Chapter 4 Scarlett
SCARLETT
The storm had eased up a bit, but the ache in my chest hadn’t. By late afternoon, it was still snowing, a lazy, drifting kind of snowfall that looked pretty but didn’t hide the fact that I was trapped…. in this cabin…. with him… with everything I thought I’d buried suddenly staring me in the face.
I stood near the big front window, cradling a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold.
Kingston had given me space since I came out of the bedroom.
He stayed quiet, busying himself with keeping the fire going, lighting a lantern so we didn’t overpower the generator, and checking the food supply.
It was like he knew I wasn’t ready for more words. Not yet.
And I wasn’t. Because the letter still sat in my pocket, and I didn’t know what to do with the way it had wrecked me.
“You should eat something,” he said, his voice coming from the kitchen.
I didn’t turn. “I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t had anything but that sandwich earlier.”
“I’m too busy emotionally combusting to eat.”
He didn’t answer, but I sensed him crossing the room, slow and careful, like he knew any sudden move might set me off. He didn’t get too close but stood nearby, close enough that I could smell the cedar and smoke clinging to his skin.
“You look cold,” he said.
I lifted my chin. “I’m fine.”
“You’re always fine,” he murmured, not accusing, not pitying. Just stating a truth only he’d ever been allowed to see.
The sweatshirt I still wore hung heavy, comforting and dangerous all at once. “Do you ever regret it?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.
He didn’t pretend not to know what I meant. “Every day.”
My throat tightened.
“But I still think I made the right choice,” he added.
That snapped something in me. “Right for who?”
He flinched.
“You left me,” I said, voice low and cutting. “And maybe I could’ve healed from that. But then you stayed gone. You got out, what, two years ago?”
“I didn’t know how to come back so I didn’t. The only reason I came back now is because of Kacen. He’s going to start working with me, and I wanted to be close by to get him started.”
“So you’ll come back for your brother, but you never even thought of reaching out to me?” The air between us turned thick. I looked away before I did something stupid like cry again. Or punch him.
“I didn’t want to make things worse for you. Ruby gave me updates from time to time. Said you were voted Teacher of the Year three times in a row at the elementary school. I didn’t want to rock the boat.”
I let out a laugh. “You didn’t ‘rock the boat,’ you capsized it.”
“I’m sorry.” He studied a spot on the floor a few feet away. “Do you still walk?”
I turned, my brows furrowed. “What?”
“In the mornings. Before school. You used to walk past my house.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “Sometimes. Not as much.”
“You used to swing your arms when you walked fast,” he said. “Like you were marching into battle.”
“I still do that.”
His mouth tipped up at the corner. “Yeah. I figured.”
I didn’t mean to laugh. But it slipped out, short and small and real, erasing a little bit of the tension.
“We could clear the porch,” he offered. “Might as well make use of the daylight. Unless you’d rather—”
“No.” I set my mug down on a table by the window. “Let’s go outside.”
The cold nipped at my cheeks, but the sky had lightened to a pale winter gray. We shoveled snow in silence, side by side. The rhythm of it, the crunch and scrape and exhale, felt almost normal.
“Remember when we built a fort behind the school after that huge blizzard?” I asked.
He looked over. “You made it a castle.”
“I demanded a throne.”
“You made Kacen and me sit in it and call you queen.” Kingston smiled, slow and soft.
It was too easy to fall into the old cadence. Too easy to let my guard down a little. When we were done and he took the shovel from me, his fingers brushed mine. Even with gloves on, the jolt that shot through me wasn’t from the cold.
“Scarlett,” he said, barely above a whisper.
I looked up. His eyes met mine, and for one breathless second, we were teenagers again. Standing on the edge of everything, aching for more. He leaned in slightly. I swayed toward him. And then I blinked and stepped back.
Not yet. Not like this.
He didn’t try to follow through. Just nodded once and looked away.
Back inside, I warmed my hands by the fire while he made something on the stove that smelled like garlic and a little slice of heaven. My stomach growled, loud enough that he looked over.
“You sure you’re not hungry?”
I gave him a flat look.
“Thought so.” He placed a bowl in front of me a few minutes later. Pasta, perfectly seasoned. A piece of bread on the side. I didn’t want to thank him. But I did anyway.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
I ate slowly, letting the warmth seep through me while I watched him from the corner of my eye. He’d changed so much. Life had forged him into something hard, but the tenderness was still there, tucked underneath all the guilt.
“I used to dream about you,” I said.
He froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Oh, yeah?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking.” I almost smiled, imagining the first place his thoughts took him.
“Tell me about it.”
“Sometimes it was your voice. Or your laugh. Or the way you always sat behind me in homeroom and kicked my chair during announcements.”
He smiled. “You always looked like you were gonna turn around and kill me.”
“I still might.”
He chuckled. “Fair.”
I set my fork down, the food forgotten. “You haunted me.”
“I haunted myself.”
The fire popped. He leaned closer, making my breath catch.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” he said. “But I want to try.”
I shook my head. “You don’t get to try because the snow won’t let me leave.”
“I’m not saying this has to be now.” He hesitated. “But if there’s even a chance you don’t hate me…”
I stared at him. At the way his eyes begged. At the way his shoulders were hunched like he was bracing for a blow. “I don’t hate you,” I said.
“Then what do you feel?”
“Everything.”
His hand found mine, and I didn’t pull away.
Later, after the sun went down and the shadows stretched long across the room, I sat on the couch with a book I couldn’t focus on while the fire crackled and Kingston moved around the kitchen like he didn’t want to interrupt the peace we’d found.
He poured us each a glass of wine. Brought me mine without speaking. His fingers brushed mine again. The same jolt rocketed through me, but I ignored it.
“Why wine?” I asked.
“It was supposed to be for Thanksgiving.”
“You spent it alone?”
“Every year.”
“Because of me?”
“Because I don’t think I deserve more.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. He’d already spent years serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, and he was still punishing himself. “You do.”
He looked up so quickly that his gaze met mine before he could hide the hope in his eyes.
I set my glass down. “You do, Kingston. Even if I want to scream and slap you sometimes… I know you didn’t do what you did to hurt me.”
He closed the space between us. I didn’t move.
“You were the only good thing I had,” he said, his voice wrecked. “And I didn’t think I deserved to keep you.”
My breath caught as I stared up at him.
“You still look at me like I’m worth saving,” he whispered. “Even after everything.”
“Maybe because of everything,” I whispered.
He reached out, brushing a curl back from my cheek. My hand found his wrist. Our breaths tangled. Then he kissed me. His lips were slow and reverent at first. Then he pressed harder, taking the kiss deeper. Like he’d waited way too long for this and wasn’t wasting another second.
I gasped against his mouth. My hands threaded into his hair. He pressed me back into the cushions, careful and intense at the same time, groaning when I pulled him closer. There were no storms to blame this time. No danger outside the window.
Only us. Only everything we’d lost. And everything we still wanted.