Chapter 9 Colette
Colette
Inside, the quiet hit harder than the cold ever had. The wind dulled to a low hum against the walls. The fire had burned itself down to a red pulse, barely holding.
I toed off my boots and watched him do the same, both of us dripping onto the floorboards. His coat came off in one practiced motion, snow scattering as it fell, and for a second I just stood there, watching the steam rise from his shoulders where the heat met the wet.
He noticed. Of course he did.
“You’re soaked,” he said, voice roughened by cold. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
“You sound like my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother didn’t drag you into a blizzard while looking for a dead generator.”
I smiled — something small, something that shouldn’t have felt like a dare. “You didn’t have to save me.”
He looked at me then, really looked. A look that starts soft and ends sharp. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”
My pulse tripped.
He moved past me toward the fire, crouched low, and started feeding it bits of kindling. His shoulders flexed beneath his shirt, and I had to look away before I stared too long.
When the flames caught, he sat back on his heels, hands outstretched toward the warmth. “Come closer,” he said without looking up.
I hesitated, then stepped into the glow. The air between us hummed, alive with the kind of heat that had nothing to do with fire.
“Better?” he asked.
“I’d say so.”
He glanced up — eyes dark, focused — and for a moment neither of us moved. The drip of melted snow from my hair traced the curve of my jaw, and his gaze followed it like it mattered.
“You’ve got to get out of these clothes,” his voice broke through the silence.
I looked up, pulse jumping. “Excuse me?”
He froze halfway through wringing out his sleeve. “You’re soaked,” he said a little too quickly. “You’ll get sick if you stay in those clothes too long. There’s no path for the EMTs to save you from hypothermia.”
“Oh.” I blinked at him, fighting a smile. “Right. Of course. The practical thing.”
“Right.” He stared down at the floorboards like they were suddenly fascinating. “I have extra sweats, thicker than the flimsy shit you brought.”
I raised a brow. “You’re very traditional for a man who rented a one-room cabin.”
“I wasn’t planning on having company.”
“Neither was I,” I said, tugging lightly at the hem of my sweatshirt. Water dripped to the floor. “Guess that makes two of us.”
He didn’t answer. Just watched me for a second too long before turning to his duffle bag. His shoulders were tight, his jaw tighter.
I took my time peeling off the damp layers, the air cool against my skin. Tossing each piece aside, I could feel him trying not to look, could feel it in the way his breath hitched when I brushed past to hang my clothes near the fire.
I stood there, practically bare before him, and his eyes were still glued to his bag.
He shifted, back to me as I dared him to look. As I stood there, in nothing but my underwear, my heart raced. “There,” I said softly. “All dry.”
“Good.” He cleared his throat, handing a pile of clothes my way without looking. “Here, appropriate clothing.”
“There’s nothing appropriate about this.” I snatched the clothes, letting my fingers linger over his for just a moment. “Your turn, hotshot.”
He glanced back over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifting. “My turn?”
“You’re drenched too. Unless you’re planning on proving your own point about getting sick.”
A small smile ghosted his mouth — barely there, but it lit something in him I hadn’t seen before. “You’re relentless.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
He hesitated, then tugged his sweater over his head. The motion was all economy, no pretense, but my breath still caught. The neck of the fabric dipped into a V, causing his skin to gleam faintly in the firelight, pale against the dark fabric.
“Happy now?” he asked, voice low as his eyes snagged on mine.
I tilted my head, nodding to his own wet pants. “Getting there.”
The corner of his mouth quirked higher, but he didn’t rise to it. Just hung his sweater by the hearth, then crouched again to coax the flames higher. The fire flared, lighting the curve of his shoulders, the slow movement of his hands.
He fumbled with the tie on his pants, tongue darting out to wet his lips as his eyes found mine again. “Want to take a picture, Colette?”
I wrapped the blanket tighter, half for warmth, half to keep from reaching out. “Was that a joke, hotshot?”
He looked up suddenly, eyes catching mine. “You’re staring.”
“So are you.”
The silence that followed was small but electric — like the second before lightning hits, when the world forgets how to breathe.
His mouth twitched, but he didn’t look away. “Maybe I’m just making sure you don’t faint.”
“From what, exactly?”
“Hypothermia,” he said after a beat, too flatly to be believable.
The corner of my lip curved. “Sure.”
He stood then, slow and deliberate, and for the first time I noticed just how much space he took up — how the room seemed smaller around him, quieter.
His hair was damp, curling a little at the ends; his shoulders gleamed faintly from the firelight.
He moved with a kind of stoicism that came from knowing exactly what he was doing, even when pretending otherwise.
I tried not to stare again. Failed miserably.
“I was right,” I said, mostly to fill the silence.
“About?”
“You do look better warm.”
That earned me the faintest sound — almost a laugh, if he’d let it be. “And you,” he said, his eyes flicking briefly toward where the blanket had slipped against my collarbone, “look like trouble.”
“Guess that makes us even.”
He huffed out a quiet breath, shaking his head.