Chapter 6 Amy
AMY
Obviously this man wants nothing to do with me, Amy thought to herself.
Even with his chilly attitude, I’m glad to be here. If he hadn’t come out of the cabin, come looking for me, I would still be trapped under that tree, squirming, trying to get out but hooked by the loop on the back of my coat and pinned under the heavy branch.
Right now, I’m still the coldest I’ve ever been, and I’ve been warming up in his cabin for more than twenty minutes.
It’s quiet. Not just outside, with the snow, but it’s him.
He’s quiet, with a sort of inward retrospection I’m not used to in Denver.
In the city, everything is loud, every moment a chance to consume something.
Even Kirstin—queen of being present and living in the moment—can’t resist twenty minutes of brainless Instagram reels watching.
Even on the drive here, I listened to a podcast. When I run in the mornings, I listen to music or audiobooks. I always have something playing in the background, on my TV, whether it’s from YouTube or Netflix.
But right now, he just sits in his recliner, holding his own mug of tea, sitting in the silence as the light from the fire plays over his face.
He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me. He shot down all of my other questions or simply responded with a grunt or a nod. Something about this situation doesn’t seem right to me.
“You own all this land, right?” I ask, thinking about the careful way his drive, stairs, and porch were salted. The neat stack of firewood outside, the tidiness inside this home now. “Even over where I was… stuck under the tree?”
His eyes swing to mine, and they darken. Something flickers inside me at the feeling of his gaze on me, and I push it down. I’m here for work.
“I’m not talking to you about my land,” he says, his voice gruff.
I nod, looking away, my cheeks heating. There’s something about him that seems to cut through pretense. I’d like to see him talk to one of the tech bros always hanging around the firm, the guys I have to work with.
“Okay, well, thank you very much for the drink,” I say, getting to my feet, the blanket slipping off my shoulder and taking my blouse partially with it. I catch it, but not before his eyes dart to the bare skin there and away so quickly I could have imagined it. “But I’d better get going.”
“Absolutely not.”
I blink, taken aback by the point-blank delivery.
“The roads are only going to get worse,” he explains, maybe seeing how his bedside manner could use some work. “And if you try to leave now, I’m just going to have to tow you out later.”
“But it’s not like I can stay here.”
“You can,” he says, glancing to the right. “I have a guestroom.”
“But—I don’t know you.”
He stares at me for a second, and I hope the cold, followed by the fire, is enough to explain the red in my cheeks. This whole thing already feels like the elaborate setup for an adult film, minus the fact that he has the chilliest personality I’ve ever encountered.
“Fair,” he finally says, shrugging. “You’re welcome to try and brave the mountain, but I know these roads like the back of my hand, and I still wouldn’t try it. They’re just not safe.”
The moment holds again as I look at him. “I can fight,” I say, as a warning. “And I’m armed.”
His eyes widen; that last part is a lie.
“Okay,” I amend, “I don’t have a gun, but I do have pepper spray, and I know how to use it.”
To my surprise, he chuckles, shaking his head and looking away from me, like I’ve amused him. My heart picks up a bit in my chest.
“I don’t doubt it,” he says, his deep voice practically rolling through the room. “It’s up to you. God knows it’s not like I was hoping for company tonight.”
That makes me feel bad, and I almost insist on going on the principle of the thing, but when I look out the window and see my little car practically buried in snow, I know there’s no chance I’m getting down the mountain in one piece.
It’s not going to do me any good if I get halfway back to the city and break down or if I go careening off the side of the mountain.
“My sister knows where I am,” I say, “and I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
“Fine,” he says, and then we’re standing, and he’s showing me to the guestroom, getting me a towel and even offering me one of his T-shirts. “While your clothes dry,” he says, and I swear it’s his cheeks that are pink now.
He moves through the room, shoving logs into the fireplace, checking the faucets in the connected bathroom, closing the curtains, finding another pillow in the closet, sliding it into a case, and setting it on the bed.
“Anything you need?” he asks gruffly, and I shake my head, not sure why I feel quite so… vulnerable.
I mean, objectively, I’m out in the middle of the woods, up in the mountains, trapped in a cabin with a man I don’t know. But he showed me how to lock the guestroom door, didn’t seem bothered by my comments about pepper spray and fighting.
There’s just something about him that makes me feel peeled wide open. Like all the layers I’ve learned how to apply don’t work here.
“All right. Good night.”
With that, he shuts the door and I hear his footsteps echo down the hallway, his voice softly calling to Blue, who sniffs curiously under my door before trotting along after him, her nails clicking softly on the hardwood.
I stand in the middle of the guestroom with his shirt and the towel clutched to me, my heart hammering in my chest. When I move, the floor creaks, and I wonder if he can hear it all the way in his room.
After a moment of silence, my brain comes flying back to me.
I need to get ready for bed, so I can wake up early in the morning, get out of here and get back to the office to talk to Don about all this.
I go into the bathroom, surprised to find it sparkling clean and somehow cozy like the rest of the place.
I take a quick shower, and when I return to the guestroom, I try to call Kirstin. Even though I know she’s frustrated with me, it would be helpful for someone to know where I am.
But I have no reception.
It’s fine.
My phone is hovering around seventy percent. I had it charging the whole drive up here, but having the flashlight on for ten minutes in the snow obviously didn’t help.
I turn on airplane mode—since I’m not getting a signal, anyway—and set it on the nightstand, setting the alarm as early as I can stomach and tucking into the bed.
Even with the fire, the room is still relatively chilly, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about Evan down the hall in his room.
As I drift off to sleep, my mind keeps wandering back to him, wondering whether he’s warm, and, somehow, what it would be like to cuddle under a quilt like this with him.
There’s no time for me to scold my brain for the thought. I’m already passed-out, lulled to sleep by the crackling of the fire and comforting, warm thoughts of the body down the hall.
When I wake up, it’s to the smell of bacon and coffee drifting into my room. The fire in my fireplace burns low, and I feel the effects. The room is frigid when I finally gather the courage to sit up, swing my legs over the side, and stand.
Despite the fall and slide down that little hill, and the fact that I was stuck for a few minutes before Evan found me, I’m not sore at all. Not a single bruise on my body and no headache like I’d expected. Actually, that might have been the best night of sleep I’ve gotten in a long time.
I cross the room, shaking out the cold from my limbs, and open the curtains to find the sun shining merrily at me, glinting through icicles on the trees and shining against the snow.
It’s a beautiful scene, and I take it in for a moment before I realize why there’s an alarm bell ringing in the back of my head.
It’s sunny.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, turning and crossing the room quickly, picking up my phone, heart leaping at the time.
I haven’t slept in this late in years. Don is waiting on a debriefing, even though it’s Sunday.
We’d made explicit plans for me to email him the moment I got back to town and to get on a call this morning.
My heart continues to pound at the realization that I’ve already missed that meeting, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
The only thing I can do is try to make up for it, get back to Denver as soon as possible. My best option is to leave now. Right now.
No matter how badly I want to try the mountain man’s coffee.