13. Stig
Thirteen
Stig
I wake up in a panic, sitting bolt upright. The cabin is dark; my loud breaths are ragged. Sweat drenches my t-shirt, sticking it to my skin, and my throat is so dry.
Christ.
I swallow hard, scrubbing a hand down my face. If my heart bangs any harder, it’ll bruise my ribs.
But I’m used to this. After years of living like I do, placing myself in dangerous positions and still needing to sleep, I’m well accustomed to waking up in a dizzying rush. Sometimes it means that a predator is near, growling in the shadows, and my hind brain has sensed it. Sometimes it means that I’ve rolled too close to the edge of the narrow ledge I’m sleeping on, and one more shift could send me tumbling to the rocks far below.
Usually, when I wake up like this in my cabin, frazzled and sweating in a place I should be safe, it’s just memories haunting me. Near-misses from my past adventures that still make the hairs on my arms stand on end.
But tonight is different.
Tonight, something is wrong.
“Jana?” My whisper floats through the dark cabin. I squint at the messy covers beside me, trying to make out her shape. “Jana?”
My palm strokes across the mattress—and finds it empty and cold.
My gut plummets harder and faster than it ever has before. The tips of my fingers are numb.
“ Jana .”
Fumbling and cursing, I switch on the bedside lamp. Sure enough, the other half of the bed is empty with no sign of my girl. My neck twinges when I whip around to stare at the bathroom door.
It’s open. Dark inside.
Unoccupied.
The world tilts, and I clutch two fistfuls of bed covers—like if I hold on tight enough, our reality from last night won’t be ripped away.
Jana. She’s really gone, and in the middle of the night. Where? Why?
Is she safe? Is she meeting someone? Why wouldn’t she tell me she was going? My grip flexes on the covers, and my breaths are shallower now.
Fuck, what if I scared her off? What if the things we did, the desperate way I made love to her… what if it was too much, and she bounced? What if she doesn’t need me the way I need her?
My legs shake as I stagger out of bed, cross the room and smack on all the lights. A warm glow fills the cabin, but as I look around, icy cold spreads through my insides.
Because it’s undeniable: all of Jana’s shit is gone. Her clothes, her backpack, her boots by the door. That library book she’s been reading, and her Flint’s polo neck that was hanging on the closet door to dry for tomorrow’s shift.
All gone.
Jana Kumara hasn’t just snuck out for a few hours in the dead of night.
Jana Kumara has left this cabin for good.
“No.” My voice is too loud in the quiet cabin, hoarse with emotion. “ No . Fuck. Okay. Think, you asshole. Think.”
But loud, panicked buzzing swarms my head, and it’s harder than it’s ever been to string a thought together. All I can think is Jana, Jana, Jana.
You know, this lack of focus would have gotten me killed a thousand times over in the wilderness. Panic is a dangerous emotion; it gives people tunnel vision. Stops them from thinking clearly. Prompts them to make bad impulse decisions.
Like the decision to yank on a pair of jeans, shove my feet into my hiking boots, and crash out of the cabin door in the middle of the night in only a sweat-soaked t-shirt—chasing after someone who might not want to be found.
If the adventurer community could see me now, they’d all tsk and shake their heads.
But fuck all of ‘em. I need to find my girl.
* * *
Flint’s bar seems different late at night, without the lights and music and crowds. It’s stern and silent, shadowed against the stars. Almost like Flint himself is here, arms folded over his chest and one eyebrow raised in disapproval, watching as I break out of the trees and jog across the scrubby grass to the backdoor.
This building sits on the edge of town: one foot in civilization, one in the wilderness. It’s the perfect place for Jana Kumara to work, because she loves her hot showers and lazy Sundays in town, yes, but she’s a wildcat too. She needs the mountain breeze in her hair and sturdy rock beneath her feet. Both wilderness and creature comforts.
See, I know her. Inside and out.
And if I don’t find Jana soon, I’ll lose my mind. The longer we’re apart, the more I’m unraveling.
Besides, it’s not safe out this late. Not with wolves in the mountains and bears still awake at this time of year; not with hidden ditches to fall into and wasp nests to accidentally disturb. I’ve never cataloged all the dangers around Starlight Ridge before, but you’d better believe I’m listing them now, and with each new one my chest squeezes a little tighter.
Safe? They call this sleepy mountain town safe ?
It’s a goddamn death trap.
The handle to the backdoor rattles in my hand, and though I grit my teeth and try to force it, the door won’t budge. Fine. I’ll break in if I need to, I’ll take whatever punishment Flint doles out, but maybe it won’t come to that.
Frost-covered grass crunches beneath my boots as I stride along the outside of the building, running one hand along the rough brick.
Back when I first found Jana sleeping in my bed, back when I caught her squatting all those lifetimes ago—she said something about sleeping in Flint’s office instead. Crashing in the backroom for the night, until she found somewhere else to stay.
Jana showed me her hand that day; she told me exactly where she’d flee in an emergency. Well, fucking noted.
My breaths form little clouds, and my chest heaves as I creep around the bar, peering into each window.
Nothing. Shadows and empty booths. There’s some kind of stockroom, with shelves of supplies. Then a cleaning closet. The frosted windows of a bathroom, and then—
A halo of warm light, spreading away from a desk lamp. I peer in at a bookcase crammed full of binders, an old-fashioned landline telephone, and a clock on the wall. Heart racing, I press closer to the window, squinting into the dim room, and all the while hoping and praying that it won’t be fucking Flint staring back at me.
But—
There.
A small body shifts on the office floor, disturbing the shadows. I’d know that figure anywhere, even curled on her side and piled with clothes to form a makeshift blanket.
Jana. Thank god.
My hand spreads over the glass, pressing hard like I could touch her. I’m so close now, and she’s here and whole and safe. A lump lodges in my throat, and I swallow hard as I knock.
Jana sits bolt upright, honey-brown eyes wide and fixed on me. Her dark hair is messier than ever, sticking up at the back. The sight makes my insides ache.
She left me. Why did she leave me?
Why is sleeping on Flint’s office floor better than a night spent by my side?
It takes what feels like forever for Jana to blink the shock away, then she pushes to her feet, shedding garments like the trees dropping their red leaves for autumn. I stare at her through the window, still too rattled to school my expression into something less raw.
Jana is here.
She’s safe.
But it’s not your business, is it, asshole?
The window sticks the first time Jana tries to open it. She huffs and sets her jaw, puts her shoulder into it, until the frame judders up enough for us to talk.
“I should have left a note,” is the first thing Jana says, barely meeting my eyes. Talking to my chest instead. “I thought about that on the walk down. I’m sorry.”
If my insides weren’t already an ash-coated wasteland, that shit would hurt. But now that I’ve found her safe and whole, the truth of what’s happened sinks in: Jana isn’t hurt or in any danger. She just wanted to get away from me.
Beyond the bone-trembling despair of that revelation, everything else barely stings.
“What would the note say?” I ask, tone dull.
Jana glances up at me, alarmed, and her forehead pinches with concern when she finds me a burned-out husk of a man. I’m propped up in the open window, but I’m not fully here anymore. “It, um. Stig? Are you okay?”
I shrug, feeling sicker than a dog.
Because it’s not Jana’s problem that she doesn’t feel the same way that I do. She’s got every right to slip away from my bed if that’s what she truly wants, and I refuse to make her feel bad about it. She doesn’t owe me shit.
But Christ, I’m ready to topple over into this grass and sleep until spring. Screw this. Screw all of this. Turns out I was right all along: disappearing into the wilderness is the smart way to go. Sticking around, falling in love, dreaming of a future… that’s how you get your ass handed to you.
“Are you wearing a t-shirt?” Jana reaches through the window and plucks at the thin cotton, gasping when she finds it sweat-soaked and ice-cold. “Oh, god. Stig! You’ll get hypothermia!”
Rubbing both hands down my face, I force out the words that will make her feel better. “I’ll warm up at the cabin. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it? Oh, just get in here—”
With surprising strength, Jana yanks on my wrist, my elbow, my shoulder, forcing my numb body to climb through the open window.
It’s not graceful. I’m too dazed, too destroyed, barely present in my own chilled body, but I can never deny this woman anything. She wants me to climb through the window? Guess I’m climbing through the window. No problem.
My boots thump against the floorboards, and I stagger sideways and knock the desk with my hip.
“Careful,” Jana says, but it’s my hip she’s fussing over, not the desk, rubbing at my bruised bit through my jeans. I stare down at her hand on me, dry-eyed.
“Shoot,” she says when she feels my bare skin for a second time. My hands, my forearms, my biceps—I’m chilled everywhere, and under my clothes too.
And yeah, in hindsight, charging down the mountainside in nothing but a damp t-shirt on a cold night was the stupidest thing I could’ve done, but my rational brain wasn’t driving this car, okay? It was instincts all the way, and my instincts were screaming for Jana.
“We need to warm you up right now.”
“Skin on skin,” I mutter, thinking out loud more than anything else, going over all the first aid training I’ve ever had. And I’d never demand that of Jana, never expect that of her, especially since she just left me—but she shoves the window closed again, cursing as it rattles in the frame, then yanks her sweater over her head and follows it with her t-shirt and the yoga bra she sleeps in. They all hit the pile of garments with a soft thwump.
“Get in the nest.” She points at the mound of clothes on the office floor, and I cross there and drop to my knees without argument. When my fingertips graze over the t-shirt she just took off, the fabric is warm. I fight the urge to shove it against my nose and inhale.
“Okay,” she says. “I guess lie back?”
It’s lumpy and uneven, but I stretch out with my back on the pile of clothing. Then Jana crawls on top of me, pressing her chest down against mine, and the air stills in my lungs.
Never thought I’d have this again, not even for a moment. Not even for practical reasons.
Is it wrong to enjoy huddling for warmth?
Jana jumps when I wrap my arms around her, a shaky laugh misting against my throat. “Sorry. Your hands are cold.”
No, I’m sorry, but for some reason I can’t form words right now. Can’t do anything except cling to Jana and shiver as her warmth seeps into my skin, relishing the tap, tap, tap of her heartbeat against mine.
The office smells like paper and the faint scents of the bar: whiskey, citrus, wood sap. And now coconut shampoo and the sweet, musky scent of Jana’s body.
Yes.
I love this woman so much.
“You ran.” Finally, the words scrape out of me, so painful even to say out loud. Jana’s breath hitches, and she cuddles me even tighter. “Why did you run? What would the note say?”
Jana makes a soft noise.
There’s a long stretch when I think she won’t reply. That I’ll never get answers, and I’ll go to my grave wondering where I went wrong. I’d go mad, I think.
But: “It would say that I’ll miss you,” Jana says at last, saving me from that fate. I lay on the lumpy pile of clothes, my almost-wife squeezed in my arms, staring up at the office ceiling as she speaks. “So much. You wouldn’t believe how much. And that I’m sorry to back out of our deal, but that I can’t do this anymore. I can’t marry you, Stig.”
My eyes fall closed, and I’m tumbling headlong into a void, crashing into numbness and despair. Cold prickles through my veins, spreading deeper into my body—
“Not like this,” Jana adds in a whisper.
My eyes slam open.
“Like this?” My heart shudders back to life, beating once, twice, three times. “What do you mean, like this?”
Jana shrugs, her body shifting against mine. Her voice is so tiny and sad as she says, “When it’s not real.”
The earth moves, tilting beneath me, and then I move, tipping Jana over to one side. She squeaks, clinging to my shoulders, and I rearrange us so that she’s lying on the clothes, spread out flatter this time. My would-be fiance blinks up at me, sweet and baffled, as I stroke her messy hair.
“It is real.” My voice is ruined tonight, so hoarse and gravelly after calling out for Jana in the woods, but I force out each word so it’s crystal clear. There’s no room for misunderstandings; no room for her to mishear. She needs to know this. She needs to understand . “It’s always been real for me, Jana.”
Her lips part in shock.
“But your bet—”
“This is the bet.” And damn that white lie, now that it’s caused me so much trouble. I should have just been honest from the start, laying all my cards on the table. Should have told my squatter, the very night I found her sleeping in my bed: Don’t go. I think I already love you. It would have sounded insane, sure, but there wouldn’t be this godawful doubt in Jana’s eyes now.
“I saw you; I wanted you. Simple as that. Then I made up that marriage-on-paper stuff as an excuse to keep you around. I bet myself that I could make you fall in love with me for real. Not for an ego boost,” I add when she huffs and starts wriggling, making like she might want to push me off, “as a matter of survival. I need you, Jana.”
My squatter stills beneath me, her hands on my shoulders and her bare body pressed against mine. Already, her warmth is seeping into my skin, my muscles, my bones, chasing the shivers away. I already owed Jana Kumara so much, and now I owe her this too. She’s saved me from myself all over again.
“That’s why I made up our deal. That’s why I followed you tonight. When I woke up and found you gone…”
I pause, swallowing against the mounting horror. The sickly, awful memory that will surely haunt me to my deathbed. Jana exhales, cupping my cheek, and I press against her hand.
Life. I’m coming back to life. Warm again.
“When I found you gone… fuck, sweetheart. It’s like you tore my heart out and took it with you.”
Jana whimpers, leaning up to kiss my neck. And that, finally, gives me the courage to beg: “Don’t do that again, Jana. Don’t leave me like that.”
She shakes her head between kisses, her short hair tickling my chin, and promises: “I won’t. Stig, I won’t.”
Propping up on my elbows, I settle more of my weight squarely on top of Jana. Her legs part, thighs hitching up on either side of my hips, and I swear to god: angels sing, my blood is hot, and everything is right with the world once more. She’s mine.
“Oh, yeah?” I slide one palm beneath Jana’s ass, then tilt her hips up to rub against my hardening cock. “You want me too, do you? Show me .”