Chapter Six
Carson
The cabin was warm when I stepped inside, only because the heater had been running nonstop since morning, but it still felt foreign.
A small wooden space with a twin bed, a kitchenette, and just enough elbow room to feel more than luxurious.
Most seasonal guide accommodations were lucky to include a mattress and a fire extinguisher.
This place? It was a high-class suite in comparison.
But the moment I closed the door behind me, the silence rushed in too quickly. It pressed against my ears, heavy and empty. It was yet another reminder that solitude wasn’t always the clean escape I told myself it was.
Sienna had shown me the gear shed that was more like a huge garage compared to most places. But it had taken longer than it should have, mostly because the Harper family had stocked gear as if they expected to guide twenty guests at once instead of five.
Rows of backpacks, neatly folded tents, waterproofing spray, two full shelves of first-aid kits, four sizes of crampons, coils of rope, solar lanterns, fuel tabs, and enough wool socks to warm the feet of a small army.
Honestly, it was impressive. Even if some sections looked like someone had quickly shoved gear out of sight before a surprise inspection, it was chaotic, but it could be slimmed down and organized without too much effort.
“It is not that bad,” Sienna had insisted, pushing aside a precarious tower of snowshoes that immediately tried to fall on her.
“It needs organization,” I said.
“It needs love,” she corrected, dodging a tumbling helmet.
I caught it before it hit her head, and she flushed, not because of the near-injury, but because she’d made an ungraceful noise when it fell. A chirp snort? It was hard to say what it actually was.
“It’s fine,” she’d said again, eyes wide. “It’s… controlled chaos.”
I didn’t argue, not because I agreed, but because watching her flit around the cramped space, explaining why each shelf was arranged the way it was, made it easier to let her talk.
She thrived on motion, energy, and filling the air with words when she wasn’t quite sure what to do with her hands. I related more than I wanted to admit.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain, I found myself listening to her as if it mattered.
The way her braid swung when she turned too fast. The way her expression shifted when she talked about past groups.
The fondness in her voice when she described a trail she cared about as if it were a living thing.
All those things dug deep and rested just under the surface of all my thoughts, and that was unnerving.
It had been a long day. A good day, I could admit that.
She was knowledgeable, capable, and imaginative.
She made jokes under her breath that she probably thought I didn’t hear.
She mumbled apologies every time she thought she got too close to me in the narrow aisles of the shed.
And every time she did, I felt something warm roll through me that I pretended wasn’t happening.
I barely remembered the walk back to the cabin. I had been too busy thinking about the schedules pinned to the bulletin board by the door. The list of upcoming hikes and multi-day tours we’d be leading.
Training for six trips.
Six weeks.
Six stretches of time where Sienna and I would be miles from town with nothing but trees and sky and the unpredictable behaviors of paying tourists.
Together.
Only together.
And I had not expected that thought to hit me in the stomach the way it did.
I pulled off my gloves, tossed them on the counter, and paced the small length of the cottage. My boots thudded softly against the floor, snow melting in small puddles under the heat vent.
I tried to focus on the gear list in my hand. Tents that needed checking. Stoves that needed new fittings. Ropes that needed to be retired soon. The lodge might have been stocked to the rafters with equipment, but a few things required hands-on inspection.
That was what I should have been thinking about. The job. The logistics.
But my mind kept diverting in one direction.
Her.
The way she tripped over her words when she got flustered. The way she ducked her head when Abby teased her in the coffee shop. The way she laughed today, loudly and unexpectedly, after I told her about the scented-candle hiker from last fall.
That sound was still lodged in my ears.
It was all too sweet and too real. And I worried it was too much like something I’d let myself get used to if I wasn’t careful.
And I was supposed to be careful.
I sat on the edge of the bed and scrubbed my hands over my face. The heater rattled in the corner. The cottage smelled faintly of pine, dust, and old coffee. But underneath all of that, I could feel the beginning of something I didn’t want.
Interest.
Curiosity.
Attraction I didn’t have room for.
Nothing about this job was meant to be complicated. Guiding outdoor trips was simple. Predictable. Humans, on the other hand, never were, which was why I avoided emotional entanglements as a rule.
It was why I stayed seasonal.
Why I moved every few months.
Why I kept things inside until they had nowhere else to go.
And yet here I was, thinking about the way Sienna looked at the trail map like she was planning a heist. Wondering if she laughed like that around everyone, or if somehow, I had drawn it out of her.
Ridiculous.
I needed clarity and distance. A reminder of why I did not let myself get pulled into things that had strings attached.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, stared at it for a long moment, then did something I hadn’t done in almost a month.
I called my brother.
He answered on the third ring with a confused grunt. “Carson?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?” he asked immediately.
I almost hung up, but I forced myself to answer. “Fine.”
“You don’t call. Ever. Not unless something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong,” I said firmly.
He let out a skeptical breath. “So you’re calling to… chat?”
I had no idea how to chat.
“I just wanted to check in,” I lied.
He snorted. “Bull. What’s going on?”
I exhaled and glanced at the gear list again. I could admit small things. Maybe.
“I started the new job today.”
“Good. How’s the lodge?”
“Busy.”
“Remote?”
“Somewhat.”
He waited. “And the team?”
I rubbed my palm over my jaw. “There is no team. It is me. And… someone else.”
“A co-guide?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. And?”
“And it’s… complicated.”
My brother laughed, loud and disbelieving. “Carson, do you hear yourself? You’re being vague. Weirdly vague. Which means either you’re injured, the place is a cult, or there’s a woman involved.”
I didn’t answer.
He cackled. “It’s a woman.”
“It is not,” I said, which was exactly what someone who knew it absolutely was would say.
“Right. So tell me about her.”
“There is nothing to tell.”
“She pretty?”
I closed my eyes.
Big mistake.
Pretty was too small a word. Beautiful didn’t quite fit either. Sienna was… alive.
Vibrant.
She was the kind of person who made a room feel brighter just by existing inside it. I had worked with numerous guides in my life, countless hikers, limitless strong, capable people who made the outdoors their home.
But she was something different.
And that difference pressed at my ribs in a way I didn’t want.
My brother let out a slow whistle. “Wow. That’s a silence if I ever heard one.”
I gripped the phone harder. “There is nothing happening.”
“But something is trying,” he said.
“No,” I replied sharply.
“Why not?”
Because I couldn’t. Because I didn’t do that anymore. Because feelings had a way of turning into disasters that I no longer had the energy to clean up. Because I had learned the hard way that the people you let in could take things with them when they left.
“She is my coworker,” I said stiffly.
“Not a good enough reason.”
“She is loud,” I added.
“Fun.”
“She is chaotic.”
“Interesting.”
“She is—” I stopped myself before I said something I couldn’t take back.
My brother hummed. “You like her.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“I do not.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am trained not to lie.”
“You are lying right now.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and stared at the ceiling. “Even if I did, which I don’t, this is not a good idea.”
“You said that last time.”
“And I was right.”
He went quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that meant he was thinking about things we didn’t talk about anymore.
I swallowed. “This is different.”
“Yeah,” he said finally. “Sounds like it.”
I forced a breath. “I called you because I thought you would tell me to stay focused. To avoid complications. To keep distance. That is what you usually say.”
“That is what I say when you’re jumping into something reckless,” he replied. “But it doesn’t sound like you’re even jumping. It sounds like you’re scared to walk.”
That hit too close.
He let out a slow breath. “Carson, you keep everyone at arm’s length because you think that makes you safe, but sometimes it just makes you lonely.”
I didn’t answer.
I clenched my jaw. “You’re not being helpful.”
“Then let me be clear,” he said. “You are allowed to want things. You are allowed to feel things. You are allowed to have a connection without assuming the worst outcome.”
His voice softened. “You deserve something good, Carson.”
I stared at the floor, at the melted snow pooling by my boots.
Something good.
I wasn’t sure what that meant anymore.
But Sienna’s laugh filled my mind again. That bright spark. That unexpected pull.
“It is not that simple,” I said quietly.
“It never is,” he replied. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying. Go on some hikes, learn about her. Maybe she’ll annoy you in the first week, and you won’t even have to worry about it.”
I didn’t respond. Not for a long moment.
Eventually, my brother sighed and added, “Call me anytime. Even if it’s weird.”
“It’s always weird.”
He laughed. “Yeah. I noticed. Goodnight, man.”
“Goodnight.”
The call ended.
The cabin was silent again.
Only now, the silence didn’t feel empty.
It felt full, heavy, and laced with the unsettling truth that my brother had just done the exact opposite of what I had intended.
Instead of talking me out of being curious, he had accidentally nudged me toward it.
I leaned back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Six trips.
Side by side.
Sienna Harper’s laugh echoing through the trees, her energy filling the air, her presence tugging at the parts of me I’d tried to bury.
I didn’t want this.
But the thought of being out there in the wilderness with her—
I closed my eyes.
Possibly the first mistake of the season had already been made.
And it wasn’t hers.
It was mine.
Letting her get under my skin.