Chapter Sixteen
Carson
By the time I reached my cabin at Honey Leaf Lodge, the morning snow had tapered to a fine mist. I brushed it from my shoulders before stepping inside, kicking the door shut behind me.
The cabin exhaled the way empty places do — quietly, waiting. It smelled faintly of the coffee I’d made days before leaving for the dry run, mixed with cold air and the lemon oil someone had used on the wooden counters. Everything was clean, sparsely furnished, exactly how I liked it.
But the moment I dropped my pack near the bed, the silence didn’t settle the way it normally did.
It pressed inside my chest instead.
It felt as if the room expected me to explain why my chest felt strangely full.
I walked to the window and started peeling off my jacket. The quiet rustle of fabric filled the space, followed by the dull thump as I hung it on the hook by the door.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, letting the last twenty-four hours unspool in my mind.
The bear.
The wolves.
Her slipping on the ice near the lake.
Her catching herself before I could.
The snow that came out of nowhere.
Her reflection.
Her walls.
My own walls slamming up in response.
Her voice through the tent fabric last night was fragile and honest in a way she probably hadn’t meant to let slip.
That’s the scariest part.
Everything had felt slightly unreal, as if the world tilted just enough to make normal reactions harder to find.
And it was like the mama bear returning with her cubs was an omen. Time to start over back at the lodge without all those feelings roaring up on a trail somewhere.
And Sienna…
I didn’t know how someone could be so soft and sharp at the same time, so bright and so guarded, so determined to show she didn’t need anyone while giving herself away in tiny cracks she never meant to show.
Yesterday, she’d looked at me like I was something dangerous without being sure if that danger was weather or fire.
I dragged a hand over my jaw, feeling the roughness of stubble. The heater hummed faintly in the corner, pushing warmth into the room, but it didn’t do much for the cold still sitting under my ribs.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this unsettled.
Not by a woman.
Not by anyone.
Not after the life I’d already lived.
I stood and paced a slow line between the bed and the kitchenette, boots still on, jacket half unzipped. My thoughts moved backward before I could stop them, straight to the part of my past I avoided unless something forced it to the surface.
My parents’ faces flickered up first.
Not as I’d last seen them, that memory was useless and cold and jagged along the edges, but as they’d looked before the accident.
My mom was kneeling in the dirt of her garden, her hair tied back with a bandana, waving me over to show me the first tomatoes of summer.
My dad chopping wood in the backyard, pausing every few minutes to yell at my brother for trying to sneak marshmallows before dinner.
I’d been in my twenties when we lost them. Old enough to understand the logistics of grief. Too young to understand the weight of it.
And my brother, four years younger, had looked at me with eyes that said, You’re the only person I have left now. Don’t screw it up.
So I didn’t.
I handled the funeral.
The estate.
The debts.
The paperwork.
The long nights when the house was too quiet except for his breathing down the hall.The mornings when he pretended he didn’t hear me cry in the shower.
For the next few years, I kept everything together the way I assumed a parent would, even if I had no idea what that meant. I took jobs that paid quickly, saved every cent, kept food in the fridge, kept him in school, kept the world spinning.
And at the same time…
I fell in love.
Her name was Erica. She had a laugh that spilled into rooms before she reached the doorway, a wild streak she never apologized for, and a way of making everything feel like it mattered. She was sunlight after a long storm, exactly the kind of person I shouldn’t have let close.
I didn’t intend to.
She got close anyway.
Too close.
For a while, she seemed okay with sharing me with responsibility. With grief. With my brother’s needs. But eventually the cracks strained, then widened, then split.
She wanted a partner.
Not a surrogate father.
Not someone who said “maybe” every time she asked about the future. Not someone who lived half in his past and half in his obligations.
One night, without warning, she said she couldn’t do it anymore.
Her exact words burned into my memory.
I want a man, Carson. Not a guardian.
She wasn’t cruel. Just honest. She thought honesty softened the blow.
It didn’t.
After she left, I learned something about myself I wasn’t proud of:
When I lost people, I didn’t break evenly.
I shattered quietly.
Inward.
Neat pieces.
Easy to hide.
Impossible to repair.
I became good at one thing — being alone.
Not lonely. Just alone.
Solitude settled into me like frost finding cracks in the earth. It felt predictable. Safe. The fewer attachments I had, the fewer ways life could tear open the ground beneath my feet again.
So I built a life that required no one.
Seasonal work.
Guiding trips.
No relationships.
No fixed address.
No one who depended on me.
And no one for me to lose.
Until I walked into Honey Leaf Lodge and found a woman who refused to fit into any of the rules I’d made for myself over the years.
I rubbed my palms over my face and sank into the chair near the small wooden table.
Sienna Harper was not part of the plan.
She was chaos tucked into a confident smile. She was warmth with a stubborn streak. She had the skill set of someone twice her size and ten times the courage. She laughed like she’d never been hurt and protected herself like she always had been.
And I had no business feeling anything toward her except professional respect.
The problem was, I respected her too much.
And I felt too much.
The bear encounters had been instinctive. Any guide would’ve stepped forward. But the wolves… that moment between them… I’d stepped toward her before the pack even registered us.
Then this morning, when the snow began falling, and she stood beside me at the lake, breath fogging softly, cheeks flushed with cold, eyes too open for her own comfort—
I’d stepped closer again.
Closer than I’d meant to.
Closer than was smart.
It was like something in me recognized her before I gave it permission.
I ground my heel against the wooden floor, trying to push the thought away. But it stayed. It lingered. It hovered in the silence.
I moved my head back against the chair.
“What are you doing?” I muttered to the empty room. “You should know better.”
Maybe that was the part that bothered me the most. It was the idea that I wasn’t in control the way I used to be.
That something about her made parts of me come alive I’d packed away years ago.
Something about her made solitude feel less like a sanctuary and more like a shield I was suddenly tired of holding.
Dangerous thinking.
Very dangerous.
I stood and walked to the window. The snow had stopped falling, leaving the woods outside dusted in white, branches sagging lightly. The morning light had strengthened into a sharper gold.
Everything looked calm.
But something in the air felt unsettled.
Not the weather.
Me.
I moved into the small bathroom to wash my face. Cold water steadied me. It usually did. I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a long moment, watching droplets run from my hairline down my cheek.
I looked tired, but that wasn’t new.
What was new was the faint, almost reluctant edge of hopefulness I saw. Something I had no idea how to deal with.
I shut off the water and braced both hands on the sink.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” I muttered.
The mirror didn’t argue.
Back in the main room, I crouched beside my gear, unbuckling the straps and unpacking the equipment from the dry run. My hands moved automatically, checking zippers, testing buckles, keeping myself busy so my mind had less room to wander.
I set aside the stove, counted fuel containers, inspected the tent poles, and rolled the sleeping bag tighter. I did everything I’d do after any trip, even though part of me knew this wasn’t any trip.
Too many moments inside those twenty-four hours were still echoing.
Her voice by the lake: It feels different.
Her whisper last night: That’s the scariest part.
Her breath catching when she slipped.
Her blush when I brought her coffee.
Her eyes lifting when the first snowflake landed on her lashes.
My heart did that strange pull in my chest again.
I pushed the sleeping bag into its sack harder than necessary.
Calm down.
It was a dry run.
A stressful day.
A surreal one.
Anyone would feel rattled.
Anyone would want steadiness after facing a bear, wolves, and unexpected weather.
And I was simply the nearest steady thing.
That was all.
I repeated the thought a few times, waiting for it to feel true.
It didn’t.
I packed the last of the gear away and straightened, rolling my shoulders. My back cracked lightly, a reminder that sleep hadn’t done much for me last night. I exhaled and scrubbed my hand over the back of my neck again.
Sienna had asked me something yesterday.
Something I never answered.
Any guides you’ve worked closely with? Anyone you stayed in contact with?
I’d kept my reply simple.
No.
She probably thought it meant I didn’t trust people.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
Trusting someone meant they could leave.
Meant they could shatter things.
Meant I’d need to rebuild from scratch.
And I wasn’t strong enough for that twice in one lifetime.
But then she’d looked at me by the firelight like she wanted to understand the pieces of me, like she wasn’t afraid of the shadows behind my answers, and I’d felt something inside me hesitate.
Not open.
Just… hesitate.
For the first time in years.
A sharp knock broke through the quiet.
I straightened, pulse tightening unexpectedly.
Another knock, firmer this time.
Then silence.
I turned toward the door, heart steadying itself in slow, deliberate beats.
And stepped forward.