Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Sierra
Sleep? What the hell is that?
It’s a bullshit clit tease, that’s what.
Like some smug, shirtless hottie whispering promises he has no intention of delivering.
Cruel and pointless.
Every time I close my eyes, Everett’s there—hands, mouth, that voice, all of it, growling “tell me you don’t feel it” aiming that deliciously gritty love potion number nine voodoo juice directly at my cat.
And yeah, my cat perked right up.
The thirsty little bitch slapped on a baseball glove, channeled the skills of a pro ball player, and caught that shit clean.
She’s been shamelessly meowing in tongues ever since.
Stop it. This is not productive. This is the opposite of productive. This is actively counterproductive.
But my body doesn't care about productivity. My body is running a highlight reel of every moment Everett Morgan has ever touched me, and it's apparently sponsored by my own personal hell.
Now playing: that time behind the ski shed.
Coming up next: the darkroom incident.
Stay tuned for: your complete emotional destruction.
Fuck all of this. I give up.
I slip out of my room into the comforting quiet of the still hall. The kind of stillness that settles deep.
My camera swings gently against my chest, the rhythm soothing a decade’s worth of unresolved sexual tension.
Everyone else is asleep—my brothers, Everett, the ghosts of bad decisions past.
But the lodge doesn’t sleep. Not really.
And if you know where to look, she’ll whisper stories to you.
It’s just me, the dark, and a hundred years of secrets pressed into these walls.
The Heritage Walk needs photos. Real ones. The kind that capture what makes this place irreplaceable—not the polished marketing shots the lodge website already has, but the details. The scratches and gouges and imperfections that tell the real story.
And I know just where to start.
Moonlight bathes the edges of the great room in silver. The fire died hours ago, leaving only the faint glow of embers and the soft creak of settling wood.
I start with the obvious stuff. Original timber framing. The hand-carved banister. Dueling stone fireplaces with century-old soot stains.
But instincts have a direct line to my feet and the two conspire to drag me to the bar.
Gee, I wonder why.
I slip behind the heavy wood counter, crouching down to get just the right angle on the old brass footrail I’m willing to bet almost no one knows was added on the first year anniversary in 1923.
Just over a hundred years later, a slight tarnish coats her delicate curves—rendering her absolutely perfect.
My camera clicks in the darkness, the flash illuminating details I've memorized since childhood.
“Couldn't sleep either?”
I jerk upright and crack my head on the underside of the bar.
“Shit—fuck—sonofabitch—”
“Baby, you have such a way with words.” Everett peers over the edge of the bar, clearly fresh from bed.
His thick, wavy hair is mussed, but perfect, the ass. The black tee stretches tight over that annoyingly heroic chest——and then there’s the gray sweatpants.
Slung low.
Fully weaponized.
The universe is testing me. That's the only explanation. Some cosmic entity is sitting up there with a checklist of ways to emotionally ruin me.
Gray sweatpants? Item number one.
“I couldn't sleep,” I manage, rubbing the back of my head and very deliberately not looking below his waist. “Figured I'd be productive.”
“At two in the morning.”
“I outgrew bedtimes a long time ago.”
He arches and eyebrow, amusement making his mouth twitch. “Something wrong with your head?”
“Nothing. I'm fine. Just... startled.”
“By me?”
“Yes, and what damage you didn’t do, the bar took care of for you.” I'm still rubbing the back of my skull, and I'm definitely not looking at the way those sweatpants hang on his hips. Definitely not. “What are you doing up?”
“Same as you.” He moves closer, and my spine presses harder against the shelf behind me. “Couldn't sleep. Figured I'd wander.”
“You wandered to the bar.”
“Force of habit.” He shrugs, the movement doing something to his shoulders that I refuse to acknowledge. “Bartender instincts. When in doubt, check the stock.”
We face off in light bright enough to see, but dark enough to pretend you can’t.
The two of us, once so good at filling the silence, now suffocating under the weight of silence we can’t break.
The moonlight catches on his face, illuminating his short beard, and flickering over the tired lines around his eyes.
And even with exhaustion blanketing his face, he’s breathtakingly gorgeous.
The fucker didn’t need the sweatpants.
I lift my camera, pointing it at him.
Click.
I move slightly right and tilt just so.
Click.
Tara Greene. I close my eyes, and see her tablet. Pretty sure she’s stockpiling state secrets on that thing.”
His expression shifts. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s only worried about our secrets.”
At the tone of his voice, my stomach pitches. “What?”
“She asked me about you today. During my interview.”
The blood drains from my face. “She asked you about me?”
“About us.”
The word hangs in the air between us, the topic best avoided, yet completely unavoidable.
“What did you tell her?”
“Professional colleagues. Barrett family history. The same bullshit I've been saying for eleven years.” He runs a hand through his already mussed hair. “What did you tell her?”
“The same. Architecture. Preservation. My romance is with buildings.” I laugh, the sound brittle to my own ears. “She didn't believe me.”
“She didn't believe me either.”
The fear wells inside me. The silence stretches between us, held together by eleven years of secrets and the very real possibility that they're about to surface.
“She found a photo.” He keeps his voice low, even though there's no one to hear us. “Old social media pic. Some holiday party. We're in the background.”
My heart stutters. “Which party?”
“I don't know. It was grainy. But we were looking at each other and standing close—too close.”
“Shit.” I close my eyes. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“It might be nothing. She might be fishing.”
“She's not fishing.” I open my eyes and meet his gaze. “She's hunting.”
I don’t know what he sees as his gaze travels my face, but something in his expression softens.
“She asked me why I've been single for eleven years,” I continue, the words spilling out now. “She said people who pour love into buildings are trying not to pour it into people.”
Christ. Even repeating it makes my chest pinch.
“She asked me the same thing,” he says quietly. “Said you touch your mouth when you think about kissing someone.”
I freeze.
Our eyes lock.
I jerk my hand away from where I've been unconsciously worrying my bottom lip.
The bastard's mouth twitches.
“Don't.” I point at him. “Don't you dare.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I’m thinking a lot of things.” His gaze drops to my mouth, just for a second, before snapping back up. “Most of them inadvisable.”
The air between us thickens.
“We need to be careful,” I whisper. “No more looks across the room. No more almost-touches. Nothing she can use.”
“Agreed.”
But even as he says it, I'm aware of how close we're standing. How easy it would be to reach out. How much I want to close the distance, damn the consequences.
Neither of us moves.
“Can you just—” I gesture at his lower half. “Go stand behind something?”
He blinks at me. “What?”
“I can't have this conversation while you're standing there in gray sweatpants.”
For a second, he just stares at me. Then understanding dawns, followed by something that looks dangerously close to a smirk.
“What's wrong with my sweatpants?”
“You know exactly what's wrong with your sweatpants.” I wave my hand more aggressively. “They're a weapon. They should require a permit. Go stand behind the bar.”
“Sierra—”
“I'm serious, Everett. I'm trying to have a serious conversation about our collective emotional damage and I cannot do that while your—” I gesture vaguely at his entire lower half. “—situation is just right there.”
The bastard actually laughs. The first real laugh I've heard from him since he came back.
“Fine.” He moves behind the bar, putting the solid wood between us. “Better?”
“Marginally.”
“Can we talk now? Or do you need me to put on ski pants?”
“Don't tempt me.”
The joke cracks something open between us leaving the air just a bit lighter even as my heart grows heavier in my chest.
“I can’t stop thinking about Grammie Bea.”
The teasing drains from his expression, replaced by something raw. Something less guarded.
“I see her everywhere in this place,” I continue, my voice barely above a whisper. “Every corner. Every detail. I keep expecting to find her in the kitchen, sneaking cookies before dinner. Or in the window seat, knitting those atrocious scarves.”
“She was awful at knitting.”
A surprised laugh escapes me, breaking some of the tension. “The worst. Remember the one she made for Roman? Six feet long and bright orange.”
“He wore it every day for a month.”
“She was so proud.” The memory aches in the best way bringing relief from the constant drowning in heartbreak and wanting.
Everett's expression softens into something I haven't seen since he got back and I know tonight, when I go back to my room, it will be the new image haunting me when I close my eyes.
“She used to make me wear the brown one. Said it went well with my eyes.”
“Cinnamon. And it did.” The admission slips out before I can catch it.
His gaze sharpens on me, his unwavering stare making my cheeks burn and heat climb straight up my neck and into my hair.
“You weren't at the funeral.” His quiet voice held no accusation. Just an observation.
“I wanted to be there.” I grip the edge of the bar to anchor myself. “More than anything. But I couldn't—I didn't know how to be in the same room as you after so much time. With everyone watching. With my brothers there.” I swallow hard. “I didn't want to make her funeral about us.”
“It wouldn't have been about us.”