximity. Firelight. The intimacy of being stranded together. But watching him now, in the cold light of morning, I have to admit the truth.
I am in so much trouble.
He looks up.
I jerk back from the window, heart pounding. Did he see me? He definitely saw me. I was standing there gawking like a teenager at a boy band concert. Very cool. Very dignified.
I hear him laugh—actually laugh—and I want the floor to swallow me whole.
By the time I've composed myself and made it to the kitchen, he's come back inside. He's put a shirt on, thank God, though he's left it unbuttoned and that's almost worse. He's standing at the stove, and there's a pot of coffee already made from a percolator.
"Morning," he says. There's a smirk in his voice.
"Morning."
I will not acknowledge the window incident. I will take this to my grave.
"Coffee's ready," he says. "Eggs in five."
"Thanks."
I pour myself a cup and lean against the counter, very carefully not looking at the strip of bare chest visible between the open sides of his shirt.
"Sleep okay?" he asks.
"Fine. You?"
"Fine."
We're both lying. The air is thick with everything we're not saying.
He finishes buttoning his shirt, finally, and turns to the stove. He plates the eggs and hands me one, and our fingers brush during the transfer. We both pretend not to notice.
"So," I say as we sit down at the table. "About last night."
"It's fine."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"Doesn't matter." He focuses very intently on his eggs. "We were tired. It was late. People do stupid things when they're stuck in close quarters."
"Stupid things?"
"You know what I mean."
I do know what he means. He's giving me an out. A way to pretend it didn't matter, that it was just proximity and boredom and nothing real.
The smart thing would be to take it.
"Right," I say. "Stupid things. Like touching someone's face in the dark and telling them you’re trying to talk yourself out of something. Classic cabin fever behavior."
He looks up sharply.
"Too soon to joke about it?" I ask.
"I—" He shakes his head, and something that might be a smile tugs at his mouth. "You're something else, you know that?"
"I've been told."
The tension breaks, just a little. We eat our eggs. The silence is still heavy, but it's not unbearable anymore.
*****
After breakfast, Jake announces he's going to check the generator and see if he can get the power back on. I offer to help, but he waves me off.
"It's a one-person job. Make yourself comfortable."
He's out the door before I can argue.
I spend the morning pacing. Reading books I can't focus on. Staring out the window at the snow that's finally starting to slow down.
I think about last night. About his touch. The way he looked at me in the firelight.
I think about going home and never seeing him again.
The thought shouldn't bother me as much as it does.
Around noon, Jake comes back inside, stamping snow off his boots. "Generator's shot. But the power company says they're working on the lines. Should have electricity by tonight."
"That's good news."
"Yeah." He strips off his gloves. "I'm going to check the driveway. See how much I need to dig out."
"I'll come with you."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." I'm already reaching for my coat. "I've been inside all morning. I'm going stir-crazy."
He looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn't. We bundle up and head outside together.
The world is white.
I've seen snow before. Plenty of times. But this is different. This is snow like a blanket, snow that's transformed the landscape into something alien and beautiful.
"Wow," I breathe.
"Yeah."
Jake is watching me watch the snow. When I glance at him, he looks away.
We trudge toward the driveway. Or where the driveway should be. It's buried under at least three feet of white.
"That's going to be fun to dig out," I say.
"We'll manage."
The path is narrow, tamped down by Jake's earlier trips outside. We walk single file, me behind him, stepping in his footprints.
We're about halfway down when it happens.
I step on a patch of ice hidden under the snow. My foot goes out from under me, and I have just enough time to think this is going to hurt before I'm falling.
But I don't hit the ground.
Jake turns at my yelp, and suddenly his arms are around me, catching me mid-fall. He pulls me upright, and the momentum carries me forward, into his chest.
We freeze.
I'm pressed against him from knee to shoulder. His arms are locked around my waist. My hands are fisted in the front of his jacket. We're both breathing hard. Mine from the near-fall, his from... something else.
"You okay?" His voice is rough.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm—"
I look up.
He's so close. Inches away. I can see the individual snowflakes caught in his eyelashes, the fog of his breath in the cold air.
"Madison," he says.
It sounds like a warning. It sounds like a prayer.
"Yeah?"
"Tell me to let go."
I should. I know I should. We've been dancing around this for two days, and the smart thing—the sensible thing—would be to step back and laugh it off and pretend my heart isn't trying to beat out of my chest.
But I'm tired of being sensible.
"No," I say.
And he kisses me.
His mouth is cold from the winter air, but it warms fast. I make a sound—surprise, maybe, or relief—and then I’m kissing him back, his hand sliding up to cup the back of my head.
He kisses like he does everything else. Deliberate. Intense. Like I'm the only thing in the world worth paying attention to.
I forget about the cold. Forget about the snow. Forget about everything except the taste of him and the way his fingers tangle in my hair. The way this kiss feels unlike any kiss I’ve had before.
When we finally break apart, we're both gasping.
"That was—" I start.
"Yeah."
"We should probably—"
"Yeah."
We stare at each other. His eyes are dark, his lips red from kissing, and he looks as wrecked as I feel.
"Inside?" he suggests.
"Inside," I agree.
We don't make it past the front door.
The second we're through, he's pushing me against the wall, his mouth finding mine again. I grab at his jacket, yanking it open, needing to feel more of him. He groans against my lips and presses closer, and I can feel exactly how much he wants this.
"Wait," I gasp. "Wait, we should—"
"Talk?" He's kissing down my neck. "We can talk later."
"I was going to say slow down."
He stops. Pulls back. His eyes meet mine, and I see him wrestling with himself: the want, the hesitation, the same war I've been fighting since last night.
"Do you want to slow down?" he asks.
I think about it. Really think about it.
"No," I admit. "I don’t."