Chapter 10
Nash
She hasn’t said a word since we got back from the river.
Not a sarcastic jab. Not a glitter-soaked threat. Not even a hum while she made hot cider with her fancy cinnamon sticks and shit I didn’t even know people put in drinks. It’s quiet. But not the awkward kind.
The kind that settles in your chest like warmth.
I watch her move around the kitchen, barefoot and wrapped in one of my flannel shirts, the hem barely grazing the tops of her thighs. The sight does dangerous things to my blood. I should look away.
I don’t.
She pours the cider into two mugs, sets them on the table, then finally glances up. Her eyes meet mine. All that fire and chaos she usually throws around like confetti is dialed way down, but the heat’s still there. Controlled. Banked. Like she’s feeling this too but doesn’t want to say it first.
I clear my throat. “You always walk out onto frozen rivers in boots that aren’t waterproof?”
Her lips twitch. “I didn’t know we were going on a nature walk. Thought I was about to be kissed senseless by a mountain man with a beard thick enough to hide Santa’s sleigh.”
My mouth tips up at the corner. She really doesn’t miss a beat. “Kissing you senseless would be too easy.”
“Oh?” She lifts a brow and sips. “So you admit you were going to kiss me.”
“I admit nothing.” I lean back in the chair, let my legs stretch out, brushing hers under the table. “Just observing that you looked like you needed to be quieted down.”
“You’re confusing ‘needing to be kissed’ with ‘wanting to slap you with a glitter garland.’”
“Same thing in my world.”
She sets the mug down and crosses her arms, that flannel shirt pulling tight across her chest. “You’re full of yourself.”
“And you’re still here.”
I can’t help but crack a grin.
The wind howls outside, pushing against the windowpanes like it’s trying to join the conversation. The fire crackles in the hearth, shadows dancing over her face. She’s softer in the firelight. More beautiful than she has any damn right to be.
I should make a move. She wants me to.
But there’s something about the quiet between us tonight that makes me hesitate. It’s not just the sexual tension anymore. That’s still there—hell, it’s humming so loud it might as well be vibrating between us—but it’s layered now. Weighed down with something heavier.
She breaks the silence first. “Did you always live out here?”
“No.” I rub the back of my neck, staring at the fire. “Grew up in Texas. Enlisted right after high school.”
“Army?”
I nod. “After I retired, I didn’t want noise anymore. I wanted mountains, cold, quiet. Solitude.”
She watches me. “You wanted to disappear.”
I look at her. Really look. “Something like that.”
She’s quiet a beat, then: “My parents used to bring me to places like this. Cabins. We didn’t have much, but every Christmas, they made it magical.
One year we stayed in this old ski lodge in Vermont that had one working heater and a moose head over the fireplace.
We made cocoa over the stove and told ghost stories by the fire.
I think I try to go all out during the holidays now to make it feel like they’re still here somehow.
All the decorations, all the sparkle, the fake snow, the cookies…
it’s like if I stop, I’ll forget how it felt when they were around. ”
I stare at her. This woman who showed up in my life like a pink tornado, glitter in her veins, eyes full of fire. I thought she was ridiculous.
Turns out she’s just… holding on. Like me.
I slide my hand across the table and wrap it around hers. Her fingers freeze for a second. Then curl around mine.
“I used to decorate,” I say quietly. “When I was stationed in Afghanistan, one of the guys would string up tinsel and the medics would bake cookies out of whatever MREs we had lying around. It was a mess. But it made the bunk smell like home. Some guys hated it. Said it reminded them of everything they were missing. But not me. I liked the distraction.”
She blinks at me. “You’re… full of surprises.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I squeeze her hand once before letting go, standing to grab a box of firewood. “Come on. If we’re stuck in this cabin, might as well give you your damn Hallmark moment.”
She blinks. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re doin’ more decorating.”
“You’re serious?”
I kick the door open. “Grab your twinkle lights, tinsel girl. I’m about to string these trees up so good they’ll make Santa blush.”
Her eyes go wide. Then sparkle. She leaps up from the table like a kid on Christmas morning. “You better not back out. I’ve got light-up reindeer. You will regret this.”
“No promises,” I grunt, but I can’t hide the grin tugging at my mouth.
Ten minutes later, we’re outside, the snow knee-deep, and she’s yelling instructions from the porch while I grunt and haul wood and lights and curse under my breath. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But her laugh?
Worth it.
I wrap the lights around the porch railing and climb halfway up the support beam to hang a glowing wreath. She hoots from below. “Okay, lumberjack. Didn’t know you were part mountain goat.”
I look down. “You keep staring at my ass, Hart?”
She winks. “You’re the one in tight jeans.”
I make it back down without falling. Barely. She’s waiting with two mugs of hot cider, cheeks pink from the cold, hair wild, eyes bright. She holds one out.
“To surrendering to the Christmas spirit?”
“To you being a menace,” I say, but I take the mug.
She giggles, and for a moment, I forget that this is all temporary. That she’ll leave. That this is a woman I’ve known less than a week.
Because it feels like I’ve known her for years.
We sit on the steps, sipping cider, her thigh brushing mine. The trees glitter with lights, the snow sparkles like someone dusted it with sugar. And for once, the silence between us doesn’t feel like solitude.
It feels like peace.