Chapter 5
MEGHAN
Iwoke to the hum of the refrigerator.
It took me a moment to place the sound. I’d grown so used to silence—just the fire and the wind and Wolfe’s steady breathing beside me—that the sudden noise felt jarring. Foreign.
The power was back.
I shifted under the blanket, blinking in the gray morning light filtering through the curtains. The storm had quieted sometime in the night. I could still see snow falling, but it was gentle now, lazy flakes drifting past the window instead of the violent whiteout from before.
Wolfe wasn’t beside me.
I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest, and found him across the room. He was already dressed, pulling on his boots by the door. His coat was in his hand.
My stomach dropped.
“Hey,” I said, my voice rough with sleep.
He looked up. Those dark eyes met mine, and for a second, I saw something flicker in them. But then it was gone, replaced by that careful blankness I’d seen when he first arrived.
“Power’s back,” he said. “Heat should kick on soon. You’ll be fine now.”
You’ll be fine now. Like I was a task he’d completed. A box he could check off.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
He stood, shrugging into his coat. His movements were efficient, practiced. He wasn’t looking at me anymore.
This was it. He was leaving. And he was acting like last night had never happened.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to ask him to stay, to tell me what he was thinking, to give me anything other than this sudden wall he’d thrown up between us.
But the words stuck in my throat. Maybe I’d imagined the connection.
Maybe I’d been so desperate to feel something that I’d convinced myself it meant more than it did.
He was at the door now, his hand on the knob.
“Wolfe,” I said.
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let him walk out that door without knowing. Even if the answer broke me, I had to ask.
“Was this just the storm?”
The question hung in the air. He still wasn’t facing me, and for a long, horrible moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. That he’d just open the door and disappear into the snow and I’d never see him again.
Then his shoulders dropped. His hand fell away from the knob.
“No,” he said, his voice so low I almost didn’t hear it. “It wasn’t just the storm.”
He turned around. The look on his face made my breath catch—raw and open in a way I hadn’t seen from him before. Like he was forcing himself to let me see something he’d kept hidden for a long time.
“I’ve been watching you,” he said. “For weeks. At the roadhouse.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Every time the crew went in, you were there. Working. Smiling at customers. Laughing at something one of the other girls said.” He swallowed hard.
“Whenever you came to our table, I couldn’t look at you.
The guys would be talking, ordering, joking around, and I’d just sit there like an idiot, staring at the menu or my drink.
Anything to keep from making eye contact because I didn’t know what I’d say if you actually talked to me. ”
My mind was racing, trying to piece this together. He’d been watching me? For weeks? I tried to remember seeing him at the roadhouse, but I couldn’t place him. There were so many customers, so many faces.
“When the call came in last night,” he continued, “when I heard your name, your address—I was out the door before anyone else could volunteer. Hux tried to offer backup, and I shut him down. I didn’t want anyone else coming with me. I just needed to get to you.”
He took a step toward me, then stopped, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed.
“I’m not good at this,” he said. “Talking. Saying what I feel. I never have been. But I need you to know—last night wasn’t just the storm. It wasn’t adrenaline or whatever you might be thinking.”
His eyes held mine, and I saw it all there. Everything he couldn’t put into words. The longing, the fear, the desperate hope that I might feel the same.
“You’re it for me, Meghan. I knew it the first time I saw you. I just didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to tell you.”
I was crying. I hadn’t even realized it until I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks. I swiped at them with the back of my hand, laughing a little at myself.
“I thought you regretted it,” I said. “When I woke up and you started toward the door, I thought you couldn’t wait to leave.”
He crossed the room in two strides, stopping right in front of me. His hands came up to cup my face, thumbs brushing away the tears.
“I’m an idiot,” he said. “I woke up scared out of my mind that you’d realize you made a mistake. That once the power came back and everything went back to normal, you’d look at me and wonder what the hell you were thinking.”
“I was thinking that I’ve never felt like this before,” I said. “I was thinking that I want to feel like this for the rest of my life.”
Something shifted in his expression. The fear melted away, replaced by something warmer. Something that looked a lot like joy.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He kissed me then, soft and sweet, nothing like the desperate hunger of last night. This was a promise. A beginning.
When he pulled back, warmth filled his expression. “Come home with me,” he said. “I need to check on Midnight. And I want you to see my cabin. I want you to see where I live.”
I thought about Mrs. Norris’s house. The power was on. The heat was working. The storm was winding down. My job here was done.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me get dressed.”
He smiled—actually smiled, a real one that crinkled the corners of his eyes—and my heart warmed at the sight. I could tell that smile was rare. I had a feeling I wanted to spend the rest of my life earning it.
Twenty minutes later, we were in his truck, pushing through the fresh snow toward the top of the mountain. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around mine, like he couldn’t stand to not be touching me.
His cabin was small and sturdy, tucked into the trees with a view that probably stretched for miles on a clear day. Smoke curled from the chimney, and I could see the woodstove glowing through the window.
The second we opened the door, a black blur came barreling toward us. Midnight was even more beautiful in person—sleek and bright-eyed, her tail wagging so hard her whole body wiggled with it.
“Hey, girl,” Wolfe said, dropping to one knee to ruffle her ears. “Miss me?”
She licked his face, then turned her attention to me, sniffing my hand before pressing her head against my palm for scratches.
“She likes you,” Wolfe said, looking up at me. “She doesn’t like everyone.”
“Smart dog,” I said.
He stood, pulling me into his arms. Midnight circled our legs, tail still wagging, as he held me in the doorway of his cabin.
“Stay,” he said. “Not just today. Stay with me.”
It was crazy. We’d known each other for less than twenty-four hours. But nothing in my life had ever felt as right as this moment, standing in his arms while the snow fell softly outside and his dog pressed against our legs.
“What about my cabin with Teddie?” I asked. “My stuff?”
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll get your stuff.
Teddie can visit whenever she wants.” He pulled back to look at me.
“I’m not saying we have to have everything figured out right now.
I’m just saying I don’t want to spend another day watching you from across the roadhouse, wishing I had the guts to talk to you. ”
I laughed, reaching up to touch his face. The beard was soft under my fingers.
“You don’t have to watch from a distance anymore,” I said. “I’m right here.”
He kissed me again, deeper this time, and I melted into him. Midnight barked once, apparently feeling left out, and we broke apart laughing.
This was my life now. This man, this cabin, this ridiculous perfect dog.
I’d come to Mrs. Norris’s house hoping to earn some extra money and catch up on schoolwork. Instead, I’d found something I hadn’t even known I was looking for.
I’d found home.