Chapter Nineteen
Sienna
By the time I made it to the main lodge kitchen the next morning, I had convinced myself, truly convinced myself, that last night’s kiss had been blown entirely out of proportion by everyone except me.
Sure, the entire Hungry Buck supper club had applauded.
Sure, Beck had posted something cryptic on the lodge group chat.
Sure, Violet texted me twenty-seven heart-eye emojis at 11 p.m.
Sure, I barely slept.
But none of that meant anything.
We were coworkers.
Coworkers who had accidentally kissed.
Coworkers who had kissed in public because I wasn’t thinking straight, and he smelled good.
Coworkers who had kissed in public and been watched by half the county.
Things were totally fine and totally salvageable.
Totally—
“Oh, look!” Fiona’s voice announced before I even got both boots over the threshold. “It’s Lips McGee!”
I stopped walking.
“Do not,” I warned, pointing at her with the full force of my morning rage. “Start.”
Violet leaned around the coffee maker with the smuggest smile I’d ever seen on a human being. “Good morning, Princess Subaru.”
“Stop naming me!”
Beck, traitor, betrayer, and human embodiment of chaos, waggled his eyebrows from the table where he was inhaling scrambled eggs. “So, Sien. How was the kiss?”
I turned to leave.
“Nope,” he said, catching me by the back of my jacket like I weighed nothing. “You’re not escaping. Not after last night.”
I pulled away, cheeks heating. “It wasn’t a thing.”
Fiona gasped dramatically. “Oh no. If it’s not a thing, that means it’s definitely a thing.”
Violet nodded, her ponytail bouncing. “It was a very good kiss. For science. We all saw it.”
“You absolutely should not have seen it,” I muttered.
“Talk to the giant windows at The Hungry Buck,” Beck said.
I grabbed a muffin and lobbed it at him. He caught it with one hand like an outfielder and immediately ate it.
I sighed, slumping into the chair opposite him. “Please. Please. Can we all collectively forget I have lips?”
Fiona sipped her latte. “Not a chance.”
Violet leaned in. “He kissed you back.”
My heart made a strange, traitorous leap. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” Fiona said sweetly. “We have eyes.”
Before I could respond, the back door opened.
The room went silent, and Carson stepped in, hair slightly damp, jacket unzipped, breath faintly visible in the cold air behind him.
And he looked straight at me.
Not at the coffee.
Not at my siblings.
Not at Beck, who was waving at him like an inflatable car dealership mascot.
At me.
My stomach flipped so hard I almost dropped my muffin.
He nodded once, polite and steady, then went to pour himself coffee like nothing in the world had happened last night.
But I caught it.
The flicker of something in his expression. The little upturned lips, not smug, maybe something better.
Carson turned around with his mug.
“Morning,” he said.
Why did he have to have that voice?
It was all deep, calm, and slightly rough, just like on our outing.
I cleared my throat. “Morning.”
The siblings watched us like we were a documentary series about rare animals attempting courtship rituals.
Carson nodded to the table. “I’m going to be in the gear shed doing inventory.”
My heart reacted before my brain could form a sentence.
Fiona kicked my shin. “Sienna can help!”
I choked. “I can?”
Carson paused. “If you want to.”
I wanted to die.
Violet shoved me out of my chair. “She wants to.”
“Great,” Beck said. “Have fun kissing, I mean working.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Brothers are the worst.”
“Love you too,” Beck said.
I grabbed my coffee and marched toward the back hall with the false confidence of a woman who was absolutely losing her mind.
Carson followed.
Behind us, Fiona stage-whispered, “I give them two hours before another kiss.”
“Twenty minutes,” Beck said.
“Five,” Violet added.
I considered flinging myself into the recycling bin.
Outside, the cold air hit me like a blessing because I was internally combusting. It was crisp, quiet, and peaceful with no smirking siblings and side commentary.
Only the crunch of our boots across the lightly frosted ground and a few birds chattering from the pine branches overhead.
Carson walked beside me, hands in his pockets, profile calm in a way that made it difficult to breathe.
I tried very hard not to look at him.
I failed almost instantly.
His jaw was clean-shaven today, with hair slightly tousled, and his jacket was unzipped enough to show a fitted thermal shirt underneath.
He looked… annoyingly good.
He glanced at me. “Sleep okay?”
“Nope.”
A beat went by between us when I realized what I’d said.
“I mean…fine. Totally fine. Perfect. Great sleep. Love it. Sleeping is my hobby.”
He breathed a quiet laugh, visible only in the curve of his cheek. “Same.”
“Oh,” I said. “You didn’t sleep either?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer, but I caught something in his expression. There was something unguarded, nearly vulnerable, before he looked away.
Heat crawled up my neck, and I cleared my throat, wishing away the awkwardness rolling through me.
When we reached the gear shed, he opened the door for me, and I stepped inside, inhaling the familiar smells of canvas, rope, pine cleaner, and cold metal.
But suddenly there was something else that was warmer, like last night.
He stepped in behind me, and the closeness hit me again. It was that gravitational pull I couldn’t explain or deny or talk myself out of. It was the one that would keep me in Alaska if I had my way.
Carson walked toward the far wall of neatly arranged equipment. “I wanted to reinventory the dry bags before the next trips.”
“Okay,” I said. But my voice came out softer than intended.
He noticed, or maybe I imagined he noticed.
He reached for a bin, muscles shifting under his shirt, and I nearly forgot how breathing worked.
Focus, Sienna. Focus.
I lifted another bin and carried it to the table. “So. Last night.”
He paused, and everything in the room felt suddenly sharp and still.
“What about it?” he asked.
“I…” My throat tightened. “I just want to make sure we’re okay.”
“We are.”
“Good,” I said quickly. “Because we work together. We guide together. And kissing, which was… something of an accident, shouldn’t complicate that.”
“It doesn’t have to,” he offered.
The way he said it, low and steady, sent a warmth unfurling under my ribs.
I swallowed. “Good. Professionalism. Yay teamwork. It was a total accident, and I’m sorry.”
He looked at me like he was trying very hard not to smile. “Right.”
We worked in silence for a bit.
Or tried to.
But chemistry is loud as it sits in the small spaces.
In the glance you catch when you aren’t prepared, which he managed to give more often than not.
In the brush of two hands reaching for the same carabiner or in the way my pulse kicked when he stood just a little too close.
At one point, our fingers touched over a coil of rope, and my breath stuttered.
Aloud.
He didn’t pull away immediately, and neither did I. Something charged lingered between us. It wasn’t like last night’s impulsive fire but something slower, deeper, and far more dangerous.
I stepped back first, heart hammering, and cleared my throat. “Inventory! Yes. Inventorying things. Very normal.”
He exhaled softly. “Sienna.”
I froze, and he took a slow step toward me. He wasn’t touching me, but he was closer. Close enough that the cold garage felt smaller and close enough that I could feel the heat of him.
“Last night… didn’t feel like a mistake.” He lowered his voice. “Did it?”
My pulse leapt, and every nerve in my body lit up.
“It…” I swallowed. “It surprised me.”
“It surprised me, too.”
That shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. It mattered in a way I wasn’t ready to unpack.
I forced myself to look up at him. “Carson… I don’t know what to do with this.”
“Neither do I.”
“And I recognize that I’m the one who started it.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the next.
We stood there, breath mingling, the quiet hum of the shed the only witness.
Then Beck’s voice boomed from outside.
“Hey, you two making out in there or what? Is it safe to come in?”
Carson closed his eyes, and I considered murder.
“No!” I yelled back. “We’re coworkers who are completely professional.”
“Is that code?” Beck shouted.
Carson pinched the bridge of his nose. “Your brother is…”
“The worst,” I said. “I know.”
He let out a deep breath. “We should finish the dry bags.”
“Yes,” I said. “Before my family comes with binoculars.”
We turned back to the gear, both of us pretending the room hadn’t just shifted on its axis.
But even with the distance between us, the air still vibrated.
And as I reached for a strap on the table, my hand trembled slightly.
Not from cold.
Not from fear.
From wanting him again.
Wanting him still.
And the terrifying realization that wanting him wasn’t going away anytime soon.
Carson lifted another dry bag onto the table, but the movement felt different now. Everything felt more deliberate, as if he were trying to ground himself in the task.
“We still need to check the zippers on these,” I said, proud that my voice didn’t wobble.
“Right,” he murmured.
He stood beside me, close but not too close, hands steady as he tested each zipper. The repetitive zip–unzip pattern echoed softly in the cold shed, mixing with the distant sound of Beck whistling something outside that sounded suspiciously like the wedding march.
I groaned. “If he sings ‘Here Comes the Bride,’ I’m setting something on fire.”
Carson’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t realize you were this dramatic in the mornings.”
“I’m not dramatic,” I said, then immediately reconsidered every life choice I’d made. “Okay, fine. Slightly dramatic. But only when ambushed by my siblings. Just because they’ve found their happily-ever-afters doesn’t mean I’m destined to.”
He tested another zipper. “They care about you.”
“I know,” I sighed. “They just… care loudly.”
“You don’t like loud caring?”
I hesitated. The rope in my hands suddenly felt too light.
“I like it,” I said quietly. “I just don’t always know what to do with it.”
He didn’t speak right away. When he finally did, his voice softened.
“I get that.”
I looked up.
His eyes met mine, and I saw a quick glimmer of something, pain maybe, or a memory.
“You do?” I whispered.
“Yes.” He reached for another bag. “People caring about me used to make me uncomfortable, too.”
“Used to?”
He let out a small breath. “Still does sometimes.”
That admission hit me harder than expected. Carson didn’t offer pieces of himself easily. Whatever he gave away, he meant.
I let the rope fall gently onto the table. “So… this is weird for you too?”
“This?” His brow lifted slightly. “Meaning your family? Or dinner? Or the kiss?”
“All of the above,” I said, heat blooming under my shirt.
He nodded once. “Yes. It’s weird.”
“But not… bad weird?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Or is it bad weird? Or could there be a good weird?”
His gaze held mine.
“No,” he said, low and honest. “Not bad.”
Electricity zipped down my spine, and before one of us could do something catastrophically unprofessional, like recreate last night but without the Subaru to lean on, the shed door creaked open.
I jolted backward like I’d been caught stealing, and Carson stepped away too fast to be subtle.
Beck stuck his head in. “Hey! Mom says lunch is ready. And Violet says, ‘Tell Sienna to behave.’ I assume she knows you won’t.”
I pitched a carabiner at his ankle, just enough to chase him away but not enough to inflict pain or damage.
Beck ducked and grinned like a possessed cupid. “Cute. Anyway, hurry up. The chili’s getting cold.”
He vanished again.
Carson exhaled, tension draining from his shoulders. “Your family should come with warning labels.”
“Oh, they do,” I said. “Just invisible ones written in paprika because Violet likes to spice things up.”
He actually smiled at that, and I like seeing his real smile, which was slow and warm. It was the kind that crept up his face and forced me to do crazy things like kiss him.
But I didn’t because I was a professional.
We packed away the final dry bag. I wiped my hands on my pants and tried to pretend my pulse wasn’t misbehaving.
“You ready?” I asked.
“For the chili?” he said.
“For the chaos.”
He gave a resigned nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We walked toward the lodge, close enough that our arms brushed twice, but far enough that neither of us drifted closer.
And I kind of hated that part.
It felt like standing on the edge of something I wasn’t sure I was allowed to want because we had two different lives; he was here temporarily, and I usually had one foot out of the state in my off months.
But as we reached the porch steps, he paused and looked down at me.
It wasn’t a long look, but it was intense enough that I forgot the next five seconds of my life.
“Sienna,” he said quietly, “about last night…”
My breath caught.
“Yes?”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Because my brother opened the door again and yelled. “If you two are having another moment, can you do it after lunch? We’re starving!”
I nearly kicked him with my boot as Carson’s jaw flexed to fight a smile.
And even as we stepped into the noise and warmth of the Harper family kitchen, I felt it. Whatever had started between us on that cold Subaru-lit night—
It wasn’t done, not even close.