Chapter Twenty-Eight
Carson
The truth hit me sometime around midnight the night our trip ended, after the Butterfields left glowing reviews and tagged us in six Instagram posts, labeling us as the cutest married guides in the northern woods.
It hit while I was lying awake in my cabin, staring at the ceiling and listening to the wind drag its force through the trees like it was trying to get inside.
But all I could think about was the situation I found myself in.
The truth was this. I was in deep, and I didn’t know when exactly it had happened because it wasn’t because we’d slept together. It happened before then.
Not on day one, when she’d looked like she wanted to throw a boot at me during introductions.
Not on the Polaris ride, though watching her handle that machine with confidence did something unsettling to me.
It wasn’t even that first night we spent together in the woods, though that’s when the dominoes started falling faster than I could brace for.
But it all added up to one messy worry. I’d fallen for her, and sleeping with her only made it worse, but seeing her the morning after, with messy hair from sleep, her cheeks flushed pink with cold and leftover embarrassment, and the sexy, soft voice she had in the morning….
That was the moment. The moment I felt something shift so distinctly, I almost heard it.
But the part where she fell into the lake, and I bolted like my body had a superhero mode? That just confirmed what I already knew.
When we got back to Honey Leaf Lodge after delivering the newlywed couple to the lobby, Violet had already seen the review posted on the lodge’s official page. Somehow, Emma had managed to post it between the forest and Honey Leaf Lodge’s property.
But Violet had burst into the kitchen holding her phone like it was the winning lottery ticket.
“Five. Stars!” she shouted. “Five! Stars! For the first trip of the season!”
Fifi was clapping.
Their mom was glowing.
Beck was smirking like he knew things he shouldn’t. “So we did a good thing by adding more guide services.”
And Sienna was smiling, but in that way she got when she was trying not to look directly at me.
If that compliment had been left the day she met me, she probably would have pushed me into the lake, but things had shifted, sort of.
The trip was a success.
A big one.
And I should have been relieved.
Instead, all I wanted was to get Sienna alone and figure out what the hell we were doing, but she’d managed to make herself scarce and busy.
And then Beck came knocking on my cabin door two nights ago like he had purposefully timed it for maximum personal disruption.
I’d been sorting gear notes and pretending not to compulsively replay every second of the tent incident when I heard the knock. Three sharp raps.
“Carson!” Beck called. “I need to borrow you for a minute!”
Borrow me.
As if I were a wrench.
Or had Sienna told him about us?
I opened the door to find him standing there with his arms crossed and a weirdly solemn expression. For Beck, solemn meant either something genuinely serious or something so ridiculous that I should brace myself before reacting.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
A bad sign.
I stepped aside. “Sure.”
He walked in, hands on his hips like a man preparing to deliver a sermon he didn’t want to give.
“So,” he said, drawing the word out like taffy. “You and my sister.”
I inhaled slowly. “Beck—”
“No, no, let me finish. You and my sister.” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling.
“The one who has all the emotional processing of a caffeinated ferret. The one who, as a child, once ran away into the woods because she wanted to ‘experience the call of the spirit moose.’ The one who accidentally stole a kayak from the neighboring campground because she didn’t realize it belonged to someone. ”
I blinked. “…She stole a kayak?”
“Borrowed,” he corrected. “But that’s not the point. The point is, you need to be careful.”
He wasn’t angry, not even close.
He was… protective. The way a brother should be.
“She’s not great at stillness,” he said gently. “And she gets overwhelmed. Easily. She’s got this instinct to bolt before things get too real.”
“The barista mentioned something like that,” I admitted.
Beck narrowed his eyes. “What did she tell you?”
“That Sienna picks up and leaves when she starts feeling too much. That she doesn’t always stay.”
Beck sighed. “Yeah. That’s… accurate.”
He braced a hand on the table. “Just—don’t make her feel cornered. If she starts to pull back, give her room. But don’t disappear on her either. She’ll think that means you didn’t care.”
My throat tightened. “Thanks for the warning.”
He slapped my shoulder. “You seem like a good guy. But if you hurt her, I’m releasing the squirrels.”
I stared. “…What squirrels?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said darkly.
Then he left.
And now I was left replaying the scenario over and over again in my head as I stared at the ceiling in my cabin.
And I sat there thinking about everything I’d learned, everything I’d felt, everything I’d done, including, yes, the part where I slept with her after being told she was skittish and emotionally untethered.
Good job, Carson. Excellent listening skills.
Except I hadn’t planned it.
Hadn’t thought it through.
Hadn’t been able to stop.
And I didn’t regret it.
Not for a second.
Which made everything more complicated earlier today, when we were finally alone in the gear shed getting ready for our next set of spring trips, and the complication only intensified. Just the thought made me smile.
Because this morning I walked in and found a zebra.
A literal zebra. The zebra that appeared to have impeccable timing, standing there as if it belonged.
Perhaps, it did.
I stopped in the doorway and blinked several times.
No.
Too early in the day for hallucinations.
But no, the creature was real, its white coat striped with black, tail swishing, face buried in a box of collapsible water jugs. She lifted her head, ears pricked forward, and regarded me with mild disdain.
I stared back. “You’re… Barcode.”
The zebra snorted as if offended I didn’t say it with enough reverence.
I took half a step inside. “I didn’t know the enclosure gate was open.”
She swished her tail again in a manner that clearly said, The enclosure gate didn’t need to be open. I am invincible.
Of course, she was. No, she didn’t say that, but it could have.
Everything at Honey Leaf seemed choreographed in some strange, lore-infused way.
“You can’t be in here,” I said slowly, moving toward it. “This is a gear storage zone. Not a—”
The zebra nosed me aside with more force than I expected and began rummaging through a crate of headlamps.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Please don’t eat those.”
She did not respect me.
A warm, familiar, amused laugh sounded from the doorway.
“You found her,” Sienna said, stepping inside.
My entire body responded to her voice before I even turned. She was wearing a light flannel, half-tucked into faded hiking jeans, her braid thrown over one shoulder, cheeks flushed from the cool morning air.
And she was smiling.
At me.
My chest tightened.
“Is this… normal?” I asked, gesturing helplessly at Barcode, who had relocated to a bin of paracord.
“Pretty much,” she said. “She likes the gear shed. It’s her version of a mall.”
“Barcode has her own mall?”
“She loves to accessorize, always has,” she confirmed, dead serious.
I stared at the zebra, then at her. “And do I want to know what she does with them?”
“Oh, Barcode doesn’t use them,” she said breezily. “She just collects them until someone bribes her with apples to give them back.”
I rubbed my face. “Of course she does.”
She laughed with a bright, bubbling sound.
I turned toward her and instantly registered something off. Her smile was warm, but her eyes… restless. Her fingers tapped lightly against her thigh. Her weight shifted between her feet too quickly.
Nervous.
She was twitchy, trying too hard to act normal. Trying too hard to act like nothing from the tent or the hike or the morning after was still sitting between us.
I had approached slowly, not wanting to spook her or the zebra. Beck’s warning from the day before loud in my head
“How are you holding up?”
“Me? Great!” she said too fast. “Never better. Totally fine. Fantastic, actually. Couldn’t be more normal.”
I gave her a look. “Sienna.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
“Your left eye twitched.”
“It did not.”
“It did.”
She glared at me adorably and opened her mouth to argue when Barcode trotted directly between us, causing me to catch her by the waist to keep her upright.
Her breath hitched.
My heart stopped.
She looked up at me, startled and vulnerable, and for one suspended second, nothing else existed—not the zebra, not the shed, not the warnings or worries or fears.
Just her and me in the space where we existed.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
Her lips parted. “Carson…”
I stepped back, slow and controlled, trying not to break contact too abruptly. “You’re twitchy today.”
She folded her arms. “I’m not twitchy.”
Barcode snorted loudly.
She glared at her. “Don’t take her side.”
I fought a smile. “I’m not. Just… checking in.”
She shifted her weight again, the twitch undeniable now. “I’m good. Just a lot on my mind.”
“About us?”
Her eyes darted away. “About… everything.”
Which wasn’t an answer.
And it was absolutely an answer.
Before I could say anything else, Barcode grabbed one of her bootlaces in her teeth and tugged hard. She yelped, stumbled forward, and fell right into my chest.
I caught her again, instinct taking over.
She froze.
I froze.
Then, very slowly, she looked up, her face inches from mine, her breathing unsteady.
And whatever distance she’d been trying to create?
It was gone.
Completely gone.
“Sienna,” I whispered.
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I really am fine.”
But her voice trembled.
And we both knew it wasn’t the full truth.
I didn’t push. Beck’s warning was too fresh. Instead, I brushed my thumb gently over her arm.
“I’m here,” I said quietly. “Whenever you want to talk.”
She exhaled shakily, eyes flicking to my mouth for one dangerous heartbeat before she stepped back.
Barcode nudged her again, demanding an apple she didn’t have.
She cleared her throat. “We should… get her back to her enclosure.”
“We should.”
She turned to lead the zebra out, muttering bribes under her breath, and I followed, watching the sway of her braid, the tension in her shoulders, the brave little smile she wore like armor.
I was in deep.
Deeper than I’d planned.
Deeper than I’d wanted.
Deeper than was safe.
And Sienna Harper, the woman I wasn’t supposed to fall for, was twitchy for a reason.
The question that kept echoing in my skull as I watched her walk ahead was simple and terrifying:
Was she twitchy because she felt nothing…
Or because she felt too much?
And I still couldn’t fall asleep.