Chapter 6
Ethan
The drive home is a blur of light snowflakes darting in front of the headlights, coupled with bad decisions. Okay, it’s mostly my bad decisions. I climb higher, the town lights fading behind me. My hands are tight on the steering wheel, knuckles pale, jaw clenched hard enough to crack a molar.
A whole week with her. What the hell was I thinking agreeing to this? Oh, right. The land. Stupid, important, irreplaceable land.
I take a turn too fast, and the passenger seat rustles with papers — the damn itinerary Janice gave me. I shove it aside without looking. I already saw enough.
Tree lighting. Cocoa tasting. Couples’ sleigh ride. Honeymoon suite. My pulse jumps just thinking about that last one. Honeymoon. As if I’m remotely capable of … that. As if she’d want …
I cut off the thought so hard it gives me whiplash. I don’t do this. I don’t date or flirt. I don’t even feel things. And yet, her blue eyes haven’t left my mind since I realized she was the winning bidder. They were wide, bright, and a little startled. She’s too damn pretty.
The truck climbs the final hill and my cabin appears between the pines, smoke curling from the chimney like a welcome banner for a man who prefers solitude.
I pull in beside the woodpile, kill the engine, and sit there for a long moment breathing.
I need to get my wits about me. Who I am.
I’m a loner and I like it that way. I need to be the man who lived peacefully up here yesterday.
I open the truck door and step into the cold. The wind bites, but it’s familiar. Predictable. Unlike the flustered, warm rush that hit me when Harper whispered she didn’t mean to bid.
I stomp up the steps and push inside the cabin. The hinges squeak. They’ve squeaked for eight years … and I never bother fixing them.
The warmth hits me first. Then the clutter.
Not garbage. Just … things. My things. Stacks of gear I might need someday.
Old lanterns. Rope coils. Three broken heaters I’m convinced I’ll fix eventually.
Plastic bins of parts from machines I haven’t owned in years.
Clothing I refuse to throw away because it has life left in it.
Books. Maps. More tools than any one man reasonably needs.
This place isn’t a cabin. It’s a dragon’s hoard made of survival gear and emotional baggage. But it’s mine. And being here — alone, insulated — settles something inside me.
I shrug off my coat and hang it on the back of a chair piled with folded blankets and a box of mismatched socks I swear I’m going to donate one of these days.
I light the lantern on the table and sink into my armchair.
It gives a loud groan under my weight. I bought it used years ago.
I’ll die in this chair before I replace it.
The itinerary slides out of my coat pocket and lands in my lap. I scowl at it.
Honeymoon suite with Harper Fox.
Harper in my space—
I freeze.
The thought came out of nowhere, but hits hard.
What if… What if I talked her into staying here instead of that fancy lodge room? It would be quieter. More private. Less attention. Less pressure. Less … everything.
And then the thought unravels just as fast. Harper Fox in this cabin? I look around at the leaning stack of firewood by the stove.
At the three bins of “useful metal scraps.” At the kitchen table buried beneath maps, bolts, and a toaster I need to repair.
At the loft bed with quilts I haven’t shaken out since October. At the dusting of sawdust covering everything like rustic glitter.
This place isn’t fit for a woman. Especially a woman like Harper. She’s soft. Not weak — but soft in the way that makes you want to handle her gently. She smells like something sweet when she walks past. She’d take one look at this disaster and run screaming. The lodge it is.
I get up and move around the cabin, because sitting still makes the thoughts louder. I stack wood, reorganize tools, fix a drawer that’s been sticking since last winter. I keep my hands busy. My mind fails to follow.
Every time I stop moving, I see her. Blue eyes with a nervous smile. Soft voice when she said she didn’t want to make this difficult. She looked like she meant it. She looked … relieved that it was me. Dangerous thought.
I stop by the woodstove and add another log carefully choosing the smallest one because the bigger ones should be saved for colder nights. Waste not. Always waste not.
I catch myself.
Great. Now I’m thinking about how she’d react if she saw me saving every scrap of wood, every nut and bolt, every piece of string that “might be useful someday.” She’d probably smile or tease me.
I rub the back of my neck, uncomfortable with the feeling inching up my spine. I don’t want her to pity me. Or fix me. I don’t want her to try and understand the parts of me shaped by loss.
This cabin is the only place I feel safe. Tomorrow, I have to leave it. Tomorrow, I have to stay in a honeymoon suite. With a woman who makes my loins tighten just by looking at me.
A week. A whole damn week. And when I remember the way Harper looked backstage — wide-eyed, flushed, lips softly parted—my whole body reacts. I don’t know what to do with that feeling. I never have.
I sink into my chair again and stare at the itinerary. I scrub a hand over my beard.
“I can survive a week,” I mutter.
Just as I say it out loud, the cabin creaks like it’s laughing at me.