Chapter 3
Penny
Istand frozen at the workbench, Edward’s sketchbook trembling in my hands, the scent of charcoal and old paper filling the air.
The storm claws at the cabin walls, rattling the windows like a beast desperate to be let in. Inside, though, the world feels suspended, caught between firelight and shadows.
My heart hammers in my chest.
These drawings… these pieces of him… They're raw and unguarded in a way the man himself might not have ever been.
My thumb traces the edge of the sketchpad, gritty with charcoal dust that smells like sorrow and pine resin.
Outside, the storm screams. Inside, the fire crackles. All of it, the entire world around us seems to echo the despair in his drawings.
He shifts his weight, a low creak from the floorboard the only sound besides the wind.
The town below, Scottsdale, calls him a hermit. A ghost story. My parents warned me he was broken beyond repair. They never mentioned the artist. They never saw the soul screaming across these pages.
Would they even know? Has anyone ever tried to get to know him?
The cabin shrinks. Suddenly, it's just the two of us, the fire, and this terrifying, beautiful truth laid bare between us.
For a breathless moment, I don’t see the scowling recluse with the rifle. I see the haunted soldier. The lone wolf. The artist.
When I finally lift my eyes, Edward is still behind me. His broad frame blocks the firelight, his presence heavy, immovable, impossible to ignore. The silence between us stretches taut, filled with the crackle of the flames and the storm’s mournful wail.
And then, his voice breaks through.
“You… you really think so?” he asks, the question loaded with more words than he's used all night.
I nod, unable to speak, too overwhelmed by the unexpected intimacy of the moment.
We’re no longer just two strangers trapped by a storm. We’re two artists, speaking a language beyond words, connecting through the universal tapestry of creation and pain.
“Of course. I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."
He scoffs, a low rumble like distant thunder. "It's just scratches on paper. Doesn't change anything."
His massive hand reaches past my shoulder and snatches the sketchbook away, the sudden movement making me flinch. He slams it shut, charcoal dust puffing into the firelight like dark snow.
"You're too young to understand."
"Understand what?" I ask, curious to know the man beyond the drawings.
He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. "That the world eats beauty whole. Chews it up, piece by piece and shits out the ruins."
I step closer, ignoring the way his shoulders tense. "Spoken like a true artist."
This time, he returns to grunting as an appropriate form of communication.
"So what? We're supposed to just stop making beautiful things because the world's broken?" My fingers brush the edge of the closed sketchbook still clutched in his hand. "That seems like letting the ruin win."
His piercing blue eyes lock onto mine, suddenly defensive. "Survival isn't winning, Sunshine. It's just not dying yet."
He turns abruptly, placing the sketchbook back on the workbench with surprising care, his back a solid wall of worn flannel.
The wind howls against the windowpane and I shiver, but this time, I don't think it's from the cold.
"Why do you hide them?” I whisper, gesturing to the stack of hidden books.
He shrugs, looking away again. “No one needs to see them. They’re for me.”
“Art isn’t meant to be hidden, Edward,” I say gently. “It’s meant to be shared. To connect. To heal.”
I lean around him and grab the sketchbook back from the top of the pile, making sure to lock eyes with him as I do it. I hold it carefully, right over my heart. “This is powerful. You are powerful.”
The storm outside howls, a fierce punctuation mark to our fragile moment of connection.
Edward doesn’t respond, but he also doesn’t take the sketchbook from me. He simply stares into the fire, his shoulders a little less rigid, his gaze a little less haunted.
“Well,” I say, a small, genuine smile gracing my lips. “Looks like I found my inspiration after all. You, Edward Rogers. And your incredibly artistic, grumpy… soul.”
He grunts, but this time, there's a ghost of something almost like a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Almost.
I settle back onto the fold-out bed, placing the sketchbook carefully beside me. The storm rages on, isolating us further, but inside, a new kind of space seems to have opened up. A crack in the fortress.
I pull out my own small sketchbook, the one I’d managed to keep dry, and a pencil. I look at Edward, still staring into the fire, still a mountain of a man brooding alone inside his head.
Only now, with a tiny, almost imperceptible sliver of light shining from within.
My pencil begins to move, translating the angles of his face, the intensity of his gaze, the quiet power of his solitude onto the page.
He doesn’t notice. Or if he does, he doesn’t comment.
The silence that settles between us this time is different.
It’s not awkward, not uncomfortable. It’s the quiet of two people sharing a space, sharing an unexpected connection, sharing the vast, echoing silence of the storm-beaten mountain.
And as the last rays of twilight fade completely, painting the cabin in shades of gray and firelight, I realize something.
Edward Rogers, with his gruff exterior and his hidden depths, is far more than just a man. He’s a landscape waiting to be explored, a story waiting to be told.
And I, Penny Kaye, am just the artist to do it.