Chapter 38 Quentin #2
His heart kicked as she surged toward the river, all limbs and laughter, a living hazard sign wrapped in beauty and impulse.
She was chaos in motion, a bull in a china shop with zero brakes and even less fear.
She dove headfirst into life—reckless, radiant, and utterly unfiltered.
And God help him, he admired the hell out of her for it.
She dipped her fingers into the river, testing it, then turned back with a smile that promised imminent psychological distress.
“Frosty,” she announced cheerfully.
“Sadie, no.”
She was already peeling off her shirt. He stared, genuinely considering whether this was a hallucination brought on by dehydration and hormone-induced psychosis.
Then came the boots. Then the jeans. And suddenly she was standing there in nothing but a lacy black bra and matching underwear, like some woodland siren sent specifically to destroy him.
“What—what are you doing?” he asked, stepping closer, helpless to stop himself even though every part of him screamed danger.
She didn’t answer. She just ran barefoot across jagged rocks like the laws of physics didn’t apply to her. And then without a second of hesitation, she launched herself into the river like a human cannonball. A scream ripped through the valley, sharp and blood-curdling, and then silence.
“Sadie!” he yelled, frozen in sheer, bone-deep panic.
Nothing. Not a ripple.
“You’re going to freeze!” he shouted, but she’d vanished beneath the surface like some underwear-clad cryptid. Seconds passed and his heart dropped straight into his stomach.
"Sadie?" His voice cracked as his eyes darted frantically over the water. Still no sign of her and he was hit with full-fledged panic.
Without another thought, he ripped off his boots and charged into the river, the ice-cold water hitting him like a sledgehammer.
The water hit him like a fist, icy and punishing, but he didn’t stop.
He dove, blind and breathless, cutting through the current.Then his hands found her.
There was a heartbeat of sheer terror before he yanked her up to the surface.
And then she laughed a bright, delighted, evil little giggle.
His pulse still hammered in his ears, but there she was grinning like a lunatic, eyes burning with mischief.
“I knew you’d come,” she beamed, wrapping her freezing arms around his neck like this was a romcom instead of a near-death experience.
“Are you—are you okay?” he managed, voice tight with panic as he cupped her cheek, fingers brushing against the chilled skin.
“Better now that you’re here,” she whispered, pressing close. Her legs hooked around his waist, her skin ice-cold but somehow still the hottest thing he’d ever felt in his entire damn existence.
“I thought I was a strong swimmer,” she whispered, lips curving in that way that made him forget how to function, how to breathe, how to do anything except exist in the gravitational pull of Sadie Murphy. “The cold got me.”
He exhaled sharply, torn between wanting to shake some sense into her and kiss her senseless until she forgot about every stupid, reckless impulse that existed in her head. Instead, he just held her tighter.
“I swear to God, Sadie,” he murmured against her temple, voice rough. “You’re going to be the end of me.”
She smiled, lips brushing his jaw. “Or the beginning,” she said lightly, laughter spilling out warm and untamed.
If she meant it as a joke, it missed its mark. Because it landed square in his chest and stayed there.
He wanted her to be in his life. But Sadie was the kind of girl the wind carried.
A wildfire with legs. A constellation forever shifting.
She was made of movement—of one-way tickets, early mornings, and restless dreams. And the thought of her leaving already felt like frostbite setting in, quiet and creeping.
“Do you ever get tired of saying goodbye?” he asked. The words came out lower than intended, softened by the steady hush of the river. “To places? To… people? Because to me, goodbye’s the worst thing in the world.”
His chest ached as he said it, the memory of his sister thudding behind his ribs. It was the goodbye he’d never gotten to say—not out loud, not in time. Instead, he had only whispered it into the dark, hoping maybe she could hear it from wherever she had gone.
Sadie went still, her gaze drifting to the water.
“I never used to,” she said. “There’s so much out there.
I thought if I kept moving, I’d never miss anything.
That I’d never need anything long enough to miss it.
” She paused, her voice softening. “But this place…I have a feeling saying goodbye to this place will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. ”
Then don’t go.
He didn’t say it. God, he wanted to. The words burned the back of his throat. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And he didn’t want to be another thing she ran from.
Still, he knew it with a bone-deep certainty: she belonged here. With the sky stretched out overhead and the mountains at her back. With that laugh echoing over the fields. With him.
She could chase every horizon. He’d never try to stop her. He just wanted to be the place she came back to.
He drew in a slow breath and kept his voice light.“Well… if a wandering soul ever felt like standing still, Montana wouldn’t be the worst place to try it.”
Her gaze caught his and her lips curved slightly.
“Yeah,” she said simply. “It wouldn’t.”
That small, simple answer nearly shattered him. It wasn’t a promise. Not really. But it gave him hope. It was like a crack in the door, just wide enough for light to sneak through.
He started moving toward the shore, her arms wrapped around his neck, her laughter brushing warm against his skin as the cold river tugged at their legs.
“Damn, cowboy,” she murmured, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “You’re strong.”
He swallowed hard. She had no idea what she was doing to him.
“Good thing,” he said roughly, “because you’re nothing but trouble.”
But his mouth curved despite himself, because yeah, she was trouble.
The kind that didn’t just turn your world upside down but made you want to live upside down.
The kind that slipped into your blood and rewrote everything you thought you knew about yourself.
Made you forget life had ever been quiet without her in it.
At the truck, he yanked open the door and grabbed the emergency blankets he always kept stashed behind the seat because unlike her, he planned for disasters. Though, to be fair, he hadn’t expected today’s disaster to involve full-body submersion in a snowmelt river.
Sadie snorted, pressing her face into his shoulder as the wind whipped across the clearing. “You’re such a Boy Scout.”
He pulled her close, wrapping her in fleece, flannel, and everything soft he had to give. “Someone’s gotta keep you from setting the world on fire.”
She tilted her head back, that wicked glint in her eyes lighting him up. “So you do like saving me.”
“I like you,” he said, the truth slipping out before he could catch it. “The saving part just comes with the territory.”
Her smile faltered just slightly like it caught on something tender.
She looked up at him, windblown and pink-cheeked, droplets still clinging to her skin, trailing down her collarbone.
His fingers brushed against them as he tucked the blanket tighter, and the contact made something in his chest stutter.
She was breathtaking. Not because of how she looked but because she was Sadie.
She was untamed and unapologetic. As free as the air they breathed.
All instinct and heart and heat, like she’d never learned how to exist at half-speed. And he was already too far gone.
“I like you, too, Quentin,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.
Her eyes didn’t flinch from his. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say more, but no words came.
She didn’t have to because he was already leaning in. And when he kissed her, it wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t rushed. It was steady and sure. The kind that whispered one word and left it burning in his chest. Stay.