Chapter 11 Chloe
CHLOE
The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in two hours.
Chloe stood in the doorway of Corin's orchard shed, watching the sky turn the color of iron as another cold front rolled in. Snow had started falling an hour ago, fat flakes that melted on contact with the ground before freezing into a slick glaze of ice.
"We should move inside," Corin said behind her. "Ground's too hard to work anyway."
She nodded, stepping back to let him close the shed door against the wind. The space was cramped but organized, stacked with hive boxes and bags of soil amendment and tools hung neatly on pegboard walls. A space heater hummed in the corner, taking the edge off the cold.
Corin had been quiet today. Quieter than usual, which was saying something. He'd met her at the gate as always, walked with her through the orchard checking the beds, but there was something distant in his eyes. Pensive. Like he was working through a problem he couldn't quite solve.
She'd caught him watching her twice. Both times, he'd looked away before she could read his expression.
"I found something at the Book Nook yesterday," she said, settling onto an overturned crate trying to ignore if she was being paranoid or not. "Moira helped me dig through some old texts on land sickness."
Corin leaned against the workbench, arms crossed over his chest. "What kind of something?"
"A case study. Scotland, about two hundred years ago." She pulled the borrowed book from her bag and set it on the crate beside her. "A sealed well started leaking. Not water. Magic. Old magic that had been bound into the earth."
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Go on."
"The land around it started dying. Crops first, then trees, then animals. It spread outward from the source in circles, just like what's happening here." She paused, watching his face. "The well had been sealed for generations. Someone broke it open deliberately."
"Why?"
"The text says a farmer thought there was treasure hidden inside. He broke the binding without understanding what he was releasing."
Corin was silent for a long moment. His gaze had gone distant, fixed on something she couldn't see.
"Did they stop it?"
"Eventually. They found the source and resealed it. But it took months, and the land never fully recovered."
He nodded slowly, still not looking at her. There was something coiled in the way he held himself. Tension beneath the stillness.
"You went out last night," Chloe said. It wasn't a question.
His eyes snapped to hers. "How did you know?"
"You have that look. The one you get when you've been in bear form." She shrugged at his surprised expression. "We work together quite often over this last year or so. I notice things."
He would have smiled at her admittance if the news was better. "I shifted. Walked the boundary. Tried to track the source of the rot."
"Did you find anything?"
"The smell is everywhere, but I couldn't trace it to an origin.
It just... dissipates. Like someone covered their tracks.
And the well still looks the same. Untouched.
" He kept glancing at her, then away, like he was wrestling with something.
It threw her off balance. Corin was usually so steady, so straightforward. This hesitation was new.
"You want to ask me something," she finally said.
He stiffened. "What?"
"You've been watching me all day. And you keep starting to speak and then stopping." She kept her voice neutral, careful. "If you're wondering whether I'm causing this, just ask. I'd rather have it out in the open."
"I'm not wondering that."
"Then what?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. Just thinking."
It wasn't nothing. She could tell by the way his shoulders held their tension, the way his hands gripped the edge of the workbench. But she didn't push. If he wanted to tell her, he would.
"The ground should thaw in a few days," she said, changing the subject. "We can really check the well then. See if there's any sign of tampering."
"Yeah."
She stood, tucking the book back into her bag. The temperature in the shed had dropped despite the heater, and she tugged her coat tighter around herself. Her gloves were damp from the snow, the right one starting to tear at the seam where she'd caught it on a fence post earlier.
"I should head back before the roads get worse."
Corin pushed off from the workbench. "I'll walk you to your car."
They stepped outside into the gray afternoon. The snow had thickened, falling in sheets now, and the ground was a treacherous patchwork of ice and slush. Chloe picked her way carefully across the yard, watching her feet.
Despite her cautiousness, her boot slipped out from under her, arms pinwheeling causing a sharp gasp to escape her throat.
And then Corin was there.
His hand closed around her wrist, catching her mid-fall, hauling her upright with an ease that reminded her exactly how strong he was. Her torn glove had slipped, and his fingers wrapped around bare skin.
It wasn’t until that moment, Chloe realized that they had never touched before, Not skin to skin anyway.
His touch shot through her like lightning, starting where his hand gripped her wrist and radiating outward through her entire body. Not painful, but still intense. Like touching a live wire made of warmth instead of electricity.
Corin had gone completely still, his grip tightening around her wrist. His face was inches from hers, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his hazelnut eyes, the way his pupils had blown wide.
The snow fell around them, catching in his honey-brown hair, dusting the shoulders of his coat. Neither of them moved.