Chapter 3 Kaia
Kaia
My house is burning behind me, most of what I own is probably gone, and somehow my pulse is racing hardest because Zain Carson is carrying me to his cabin with my body tucked securely against his.
There is probably a diagnosis for this.
I hope it is treatable.
I should be thinking about my clothes, my paintings, Ivy, and the boxes of old photographs I almost left behind when I moved because pretending I did not care seemed easier than admitting I still did.
Instead, I keep noticing stupid things: the steady rise and fall of Zain’s breathing, the way his hand shifts against my back whenever his stride changes, how carefully he holds me as though letting me slip even an inch is not an option.
My throat tightens.
I rest my cheek against him before I can think better of it.
Zain glances down. “You dizzy?”
“No.”
“Breathing okay?”
“Yes.”
His eyes stay on my face.
“I’m fine.”
His jaw tightens, and I almost smile. Apparently, those two words are the fastest way to make him look like he wants to start an argument.
A moment later, he climbs his porch steps with me still in his arms.
“Zain.”
“What?”
“You can put me down now.”
“No.”
“We are at your house.”
“I noticed.”
“You have a very argumentative personality.”
“So do you.”
I stare at him.
He opens the door and carries me inside with the calm certainty of a man who has decided my objections are background noise.
The first thing I notice is the order.
The cabin is modest, with one open main room, a dark couch facing a stone fireplace, and a compact kitchen running along one side. A small wooden table sits beneath the back window with two chairs. Beyond the kitchen, a short hallway disappears toward two closed doors.
Everything I can see has a place. Boots lined neatly beside the entrance. Keys in a shallow dish. Two mugs turned upside down beside the coffee maker. No mail scattered across the counter, no jacket abandoned over a chair, no forgotten cup slowly evolving into a science experiment.
The whole place looks like him.
Solid, quiet, with very little offered to anyone curious enough to look closer.
“You live like a man expecting an inspection.”
He shuts the door with his foot. “Maybe I am.”
“By whom?”
His gaze settles on me, expression unreadable.
I wait for an answer.
He gives me none.
“Right. Forgot who I was talking to.”
He carries me to the couch and finally lowers me onto the cushions. The loss of his arms is immediate enough that I resent my own body for noticing.
Deeply inconvenient.
I am still holding the sketchbook against my chest when he crouches in front of me. His hands settle briefly on my knees, steady and warm, and my pulse gives another traitorous jump.
“Stay.”
I blink. “I am not a Labrador.”
“Kaia.”
“There is that tone again.”
He rises and crosses into the kitchen. A moment later, he returns with a glass of water and waits until I take it.
“Drink.”
“You know, most people add please.”
“Most people did not breathe smoke tonight.”
I take a sip. “Happy?”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Something in my chest shifts before I can stop it.
Zain turns away and disappears down the short hallway, leaving me alone with the quiet and far too much awareness of that single word.
I look around again.
There are no photographs.
No family pictures on the mantel. No framed memories on the shelves. Nothing that hints at birthdays, holidays, vacations, or childhood.
The cabin is comfortable, but there is something solitary about it. Everything seems arranged around one man coming home alone and expecting to keep doing exactly that.
My phone buzzes.
Joyce.
Naturally.
Small-town news does not travel fast. It teleports.
I answer. “Hi.”
“Kaia.”
Her voice cracks around my name, and every joke disappears from my head.
“I’m okay.”
“Oh my God.”
“I got checked. The paramedic cleared me to leave.”
“That is not the same as being okay.”
“Joyce.”
“I am coming to get you.”
I glance toward the hallway as Zain reappears carrying a folded stack of clothes and a towel.
“I already have somewhere to stay.”
He stops near the kitchen.
Joyce catches the change in my voice immediately.
“Where?”
“Nowhere.”
“Kaia.”
I close my eyes. Apparently, I am emotionally attached to two people who can turn my name into an interrogation technique.
“I’m at Zain’s.”
Silence.
“Joyce?”
“Chief Carson’s?”
“How many Zains do you know?”
“The terrifyingly hot one with the broad shoulders?”
Heat climbs my neck.
I turn away from the kitchen and lower my voice. “Please stop talking.”
“The one who looks like he could carry a woman one-handed and permanently ruin her standards?”
“Joyce.”
“Oh my God.”
“He can probably hear you.”
“Is he close?”
“No.”
From behind me, Zain says, “Finish the water.”
Joyce goes silent.
I close my eyes.
Then she whispers, “Oh my God.”
“I am hanging up.”
“Wait. About my offer.”
“What offer?”
“For you to stay with me.”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes?”
“I have been thinking.”
“That is always dangerous.”
“My place is very small.”
“You have a guest room.”
“Tiny.”
“You bought a queen bed for it.”
“Which, in hindsight, was reckless. There is barely room to walk around it.”
I stare at the wall. “You are retracting your offer.”
“I would never.”
“You are.”
“I am reconsidering whether dragging you away from a six-foot-something fire chief who has apparently decided to monitor you all night would be responsible.”
My face warms. “He has not decided that.”
“Hasn’t he?”
I glance over my shoulder.
Zain is still standing near the kitchen with the folded clothes in his hands, watching me with the kind of patient focus that strongly suggests Joyce may have a point.
I turn away again. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“Kaia, I am deeply concerned.”
“You sound delighted.”
“I can contain multitudes.”
“Joyce.”
“Fine. May I make one small suggestion?”
“No.”
“You do not even know what it is.”
“I know you.”
“That is hurtful.”
“It is survival.”
She sighs theatrically. “I was only going to suggest that since you currently have nowhere to sleep and Chief Carson has offered you shelter, perhaps you should stop fighting the universe.”
I press my fingers to my forehead. “The universe did not put me here. A fire did.”
“And a very large firefighter.”
“You are shameless.”
“I am observant.”
“You offered me your guest room less than a minute ago.”
“And then I received new information.”
Despite everything, a laugh threatens.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Currently evaluating.”
Her voice softens. “Are you really okay?”
The question hits differently.
I look toward the front window, where red emergency lights still wash across the glass.
My fingers tighten around the phone.
“I don’t know.”
Joyce exhales. “I can come.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
Another pause follows before she says gently, “You do not have to be cheerful tonight.”
My throat closes.
That is the problem with best friends. They know exactly where the cracks are.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You better.”
“I will.”
“And Kaia?”
“Yes?”
“If Chief Carson takes his shirt off, I expect a complete report.”
I hang up immediately.
Behind me, I hear a suspicious sound.
I turn.
Zain is looking down at the folded clothes in his hands, but the corner of his mouth is threatening to move.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you laughing?”
“No.”
“You heard that.”
“No.”
“Liar.”
His mouth almost gives him away.
I point at him. “You are becoming dangerously expressive tonight.”
He walks over and holds out the clothes.
A dark T-shirt and gray sweatpants, both enormous.
“For after you shower.”
I look at them, then at him.
“You are giving me your clothes.”
“You need clothes.”
That answer should not affect me.
It does.
I take the stack carefully, suddenly far too aware that these belong to him. That he has worn them. That in a few minutes I will be wearing them against my skin.
“This is very intimate.”
His eyes darken.
The room feels smaller.
“Kaia.”
“Yes?”
He points toward the hallway. “First door is the bathroom. Second is my bedroom.”
I glance past him.
“Your bedroom?”
“You’re sleeping there.”
I look back at him. “We have not discussed that.”
“We are discussing it now.”
“That is not a discussion.”
“Shower.”
I stare at him.
He stares back.
I smile despite myself. “Bossy.”
“Go.”
I carry his clothes down the hallway before I do something humiliating, like lift the shirt to my nose.
I do it anyway.
Obviously.
The bathroom is as neat as the rest of the cabin. Dark towels folded on an open shelf, one toothbrush beside the sink, a razor placed neatly near the mirror. There is no collection of mysterious bottles and no damp clothing on the floor.
I set the clothes on the counter and turn on the shower.
The first touch of hot water makes me realize exactly how tense I have been.
I stand beneath the spray longer than I mean to, watching gray water disappear down the drain while smoke loosens from my hair and skin. My throat still feels raw, and every few minutes I catch the faint smell of fire even though I know most of it is probably trapped in my memory now.
My chest tightens.
I shut off the water before the tears can start.
I dry off with the towel Zain gave me, pull on his T-shirt, then hold up the sweatpants.
One leg could house a small family.
I try them anyway.
They slide straight down my hips.
“Absolutely not.”
I step out of them and look at myself in the mirror.
The shirt falls almost to mid-thigh. On Zain, it probably fits close across his chest. On me, it hangs loose through the body, the sleeves nearly reaching my elbows and the collar slipping slightly toward one shoulder.
This is fine.
Completely fine.
I am simply standing half naked in Zain Carson’s bathroom wearing his shirt.
Perfectly normal.
I gather my ruined clothes, fold them because apparently his house is already changing me, and open the bathroom door.
Zain is standing near the kitchen when I step into the main room.
He looks up.
Then stops completely.
His gaze lands on me and stays there.
For one strange second, neither of us moves.
The black T-shirt stretches across his chest while the one he gave me hangs against my bare thighs, and I become intensely aware that I am wearing nothing underneath it except underwear.
Zain’s eyes drop.
Only for a moment.
My legs.
The hem of his shirt.
Back to my face.
His jaw tightens.
Heat spreads through me so quickly I almost look behind myself to make sure the house has not followed me here.
“The pants were too big,” I say.
His voice comes out rougher than before. “I can see that.”
My pulse trips.
I tug uselessly at the hem. “They fell down.”
Something changes in his expression.
I should stop talking.
“They did not even pretend to stay up.”
Definitely stop talking.
Zain turns his head and drags one hand over his mouth.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you laughing at me again?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You keep saying that while visibly developing a sense of humor.”
His gaze returns to me.
Whatever amusement was there disappears.
The way he looks at me now makes every nerve beneath my skin wake up.
I forget the joke.
He does not move closer, but suddenly the few feet between us feel very small.
“You should sleep,” he says.
I clear my throat. “Probably.”
“The bedroom is yours.”
My attention shifts toward the hallway.
“No.”
His expression hardens. “Kaia.”
“You are not giving me your bed.”
“Yes, I am. You spent tonight inside a burning house,” he says. “You’re taking the bed.”
“And you spent tonight inside the same burning house.”
“I chose to go in.”
The words stop me.
Something in my chest catches.
He seems to realize what he said at the same moment I do, because his expression closes.
I look down at the shirt hanging from my body.
“Thank you. For pulling me out and saving my life.”
His jaw tightens.
For a second, the room becomes so quiet I can hear the faint hum of the refrigerator.
Then he says, “Bedroom, Kaia.”
The roughness in his voice steals the rest of my argument.
I glance toward the hallway. “Fine.”
His shoulders loosen by a fraction.
“But only because I am too tired to continue explaining why you are wrong.”
“Of course.”
I point at him. “That sounded sarcastic.”
His expression does not change, which somehow makes it worse.
I make it halfway down the hallway before turning back.
He is still standing where I left him.
Watching me.
My pulse stumbles again.
“Good night, Zain.”
Something shifts in his face.
“Night, Kaia.”
I step into his bedroom and close the door behind me before I can stand there staring at him until sunrise.
The room is exactly what I expected and somehow more intimate than I am prepared for. A large bed. Dark wooden furniture. One lamp. No clutter. No photographs here either.
The sheets are clean.
I know the second I climb beneath them.
They smell faintly of laundry detergent, fresh enough that I picture Zain changing them recently, smoothing every corner with that same relentless order he applies to everything else.
The pillow is cool against my cheek.
I close my eyes, not sure if I’ll be able to sleep.