Thin Walls
SEVEN
BELLA
The morning is too quiet.
I lie beneath the weight of the hand-stitched quilt, my eyes fixed on the pine planks of the ceiling.
The howling wind that battered the clinic all night has died, leaving a muffled silence that only happens when the snow piles high enough to swallow the world.
Under the floorboards, the generator continues its rhythmic, off-beat hum.
A skip in the third cylinder.
Wyatt’s words from last night drift back to me, clear and low in the quiet room.
I turn onto my side, the mattress springs creaking.
The sound is loud, almost intimate, in the stillness.
I look at the wall. It’s nothing but raw pine, thin enough that the pale outline of the studs shows through the seams. Wyatt is on the other side of that wood, three feet away.
My skin prickles, a sudden, hot wave of memory rushing over me. The feeling of his hands on my arms, hard and steady. The solid weight of his chest against mine when he pulled me down off the stool.
I spent six weeks wrapped in a cold, numb sheet of survival, counseling strangers through their darkest hours while my own chest felt like hollow ice. Last night, kneeling on the kitchen floor in the middle of a blackout, that ice didn’t just crack.
It shattered.
And now the air in this small bedroom feels thick, charged with the lingering heat of that embrace.
I pull my legs out from under the quilt. The cold hits my bare feet instantly, a sharp shock that brings me back to the present. I reach for the borrowed grey wool sweater draped over the chair, sliding it over my head. It smells of cedar, antiseptic, and the faint, woodsy trace of Wyatt.
I pull the neck up to my chin, breathing it in, before I can stop myself.
Jesse’s dog tags hang against my collarbone. I press my palm over them, the metal edges digging into my skin.
Don’t do this, Bella. You’re here to sign the papers, sell the property, and get back to your life. Don’t get involved. You can’t stay.
I repeat the words like a mantra, but they sound thin, lacking the solid armor they had when I was in the city.
Atlas stirs from his spot near the door.
He sits, his ears swiveling, his tail giving a single, tentative thump against the floor.
He looks at me, his gaze clear and bright.
He’s moving better this morning; the stiffness in his shoulder has eased by the warmth of the woodstove and the medicine Wyatt gave him.
I kneel beside him, burying my fingers in his thick, coarse fur. “Morning, boy.” I press my forehead to his temple, matching his slow breathing. “How’s the shoulder?”
He nudges my knee, a wet, cold press of his nose that makes me smile. He doesn’t have the frantic energy he had in the city apartment, where he paced the narrow halls like a caged animal. Here, despite the storm and the dark, he looks grounded. Like he belongs.
I stand and open the door.
The clinic corridor is freezing. The emergency lamps are still cast in their low amber glow, but daylight is beginning to struggle through the high, frosted windows of the exam room.
Dolly, the blind collie, stands at the gate of her recovery run.
She turns her head toward the sound of my approach, her nose twitching.
“Hey, Dolly.” I step closer, sliding my fingers through the wire mesh. She presses her muzzle against my hand, her tail wagging in slow, rhythmic sweeps.
In the kitchen alcove, the two pups Wyatt rescued are curled together in a cardboard box lined with blankets, their breathing steady, warm, and content. I check their water bowl and find it dry. I fill it from the tap, the cold water splashing loudly in the quiet clinic.
There’s no sign of Wyatt.
I walk down the back hall. His door is slightly ajar. I stop, my hand resting on the doorframe, my breath catching in my throat.
His bedroom is empty. The wool blanket is thrown back, the mattress still showing the indent of his body.
Wyatt’s heavy work boots are gone from the rug.
In the front office, the budget spreadsheet lies on the desk under a brass weight, the red ink lines crossing out Cascade’s offer catching the grey morning light.
I step into the room, drawn to the desk. I look at the columns of numbers, the veterinary supply invoices, the feed bills. It’s a record of a man fighting a losing battle against a mounting wall of debt, refusing to take the easy way out because he promised a dead man he wouldn’t.
“Looking for something?”
The gravelly voice comes from the back door.
I jump, my heart hammering against my ribs. I turn.
Wyatt stands in the doorway of the clinic entry.
He has his heavy canvas coat on, the shoulders caked with fresh snow.
A dark knit cap is pulled low over his forehead, and his cheeks are raw and flushed from the cold.
He holds a metal snow shovel in one gloved hand, the steel blade dripping onto the linoleum.
“I was...” I clear my throat, stepping back from the desk. “I was just checking on the dogs. Dolly was awake.”
Wyatt’s storm-grey eyes track my movement, settling on the borrowed sweater I’m wearing. His gaze lingers on the cuffs where my hands are tucked inside the sleeves, then moves slowly, deliberately, up to the collar.
It feels like a physical touch, a slow heat tracing the line of my neck. There’s a flash of something dark and heavy in his eyes before his jaw works and he looks down at his boots.
“The sheepdog’s temp is down.” Wyatt keeps his gaze level, though his voice is rougher than usual. “Pups are eating. Dolly needs to go out, but the runs have drifted over. Got three feet of wet pack blocking the gates.”
“I can help.”
“It’s twenty degrees out there. The wind is down, and the snow is heavy.” He looks back up, his eyebrows drawing together.
“I have boots.” I gesture toward the mudroom where my leather boots are drying. “And I’m not afraid of a little snow.”
He studies me for a long beat. The silence stretches, heavy and thick with the memory of the kitchen floor, of my face buried in his neck.
I want to look away, to hide behind the counselor’s calm, but my body refuses.
I stay pinned under his gaze, my pulse racing, my skin flushing hot under the wool.
“Don’t touch the drifts by the barn. The roof is loaded, and it’s going to slide when the sun hits it.” He turns back toward the outer door.
He steps out, the heavy door clicking shut behind him.
I let out a slow, shaking breath. My hands are trembling.
I retrieve my boots, pulling them on over two pairs of thick socks. I find a spare pair of Wyatt’s insulated work gloves on the shelf. Or maybe these were Jesse’s. They’re huge on my hands, smelling of dry leather and straw, but they’re warm.
When I step out the back door, the cold strikes like a physical blow, clearing the cobwebs from my head.
The sky is a brilliant, blinding blue, the sun reflecting off the pristine, unbroken expanse of white that covers the yard.
The spruce trees are loaded with thick, heavy pillows of snow, their branches bowing toward the ground.
Wyatt is already at work on the recovery runs, his shovel throwing clean, white arcs of snow over the fence.
He’s taken off his coat, working in just his flannel shirt, the grey fabric damp across his broad shoulders.
The muscles of his back and arms bunch, stretching with every swing of the shovel—powerful and tireless.
I grab a second shovel from the porch and walk down the cleared path.
“Take the gate over there.” Wyatt doesn’t break his rhythm, throwing another heavy shovelful over the fence. “Clear the latch first, then shovel the path out to the main fence. Don’t throw it against the wire, or the weight will buckle it.”
“Got it.”
I dig the blade into the snow. It’s heavy and packed dense by the wind. My shoulders protest on the first scoop, the muscles tight and unused to this kind of labor, but I drive the shovel in again.
We work in silence. The only sounds are the scraping of the steel blades against the concrete pads, the thud of the snow landing on the drifts, and our own rhythmic, deepening breathing.
After ten minutes, my skin is slick with sweat under the heavy sweater. I stop, leaning on the shovel handle, wiping my forehead with the back of my glove.
Wyatt stops, too. He stands three feet away, his chest rising and falling. His dark hair is damp, clinging to his forehead, and the grey at his temples is bright in the winter sun. He watches me, his eyes dark, his gaze dropping to the open collar of my sweater where Jesse’s tags have slipped out.
The tags catch the sun, a bright, blinding flash of silver.
Wyatt’s jaw tightens. He steps closer, his boots crunching loud and deliberate in the snow, closing the distance between us until I can feel the heat radiating from his flannel shirt. He reaches out, his large, gloved hand rising to my face.
My breath hitches. I freeze, my eyes wide, my body leaning toward him. The desire is sudden, sharp, and heavy in my belly, a desperate want to feel his fingers against my skin.
He doesn’t pull away. With agonizing slowness, the side of his thumb brushes the sensitive skin just below my cheekbone, wiping away a stray fleck of cold ice that had clung to my skin.
The contact is electric, even through the thick insulated glove. His thumb lingers there for a fraction of a second too long, a warm, heavy pressure against my shivering skin, before his hand drops to his side.
“You’re shaking,” he says, his voice barely louder than the breeze.
“It’s just the work,” I lie, my voice breathy, my skin burning where he touched me. “I’m not used to plowing through drifts.”
“Take a break. Go inside and check the stove. I can finish the runs.”
“No.” I drive the shovel back into the pack, my movement sharp, fueled by the frustration of my own body’s breathless reaction to him. “I told you I’d help.”