Chapter Eighteen
Carson
The Hungry Buck was louder than I expected.
It wasn’t rowdy, but it was alive and buzzing and somehow cozy.
It had a distinct Northwoods vibe. The place glowed with warm amber light reflecting off knotty-pine walls and hanging antler sconces.
The scent of woodsmoke and grilled walleye drifted through the dining room, tangled with the sweetness of brandy from the bar.
Families filled the vinyl booths, laughter rising above the clatter of ice in tumblers.
This was a real supper club, and I felt like someone had dropped me into the center of a postcard that was a little too picturesque, too warm, and too welcoming in a way that made something under my ribs ache.
The Harper family, naturally, fit right in.
Beck barreled ahead, waving at half the room like the mayor of Buttercup Lake. Fiona walked next to Violet, and Violet’s partner, Owen, looped his arm through hers. They ordered the first round before we even reached the bar.
And Sienna…
I tried not to look at her. I failed within two seconds.
She wore dark jeans and a fitted cream sweater that hugged her in ways that made my pulse thrum a little too hard.
Her hair was down, falling in soft waves around her shoulders, catching the light every time she moved.
She laughed easily, her voice slipping into the noise of the supper club. It just felt right…too right.
I kept my hands tucked in my jacket pockets and reminded myself this was socializing, not a date. In fact, it was more of a business obligation than an invitation to complications.
But she was radiant in a way that tugged at my attention every few seconds.
“Carson!” Beck shoved a cocktail menu in front of me. “Pick your poison. First round’s on me.”
“Hey, there’s Ben,” Fifi said, grinning and waving over her guy.
I glanced at Sienna, noticing how everyone was paired up…but us.
She glanced at me and grinned, and I had a feeling she was thinking the same thing, so I turned my attention to the menu.
It was all Brandy Old Fashioneds, ice cream drinks, and a list of cocktails, proudly unchanged since 1972.
“Brandy, Old-fashioned sweet. House cherries. Don’t you dare order it wrong,” Violet instructed.
I nodded toward the bartender. “Exactly what she said.”
The bartender grinned and disappeared to make it.
Sienna stood across from me near the wooden bar railing, laughing as Fiona tried to explain the correct way to prepare a relish tray to a group of tourists.
Sienna caught me staring and froze for a moment, just long enough that something ignited between us again.
Damn.
Beck slung his arm across my shoulders. “So, man, you liking Buttercup Lake?”
“I am,” I said honestly.
He grinned. “Good. Just wait until you try the Friday fish fry. Almost worth selling your soul for.”
“Good to know,” I said.
He laughed and waved the menu. “Trust me.”
Our drinks arrived, and Violet lifted her glass first.
“To surviving wolf packs,” she toasted cheerfully.
“To not getting eaten,” Fiona added.
My eyes flicked to Sienna. She held her glass up with a lopsided smile.
“To… professionalism,” she declared, as if that was the only thing keeping the room structurally intact.
The guys laughed while her sisters rolled their eyes, and I felt stuck in the abyss.
Sienna sipped her drink and promptly went pink. “Oh wow. That’s strong.”
“Welcome back to Wisconsin. When have our drinks ever been light?” Beck teased.
I took a sip of mine. Sweet brandy, muddled fruit, bubbles from the lemon-lime soda. It was the kind of drink I wouldn’t normally choose, too sweet and too nostalgic, but something about it worked.
I glanced over to see Sienna. She gestured when she talked, all animation and spark. She laughed with her whole face, tilted slightly upward. She nudged her siblings fondly. She glowed from the inside out, something fierce and soft braided together.
I’d spent years believing peace came from isolation, not connection.
So why did I feel calmer looking at her than I ever had sitting alone in a cabin?
The hostess finally approached, clipboard in hand.
“Harper party! Your table’s ready. Try not to make any trouble tonight, boys.” She winked at them, and their sisters laughed.
There was obviously a lot about their family dynamics I didn’t fully understand.
We made our way through the dining room. Salad bar bowls clinked, swinging wooden doors creaked behind servers carrying trays of prime rib and fried fish. The relish trays already on tables gleamed with pickles, radishes, cheese curds, the whole midwestern spread.
Our table was a long wooden booth near the windows overlooking the lake. Sienna slid in beside me before I could think, their rotating group dynamics requiring that someone land in the empty place next to mine.
Her knee brushed mine under the table.
She stiffened.
So did I.
Beck immediately waggled his eyebrows from across the table.
I shot him a look that should have frozen the lake over, even if he was my employer. Although technically, I was self-employed on a contract.
Once the server arrived, and we placed our orders, we wandered over to the salad bar.
By the time I got back to the table, platters kept appearing like magic: golden walleye crisped just right, slabs of prime rib with au jus running onto warm plates, bowls of mashed potatoes whipped smooth and shining with butter.
Someone passed a basket of dinner rolls, still steaming, and when I tore one open, the smell alone nearly knocked me back in my chair.
Voices overlapped. Teasing, arguing over who got the last piece of fish, a story shouted from the far end of the table that had half the room groaning and the other half laughing before the punchline even landed. Chairs scraped. Glasses clinked. Elbows bumped mine without apology.
“Hey, Carson,” Liam called down the table, fork hovering midair. “You siding with Beck or Owen on this one?”
I barely knew what the argument was about, something to do with a fishing trip and a missing cooler, but the table had gone expectant.
“Owen’s lying,” I said, shrugging. “No one forgets a cooler full of beer. That’s a crime.”
The explosion of laughter surprised me almost as much as the fact that it had come out of my mouth at all.
Sienna leaned in to steal a bite off my plate, grinning like she’d been doing it her whole life. No one blinked. No one made room for me. I already had a place, and I was mildly panicking.
The noise didn’t push me out; it pulled me under, warm and relentless, until I stopped bracing for it altogether and just let it carry me.
A family.
The kind I had once belonged to.
The kind I had once hoped to build.
The kind I told myself I would never have again.
At one point, Sienna excused herself. “Shoot. I left my phone in the car.”
Before I could think, I stood. “I’ll go with you.”
She blinked. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
Something flickered across her face. Maybe, surprise?
She nodded. “Okay.”
We slipped out into the cold night air. Snow fell in delicate flakes again. There weren’t many, just enough to whisper across the windshield of her old Subaru. The air smelled like pine and woodsmoke, comforting, which was unnerving.
She wrapped her arms around herself as we walked. A twinkle appeared in her eyes as she smiled. “So, you needed a break from my siblings?”
“Possibly,” I said, and that earned a laugh that hit me square in the chest.
She unlocked the Subaru and crawled inside to grab her phone from the center console. I stayed outside, trying very hard not to stare at the perfect curve of her back or how her sweater pulled as she stretched.
God help me.
When she spun around to jump out, her boot slipped on a patch of snow near the tire.
I reached for her on instinct, and she fell into me.
Full force.
My arms locked around her waist before I even had a second thought. Her hands landed on my chest. Her breath brushed my jaw. Her hair grazed my cheek.
A jolt went through me with a flash-fire of wanting her.
I sucked in a breath as she froze in my arms.
And in that brief, impossible moment, I realized something with absolute, startling clarity.
I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to feel her lips on mine so badly that it wiped out every rule I’d made for myself.
She lifted her face, eyes wide, lips parted slightly in surprise, and the sight hit me like a punch.
I didn’t step away or loosen my hold.
I couldn’t.
She whispered, “Carson…”
Her voice was soft and unsteady. She wasn’t scared, but there was something else.
My mind raced with options.
A challenge.
A question.
A warning.
A wanting.
I didn’t know which.
My body leaned toward her, not enough to claim anything, but enough that she could feel the shift.
Her breath hitched and then…
She kissed me.
Me.
It wasn’t tentative or shy.
Her lips found mine in a hot, sudden, breath-stealing kiss that shocked the cold straight out of the night.
Her hands slid up to the back of my neck as she stood on her toes.
Sienna’s mouth fit against mine perfectly…too perfectly, and the sweetness from the drinks inside made her lips like a dessert.
Her body pressed into mine like she already knew exactly where she belonged.
I kissed her back before my brain fully caught up.
Heat shot through me as something I hadn’t felt in years followed briskly. A desire that wasn’t messy or confusing or weighed down with obligation churned through me that was raw and electrifying attraction.
She deepened the kiss, and I responded instinctively. My hand slid up her back, pulling her closer, and my thumb brushed the edge of her jaw.
Her lips trembled once against mine, and we finally pulled apart, breathless in the snowy quiet.
She stared at me, and I stared at her.
No words or thoughts came to me, just the realization crackling between us like static.
But then a roar of applause exploded from The Hungry Buck.
We turned sharply, and half the dining room was pressed against the windows and staring through the open front door.
Beck had both hands cupped around his mouth like a megaphone from the steps.
“We saw that, Sienna!” he shouted. “There are children present.”
More applause and cheering followed with some whistles, and I realized there was no escaping a town this small, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
Fiona yelled something about fireworks.
And Sienna…
Her entire face went nuclear red, but she started laughing in a bright, helpless way that tumbled out until she leaned into me again for balance.
“Is this why you hang out with moose?” I whispered, and she laughed harder.
“Precisely.”
Our server stepped outside. “Get back in here, you two! Your prime rib’s getting cold!”
Sienna pressed a hand to her face. “Oh God. We can’t go back in.”
“We have to,” I said.
“No, we don’t,” she insisted. “We can move. We can change our names. We can live off-grid in Alaska with Mortimer the moose.”
But her laughter gave her away as we walked back toward the glowing windows of the supper club; her hand brushed mine.
I didn’t pull away.
Not this time.
Inside, the applause started all over again, and for the first time in years, I didn’t mind being seen, even though the applause didn’t stop when we stepped inside.
If anything, it got louder.
Someone whistled, and someone else slapped the bar.
An older man at a nearby table yelled, “Bout time somebody kissed that Harper girl.”
I wanted to correct him that she actually kissed me, but Sienna made a sound halfway between a gasp and a groan, covering her face with both hands.
“I’m actually dead,” she whispered. “This is the afterlife. Tell me it’s the afterlife.”
“It’s not,” I murmured beside her. “The afterlife is probably quieter.”
She shot me a look through her fingers with cheeks flushed pink, and her lips still slightly swollen from the kiss she’d given me.
That sight alone, that one detail, lit something fierce and immediate under my ribcage.
Our table was ecstatic.
Fiona tapped a glass like she was trying to ring a bell, and Violet waved her napkin overhead.
Sienna groaned louder and slid into the booth, nearly burying herself in the corner. I sat beside her because someone had already swapped my plate.
The moment I sat, her knee bumped mine again under the table.
This time, she didn’t pull away, and neither did I.
Violet leaned in with a wicked grin. “So… how was getting the phone?”
Sienna’s glare was enough to incinerate small forests. “Violet.”
“What?” she asked innocently. “Just checking on your errand.”
Fiona fanned herself dramatically. “That was no errand.”
Beck lifted his drink. “That was a community event.”
I tried to hide a smile and failed.
The waitress reappeared, setting new drinks in front of us. “Second round’s on the house,” she said cheerfully. “Management says any kiss that gets the whole room clapping is worth celebrating.”
Sienna held her head in her hands.
I touched her elbow lightly. “Hey.”
She looked up, eyes wide, flustered, and devastatingly endearing.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No,” she whispered. “Yes. Maybe. No. Definitely no.”
I smiled, and her eyes steadied on mine.
“But also… maybe yes?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Me too.”
For the first time since arriving in Buttercup Lake, I felt something shift under my feet. It wasn’t dangerous like the ridge, the bears, the wolves, or the unexpected snow.
It was something gentler and warmer.
It was something I’d stopped letting myself imagine years ago, a beginning.
She caught me staring and blinked quickly, flustered again. “We’re never living this down.”
“Probably not,” I said.
Her lips curved, and mine did too.