Chapter 5 - Autumn
I wake up in stages.
First, there's warmth. Glorious, all-encompassing warmth that feels like being wrapped in summer sunshine. I haven't been warm in so long that for a moment I just float in it, boneless and content.
Then there's pain. My hands sting. My knee throbs. My ribs ache with every breath, and there's a sharp pain along my cheekbone.
Then there's awareness.
I'm in a bed. A real bed, with a mattress and blankets that smell like pine and woodsmoke and something else, something musky and wild that I can't quite place.
And I'm not alone.
My eyes snap open.
The walls are rough-hewn logs, the floor is wide planks worn smooth with age. There's a table, a couple of chairs, shelves lined with supplies. Windows on two walls, showing darkness outside: night has fallen.
And behind me, wrapped around me like a human furnace, is Rhett.
I can feel every inch of him pressed against my back. His chest rising and falling with deep, steady breaths. His arm heavy across my waist. His breath warm against my hair.
He's asleep.
And I'm—
Fuck. I'm in my underwear. Just my sports bra and my panties, nothing else, wrapped in blankets but definitely, unmistakably not dressed.
Oh God.
The memories start filtering back in fragments, disjointed and hazy.
Rain. So much rain. Being lost. Being so cold I couldn't think, couldn't move. The shelter… I found a shelter.
And then... warmth. Sudden and overwhelming. Being lifted, carried. But the arms that held me weren't quite right, were they? Too big, covered in—
No. That doesn't make sense. I was delirious. Hypothermic. My brain was shutting down. But I remember feeling safe. Protected. Like nothing in the world could hurt me as long as those arms held on.
I shift slightly, trying to orient myself without waking him, and that's when I notice my clothes. They're hanging on a line strung near the fireplace, steam still rising from them gently.
He stripped me. He had to. I know that logically. Wet clothes and hypothermia are a death sentence. He was saving my life.
But the reality of it sits heavy in my chest…
This man, this massive, scarred, hostile hermit, saw me.
All of me. Well, mostly all of me. He saw my thick thighs, my belly rolls, my arms that have never been toned no matter how much hiking I do.
He saw every curve and imperfection that I've made peace with but that doesn't mean I wanted him to see.
Not him. Not the first man in years who's made my pulse race, made me curious, made me feel something beyond friendly interest.
The small, pathetic crush I was developing, because yes, fine, I'll admit it, there was something starting there, shrivels up and dies.
There was maybe a 0.01% chance he'd ever look at me as anything other than an annoyance before this. Now? Zero. Absolutely zero.
He's probably disgusted. Probably regretting saving me at all. Probably can't wait for me to leave so he can forget this whole nightmare.
Behind me, his breathing changes. Deepens, then stops for a moment.
He's awake.
I freeze, not sure what to do. Pretend I'm still asleep? Acknowledge the awkwardness? Thank him for saving my life while simultaneously dying of embarrassment?
His arm moves first, slowly withdrawing from around my waist. The bed shifts as he extracts himself, trying not to jostle me. I keep my eyes closed, my breathing even, giving him the courtesy of thinking I'm still unconscious.
I hear his feet hit the floor, bare feet, I realize. Quiet footsteps moving away from the bed. The rustle of fabric, like he's pulling on clothes.
Then silence.
I risk cracking one eye open just slightly.
He's standing by the fireplace, facing away from me, wearing jeans and nothing else. His back is a landscape of muscle and scars, broad enough to block out half the fireplace. His hair is messed up, standing in different directions.
He's staring at my clothes on the line like they hold the answers to questions he hasn't asked.
"You can stop pretending," he says without turning around. His voice is rough, deeper than usual. "Your breathing changed five minutes ago."
Busted.
I sit up slowly, keeping the blankets clutched to my chest. "How did you know?"
"I know things." He still doesn't turn around. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got hit by a truck. Then fell down a mountain. Then nearly died." I pause. "But warm. Definitely warm."
"Good." He picks up a kettle from near the fire and pours water into a tin cup. "Your core temperature was dangerously low. Another twenty minutes and—" He cuts himself off. "You were stupid to be out in that storm."
"I know."
"You were even more stupid to take the Ridgeline Trail instead of going straight back to town."
"I know."
"And you were catastrophically stupid to keep going when the weather turned."
"I know!" The words come out sharper than I intend.
"I know I fucked up, okay? I know I almost died.
I know you had to risk your life to come get me, and I know you had to undress me, and I know this is all my fault and you probably wish you'd just left me to freeze, so if you could stop listing all the ways I'm an idiot, that would be great! "
The silence that follows is heavy. He turns around then, and his expression isn't what I expected. Not angry, not disgusted.
"I don't wish I'd left you," he says. He crosses to the bed and holds out the cup. "Drink this. You need to rehydrate."
I take it with shaking hands. The water is warm, almost hot, and it tastes like heaven going down my raw throat.
"Thank you," I whisper. "For saving me. For all of it."
He nods once, then turns away again, moving to the small kitchen area. He pulls out bread, cheese, and dried meat. "You need to eat. Your body is recovering."
I watch him move around the cabin, this space that's so clearly his. Everything is precise, organized, minimal. Nothing wasted, nothing unnecessary. A life pared down to just what's needed to survive.
"How did you find me?" I ask.
His shoulders tense. "Tracked you."
"In that storm? I couldn't see five feet in front of me."
"I know these mountains better than you."
It's not really an answer, but I let it go. There are more important things I need to know.
"I remember—" I start, then stop. How do I phrase this without sounding insane? "When you carried me. It felt like... like you were bigger. Stronger than… I mean, you're already huge, but it felt different. I thought I felt—"
"You were hypothermic," he interrupts, his back still to me. "Delirious. Your brain was shutting down. Whatever you think you remember isn't reliable."
"I felt fur," I say quietly.
He goes completely still.
"I know that sounds crazy," I continue. "I know I was out of it. But I remember feeling warm and safe and there was fur against my cheek, and arms that were too big, too strong, and—"
"You were hallucinating." His voice is flat, final. "That happens with severe hypothermia. The brain misfires, creates sensory input that isn't there. There was no fur. There was just me, carrying you back here before you died."
He's lying. I can hear it in his voice, in the tension radiating from his body.
But I also don't know what the truth would be. That he somehow turned into... what? A bear? That's insane. People don't turn into animals. That's fairy tales and fantasy novels, not reality.
So, I was hallucinating. I must have been.
Even if it felt so real.
"Okay," I say, because what else can I say? "I believe you."
Another lie, but a kind one.
He brings me the food on a wooden plate—thick slices of bread, chunks of cheese, strips of dried venison. My stomach growls at the sight of it.
"Eat slowly," he instructs, setting the plate on the bed beside me. "Your system is still recovering. Too much too fast and you'll make yourself sick."
I take a small bite of bread. It's the same kind he gave me two days ago—dense, hearty, slightly sweet. Was it really yesterday that I brought him chocolate and oranges? It feels like a lifetime ago.
"My pack," I say suddenly. "My camera, my phone—"
"On the floor by the door. Everything survived. The waterproof case worked."
Thank God. My whole life is in that equipment.
He pulls up a chair and sits, maintaining distance. His eyes are dark, unreadable, fixed somewhere over my shoulder rather than on me. Because he doesn't want to look at me, I realize. Because he saw me half-naked and now he's uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry," I blurt out.
He frowns. "For what?"
"For—" I gesture vaguely at myself, at the situation. "For you having to... I know you didn't want to see... I mean, I'm sure it wasn't..." I trail off, unable to find words that don't make this worse.
His frown deepens. "You're sorry I had to remove your wet clothes to prevent you from dying?"
"I'm sorry you had to see me like that," I say, looking down at the bread in my hands.
The silence stretches so long I risk a glance up. He's staring at me now, really looking at me, and his expression is somewhere between confused and angry.
"You think I cared what you looked like?" His voice is rough. "You were dying. Your lips were blue, your skin was ice, your heart was barely beating. I wasn't thinking about anything except keeping you alive."
"I know, but—"
"But nothing." He stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. "You think I'm that shallow? That I'd judge a dying woman's body while trying to save her life?"
"No! I just meant—" What did I mean? That I'm self-conscious? That I've internalized years of messages about bodies like mine? That the thought of him seeing my curves makes me want to crawl into a hole?
"I didn't look," he says. "I mean, I had to look enough to get your clothes off without hurting you, but I wasn't... examining you. I was doing what needed to be done. That's it."
But his eyes dart away as he says it, and I notice the faint color on his cheekbones.
He's lying again. Or at least not telling the whole truth. He did look. And now he's trying to make me feel better about it.
Which somehow makes it worse.
"I should go," I say. "As soon as my clothes are dry. I've imposed enough."
"Your clothes won't be fully dry until morning. And you need rest. Real rest, not just a couple hours."
"I can't stay here all night."
"You can and you will." It's not a request. "You're still recovering. You try to hike out now, in the dark, and you'll just end up lost again. Or worse."
"But where will you sleep?"
He gestures to the floor. "I've slept on worse."
"I can't take your bed—"
"You already did. And you're not moving. Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor."
"No, but I've treated enough hypothermia to know what I'm talking about." His expression softens slightly. "Just stay. Rest. Recover. You can leave in the morning."
The fight goes out of me. He's right. I'm exhausted. Every part of my body aches. The thought of trying to hike anywhere right now is overwhelming.
"Okay," I concede. "But you're not sleeping on the floor. This is your cabin, your bed. I can take the floor."
"No."
"Then we'll both take the floor."
"No."
"Then—" I take a breath, can't believe I'm suggesting this. "Then we share. The bed is big enough. And you've already… I mean, we already—" I gesture vaguely. "It's not like it would be weird."
It would absolutely be weird.
His jaw works. "That's not appropriate."
"Neither is you sleeping on the floor in your own cabin because I was an idiot."
We stare at each other, locked in a battle of wills.
Finally, he sighs. "Fine. But I'm staying on top of the blankets. And you're staying buried in them. Clear?"
"Clear."
He turns away, busying himself with banking the fire for the night. I finish the bread and cheese, sipping the water, trying not to think about the fact that I'm about to spend the night in bed with this man.
This massive, mysterious, mountain hermit who saved my life and saw me in my underwear and is lying about at least two things I can identify.
My clothes are still damp. There's no way around this.
I settle back into the blankets, arranging them to maximum coverage, and watch him move through his nighttime routine. It's oddly normal: checking the fire, the door, the windows. Making sure everything is secure.
When he finally approaches the bed, he hesitates.
"I don't bite," I say, then immediately regret it because what if he thinks I meant something suggestive?
But he just grunts and climbs in on the other side, staying on top of the blankets like he promised. The bed dips under his weight, and suddenly we're sharing space again.
He smells good. Really good. Like pine trees and woodsmoke and something wild, something I can't name but that makes my brain sit up and pay attention.
"Thank you," I whisper into the darkness. "Really. You saved my life."
"Get some sleep, Autumn."
It's the first time he's said my name. It sounds different in his voice. Rougher, deeper, like stones rolling in a river.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but can’t help but notice every breath he takes, every small movement. The heat radiating from his body even through the layers of blankets. The solid, reassuring presence of him.
Tomorrow I'll go back to town. Back to my normal life. Edit footage, post content, pretend this never happened. But tonight, just for tonight, I let myself feel safe in the darkness with a stranger who's not quite as much of a stranger anymore.
Even if he is keeping secrets.
Even if I'm keeping some too, like the fact that my heart is racing, and it has nothing to do with hypothermia recovery.