Chapter 13
Ryder’s truck rumbled along the highway. A paper bag of sandwiches from Benji’s nestled in Ivy’s lap alongside a coffee flask Louisa had pressed into her hands, its metal surface smooth and warm.
She breathed in the cab’s scent—motor oil and man.
Beside her, Ryder drove with sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand easy on the wheel, hair rumpled in the sunlight—as if she’d slipped into someone else’s dream.
Heat from the vents loosened the knot between her shoulders. Through the windshield, sunlight shuttered through the pines, scattering gold across banked snowdrifts.
Her phone buzzed against her thigh. George’s name lit the screen. She flipped it face down.
Not now.
She closed her eyes, lulled by the growl of the engine and the warmth seeping into her bones.
What would it be like if this were her life?
This wild, untamed place. This man with powerful hands on the wheel, taking her somewhere she’d never been.
The thought flitted through her, delicate and unguarded.
She caught herself, forcing her eyes open. Risky territory. But the warmth lingered anyway.
“Road gets rough from here.” Ryder downshifted as the tarmac gave way to a rutted track that climbed steeply into the forest. Branches scraped the roof. He checked his watch. “I need to pick up Ellie at one, so we’ve got a couple of hours.”
The reminder of his daughter, of his real life, should have sobered her. Instead, her shoulders dropped another degree, her body settling deeper into the seat. This adventure felt safe. Everything felt safe with him.
The truck lurched over a rut, throwing her forward. She braced against the dash, but Ryder’s palm closed over her knee, steadying her. For a second too long, he left it there. “Almost there.”
She nodded, willing herself to keep breathing while fireworks burst under her skin.
Five minutes later, Ryder killed the engine. Quiet rushed in, sudden and absolute. “Stay there.”
He was out of the cab in one athletic swing, boots crunching through snow as he rounded the hood.
Her pulse kicked as he opened her door. His hands spanned her waist easily, lifting her down as though she weighed nothing.
Her stomach swooped as if the ground had dropped out, leaving her suspended on nothing but his grip.
His palms slid slowly from her waist upward as her feet touched the ground.
For a heartbeat, they didn’t move. Her hands pressed to his chest, his fingers still curved around her ribs.
“I can manage…” The words came out weak, more plea than protest.
“I know.” His thumb brushed her side, light as a whisper. “Let me.”
Her pulse thundered. Then his hand came higher, tucking an escaped strand of hair behind her ear. For a moment, the world narrowed to the space between them.
“This way.” Ryder stepped back, taking the coffee and sandwiches from her hands as if it were second nature.
She shook her head, heart still racing, and took a deep breath. What the hell was that?
“Ivy?” He glanced over his shoulder.
She lifted a hand. “Coming.”
He led her through the trees to the cliff edge where the path zig-zagged down through pines. A low roar grew with every step until it seemed to thunder in her chest. The air sharpened—pine and cold metal—so clean it almost hurt to breathe.
By the time they rounded the bend, her lungs burned with exertion. Or maybe it was anticipation. Following him felt foreign—and impossibly right. She’d spent her life leading, deciding, bearing everyone else’s expectations. Here, she simply trusted where he was taking her.
They turned the corner—and her breath snagged.
Water hurled itself off an enormous cliff in a silver sheet, smashing into the pool below with a sound that swallowed thought. Mist rose, clinging cool and damp to her cheeks, while snow-heavy branches arched above like the silvered rafters of some ancient cathedral.
“Oh…” The crashing water swallowed her voice. “It’s—” She shook her head, laughing helplessly as she turned a slow circle of awe. “It’s unreal.”
Ryder grinned. “Welcome to Alaska.”
They settled on a fallen log near the pool’s edge, close enough to feel the mist on their faces. Ryder unwrapped the sandwiches thick with ham and sharp cheddar, handed her one, and poured coffee from Louisa’s flask. She bit in, savoring the taste.
The roar of the waterfall’s cascade cocooned them, drowning out everything else. No traffic, no phones, no demanding voices.
Just this. Just them.
Everything else, she pushed it all away. For once in her life, she was going to let herself be small. Not responsible for fixing everything or carrying the weight of other people’s livelihoods. Here, hidden in these ancient trees with Ryder at her side, she could simply be.
“Can I ask you something?” Ryder’s voice was pitched low, almost lost in the cacophony.
She looked over to find him studying her with those calm blue eyes. “Of course.”
“Be straight with me. Why’d you really come to Alaska?”
She could give him the easy answer—contracts, finances, estate. But his attention was so absolute, the truth cracked free before she could stop it.
“I’ve never let anyone take care of me,” she said, her words trembling. “Not once. Since I was young, it’s been decisions, responsibility, holding everything together. Magnify that by ten once my parents passed. I don’t even remember what it feels like not to be responsible for everything.”
Ryder nodded, as if it made perfect sense. “This place—” He gestured at the falls. “I started bringing Ellie here when she was tiny, tied to my chest. Just the two of us.” He exhaled and scratched at the dirt with a stick.
No mention of Ellie’s mum, but she didn’t want to pry.
His gaze lifted to the spray. “And before Ellie, after deployments, when everything felt too loud, too complicated—this was the only place bigger than the noise.”
“Deployments?”
This felt like safer ground, one she could navigate.
“Navy SEAL. Before the Coast Guard.” His fingers found hers, warm and strong. “Sometimes you need a reminder that the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders. Even when it feels like it does.”
The words landed like an anchor. Ryder saw her and the weight she carried. And he wasn’t afraid of it.
Heat pricked the back of her eyes. If she blinked too fast, she’d fall apart.
Ryder stood, tugging her gently to her feet. “Come here. There’s something else I want to show you.”
He led her along the slick path that hugged the base of the falls, spray soaking their clothes and hair. The roar grew until it swallowed everything—then suddenly softened as Ryder slipped sideways into shadow. What she’d thought was solid rock gave way to a narrow passage.
The space behind the falls was small, hidden, alive with fractured light. Water sheeted past the opening, casting rainbows that shimmered across wet stone.
The air thrummed with the falls’ deep heartbeat, vibrating in her chest.
“Ryder.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but still it filled the cavern.
He turned, and in his face she didn’t just see her own wonder reflected back, but hunger—held in check by a thread, droplets caught in his lashes.
She stepped closer.
His breath hitched.
Her fingers curled into his jacket, meaning to steady herself—except the moment she touched him, the ground seemed to drop away.
This time, he closed the distance.
His lips brushed hers like a cautious question. She thought she might have room to breathe—until Ryder made a sound low in his chest and everything shifted.
One moment, restraint. The next, the dam broke.
His arms crushed her against him as he deepened the kiss—like a man who’d run out of second chances. His mouth possessed, coaxed, claimed. Fire raced down her spine, her pulse booming in her ears.
Oh God.
She should stop this. She shouldn’t want this.
But her hands betrayed her, sliding up into his hair, tugging him closer, desperate to keep him there. She opened to him on instinct, on need, tasting coffee and winter air and everything she was afraid to want.
His touch gentled even as his hunger consumed her, his big hands splayed across her back, holding her like she was precious even while his mouth made her burn.
The rasp of stubble beneath her palms, the unyielding wall of his chest, the heat of his mouth—everything else blurred until there was only Ryder and the shuddering relief of surrender.
Her phone shrilled, sharp and brutal in the small cavern, the sound slicing between them.
Ivy tore her mouth from his, gasping, lips swollen, breath ragged. His arms stayed locked around her, his heartbeat pounding against her palms as if he could hold the moment together by force alone.
“You can take it.” Ryder’s voice was hoarse, though he didn’t let her go.
The glow of the screen cut through the dim light as she checked.
George.
Her chest seized, breath locking hard, the burn of Ryder’s kiss extinguished.
She silenced the call with a trembling thumb, but the spell was already broken. Reality crashed back. Ryder Meyer had no place in her world.
Oh God. What am I doing?
“Ivy?” His voice was low, but the hurt beneath it scraped raw against her heart.
She forced herself to speak. “I got carried away.”
The silence between them thickened under the noise of the falls.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Is that what you think this is?”
“No.” She finally met his gaze, and the intensity in his eyes almost unraveled every defense she had left. “I think I let myself forget that in eleven days I’ll be back in England, sitting across from bank managers trying to save my family’s estate. This—us—it’s not real life. It can’t be.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “That’s bull, and you know it.”
She flinched.
“What we just felt—” He gestured between them, voice rough. “That was real. Don’t tell me it wasn’t.”
Her throat closed. She wanted to argue, to explain all the reasons this was impossible. But the words wouldn’t come.
His expression closed off, the warmth replaced by something guarded and distant. “But if that’s what you need to tell yourself…” He stepped back. “Understood.”
She turned away from him, letting the spray sting her cheeks and hide the burn of tears.
Her legs were weak, her chest hollow as she stumbled from the cavern, leaving him in the beauty of the fractured light.
She didn’t look back.
Some things were too dangerous to face twice.