Chapter 3
Colette
He said my name like it meant something. My whole name.
Like he wasn’t just repeating it, but tasting it.
A little shiver ran down my spine. Nobody had done that in a long time.
Hell — nobody even called me Colette. Not even my parents.
I busied myself with wiping the counter that didn’t need wiping, pretending not to feel how hot my skin went under the collar of my sweatshirt.
“So, Silas Reed,” I said — half to fill the silence, half to confirm it wasn’t just some bizarre coincidence. “You really are that Silas Reed? The one with the tortured men and tragic endings?”
He gave a quiet hum, half amusement, half weariness. “Unfortunately.”
“Well,” I said, tossing the rag in the sink, “that explains the brooding.”
His mouth twitched — not quite a smile, but close. “You’ve read my work.”
“Regrettably,” I said too fast, too sharp. His eyes lifted to mine, steady and unreadable, and something in my chest tripped over itself. “I mean — yes. Years ago. Book club. A phase.”
“Tragic endings were a phase?”
“No,” I muttered. “Men who made me cry in public as a teenager were.”
The wind howled outside, rattling the windowpanes like a warning. The lights flickered, then held steady again, and for a second neither of us moved. “A teenager?” The knot in his throat bobbed. “I only published my last… successful book a decade ago.”
It wasn’t quite a grin that crossed my face, but it wasn’t… not a grin. “Yeah, you did.” I busied myself with the tangled decorations in my hands. “And I read it on the bus during my senior year of high school.”
“That makes you, what?” His voice was rough — gravel.
“Twenty-eight. Didn’t realize authors couldn’t do basic math.”
He glanced toward the fireplace, adjusting his glasses that sat on his nose. “You’re going to need that started soon.”
“I was getting to it.”
“Allow me.”
“Right,” I said. “Because what would Christmas be without a brooding stranger taking over my firewood?”
He crouched anyway, methodical, focused — gloved hands stacking logs with the quiet precision of someone who needed something to do with his hands.
And for the first time since he’d stepped through that door, I let myself look at him properly.
Older than I’d expected — maybe late forties — with lines at the corners of his eyes that hinted at too many sleepless nights and too few smiles. He wasn’t handsome in a glossy way. More like… magnetic. There was almost a wildness in his eyes.
And God help me, I think that was worse.
When he struck the match and the fire flared to life, the room filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature.
He straightened, brushing ash from his palms. “That’s better,” he said simply.
I nodded, pretending the pounding in my chest was from the caffeine and not from the way he filled this tiny cabin like he owned it. I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter, trying to look equally unbothered.
I knew I was failing.
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” I huffed before I could stop myself.
He looked up then — slow, steady — and something flickered in his expression, faint but impossible to miss. “I didn’t say you did.”
“So,” I said, after another pointed silence, “you’ll call another taxi, and they’ll come pick you up. Easy fix.”
Silas glanced toward the window, where the snow was thickening fast — a soft white blur swallowing everything beyond the porch. “I don’t think anyone’s getting up that hill tonight.”
I gave a small, brittle laugh. “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. People drive in snow all the time.”
“They do,” he said evenly. “Just not on a single-lane road in the mountains. Not without any cell reception.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. The room suddenly felt too small, the shadows too alive. Something that might have been close to a smile crossed his features.
“Did you miss the lack of phone service, Colette?”
“Cole,” I corrected him again. “So you’re saying we’re stuck.”
“I’m saying,” he replied, crouching to adjust a log, “that you should get comfortable.”
I hated how calm he sounded. How certain. Like this was just another inconvenience, like he hadn’t just detonated my perfectly planned, perfectly lonely weekend.
The silence after that was heavy enough to feel. I turned away, pretending to straighten the lights, to do anything with my hands. “Well, you should know I rarely invite strange men to share my Christmas.”
“I’d imagine not,” he murmured. “You don’t look the type.”
His voice was soft — the kind of tone that made you feel seen whether you wanted to be or not. The kind of tone that used to belong to someone else.
I swallowed hard. “You can take the couch.”
“How generous of you,” he said. “I’ll try not to intrude.”
“Too late,” I muttered.
But when I glanced at him again — hair damp from melted snow, coat slung over the chair, sleeves pushed up — he didn’t look like an intruder.
He looked… like someone who’d been exiled. Someone who knew how it felt to lose something and keep walking, anyway. The fire popped. Outside, the storm deepened. And in that little cabin, wrapped in tinsel and quiet, I told myself he’d be gone by morning.
Even though deep down I already knew better.