Chapter 9 Carter
CARTER
The cabin appears through the trees like something out of a postcard.
Or a horror movie. Could go either way, honestly.
Thank god. Because if I had to start a fire from scratch using, like, friction and determination, we’d both freeze to death and Professor Bam would have to explain to our parents that she sent us into the wilderness with zero survival skills.
“Wow.” Rhi says.
She’s been driving for the last hour, navigating increasingly sketchy forest service roads.
She drives with this focused intensity that I’m starting to realize is just how she approaches everything. Her brown eyes are fixed on the road, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift.
She’s pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail, but a few pieces have escaped to frame her face. They curl slightly in the humidity from the heater, soft and dark against her skin. She’s not conventionally gorgeous in that superficial way.
She’s pretty in a quieter sense—the kind that sneaks up on you. Warm brown eyes that see everything. A small nose that crinkles when she’s thinking hard. Lips that curl up at the corners even when she’s trying to look serious.
And her body—Christ, I’m trying not to think about her body, but I’ve seen her with thin layers on. Curves in all the right places.
Strong and soft at the same time. She bites her lower lip while concentrating on a turn, and I have to look away before I do something stupid. Like imagine what it would be like to bite that lip myself.
My mind flashes to last night.
When she opened the door her nipples were hard beneath the thin fabric. My mouth went dry and I couldn’t help tease her.
I know she saw me looking because her arms crossed over her chest, but it was too late.
I saw. I’m still seeing.
I’m going to be thinking about that moment for the next five days.
Maybe the next five years.
“It’s actually really cute,” she says.
I clear my throat, willing my dirty thoughts to calm down.
“Cute” isn’t the word I’d use.
“Remote” maybe.
“Isolated” definitely.
“Setting for a murder mystery where we’re both found weeks later, perfectly preserved in the snow” possibly.
We lost good cell service about forty minutes ago—I know because I watched my last bar disappear somewhere around mile marker 47, right before the road stopped being paved. The last ten miles have been nothing but trees and snow and the occasional deer standing in the middle of the road.
It’s perfect.
Rhi pulls the truck up next to the cabin and kills the engine. The sudden silence is almost violent after hours of road noise and the diesel engine’s constant rumble.
“Well,” she says, and I can hear the slight tremor in her voice that means she’s nervous but trying not to show it. “Here we are.”
“Here we are.”
Neither of us moves.
Through the windshield, I can see the cabin’s front porch—small, practical, the kind of porch that says “wipe your feet” not “sit and have lemonade.” There’s a neat stack of firewood under a blue tarp, and beyond that, nothing but wilderness stretching out like the entire world forgot we existed.
The mountains rise up in the distance, massive and white and completely indifferent to human concerns.
Limited cell service.
No family texts asking if I’m sure I’m okay.
No expectations beyond “collect data” and “don’t die.”
Just work and silence and Rhiannon Pierce, who in the past two days has turned out to be way more complicated than I expected. More interesting. More real.
“Okay,” Rhi says, putting the truck in park and killing the engine. “Let’s get unloaded before it gets dark. We’ve got maybe two hours of good light left.”
“Right to business.”
“One of us has to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means we gotta get to work.”
“Of course, Captain No Fun.” I salute.
She gives me a look that suggests she’s reconsidering the whole trip quarters thing, then climbs out of the truck.
I follow, and immediately sink ankle-deep into snow.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” I mutter, trudging toward the back of the truck.
The air is sharp and clean—the kind of cold that hurts your lungs in a weirdly good way. Everything smells like pine and wood smoke and winter. The kind of winter people write poems about, not the gross slushy kind we get on campus.
I pop open the truck bed and start hauling out equipment cases.
Rhi’s already got her first load—a duffel bag and two equipment cases.
“You need help with that?” I call.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re carrying like forty pounds—”
“I said I’m fine.”
Right. Independent.
I reach into the front seat first to grab my phone and backpack.
That’s when it hits me.
A snowball. Right between the shoulder blades.
I freeze, snow sliding down the back of my neck.
Slowly, I turn around.
Rhi is standing by the truck, already packing another snowball, and she’s smiling. Actually smiling. Not the tight, professional smile she’s been giving me for the past four hours. A real one.
“Did you just—”
The second snowball hits me in the chest.
“Oh, you’re dead,” I say, dropping my things and scooping up my own handful of snow.
“You’ll have to catch me first!” She’s already running, laughing.
I pack the snowball as I chase her around the truck. She’s fast—faster than I expected—and she’s got good aim. Another snowball grazes my shoulder as I duck behind the truck bed.
“You’re going down, Pierce!”
“Big talk from someone who can’t hit a moving target!”
I launch my snowball. It explodes against the truck, a good two feet from where she’s standing.
She laughs harder. “Pathetic!”
“I’m being kind! I don’t want to hurt you!”
“How chivalrous!” She nails me in the arm. “I’m not worried!”
Okay, fine. Game on.
I pack three snowballs quickly, advancing around the truck. She’s backing up, still laughing, packing her own ammunition. Her ponytail is coming loose. Her cheeks are pink from cold and exertion. Her eyes are bright and alive in a way I haven’t seen before.
She looks happy.
She looks beautiful.
Focus, Wolfe.
I throw. She dodges. Her return fire catches me in the shoulder.
“You’re terrible at this!” she calls.
“I’m strategizing!”
“You’re losing!”
We’re circling each other now, both of us grinning like idiots. I’m trying to remember the last time I did something this stupid and fun.
Rhi feints left, I fall for it, and she gets me square in the chest with a perfectly packed snowball.
“Ha!” She’s triumphant, arms raised in victory.
That’s when I make my move.
I rush her—not fast enough to actually catch her off guard, but fast enough that she squeals and tries to run. Her boots slip slightly in the snow. I catch her around the waist, lifting her off her feet for just a second before setting her down.
“Unfair!” she protests, squirming. “That’s cheating!”
“You started it!”
“I was being playful!”
“So am I!”
She’s laughing so hard she can barely breathe. I’m laughing too. We’re both covered in snow, both breathing hard, both—
She goes very still.
I know why a second later.
I’m still holding her. My arms are around her waist. Her back is against my chest. I can feel her breathing, feel the rise and fall of her ribs, feel the way she’s frozen in place like if she doesn’t move, this moment won’t end.
Or won’t mean anything.
Or won’t be real.
I should let go.
I don’t let go.
“Rhi,” I say quietly.
“Yeah?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“I’m going to put snow down your hoodie now.”
“Don’t you dare—”
But I’m already doing it, scooping up a handful of snow and shoving it down the back of her jacket.
She shrieks—actually shrieks—and whirls around, hands scrabbling at her back trying to get the snow out.
“You are the WORST—”
She lunges at me with her own handful of snow, and I try to dodge, but the ground is slippery and my boots lose traction and suddenly we’re both going down.
I twist at the last second so I take the impact, landing on my back in the snow with Rhi landing on top of me.
For a second, neither of us moves. We’re both breathing hard. Her hands are braced on either side of my head.
Her knees are on either side of my hips.
Her face is inches from mine.
Snow is melting between us, cold and wet, seeping through my jacket.
But all I can feel is HER.
The weight of her. Her eyes are so bright. Alive. Happy.
She’s so close. Close enough that I can see the ring of darker brown around her pupils. Close enough that I can count the freckles scattered across her nose—seven, I think, though I’m having trouble focusing on counting when she’s looking at me like that.
Her lips are parted slightly, pink from the cold, and I want to taste them so badly it’s actually painful.
She’s breathing hard. I’m breathing hard. Her body is pressed against mine in ways that are making it very difficult to think about anything except how perfectly she fits.
“Hi,” I say, because I’m an idiot.
“Hi,” she whispers back.
Her hair has come completely loose and is falling around us like a curtain, blocking out everything but her face.
She’s looking at my mouth.
I’m looking at hers.
My hands find her waist. Settle there. Fit there like they were made for it. She sucks in a breath. Her hips shift slightly, and—shit.
There’s no way she can’t feel it. I’m not bragging but I’m not exactly small.
Her eyes darken when she realizes exactly what she’s feeling pressed against her.
Move, Wolfe. Let her go.
I don’t move.
We shouldn’t do this. We’re research partners. We have days together in a tiny cabin. This is a terrible idea.
But god, I want to.
I lift my hand—slowly, giving her time to pull away—and brush a strand of hair away from her face. My fingers graze her cheek.
She sucks in a breath.
“Carter—”
The cabin door opens.
We both jerk our heads toward the sound.
A forestry guy is standing on the porch, looking extremely confused.
Rhi scrambles off me so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t fall right over again. And I’m left lying in the snow, hard as a rock, trying to remember how to form sentences. Fuck my life.