Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
SADIE
Three days after Derek's arrest, I wake up alone in Wolfe's bed.
This isn't unusual. Wolfe rises before dawn every morning, some internal military clock that refuses to let him sleep past five.
Usually I find him in the kitchen making coffee, or by the fire reading one of those thrillers he pretends aren't romance novels, or outside checking his mysterious perimeter things.
But today the cabin is silent. No coffee smell. No fire crackling. No Wolfe.
I pull on his flannel shirt and pad into the main room. Empty. Kitchen, empty. I check the window and see fresh tracks in the snow leading toward the tree line.
He left without telling me.
I tell myself it's fine. He's a grown man with a job and responsibilities. He doesn't need to report his every movement to me. We've been sleeping together for three days, not three years. I don't own him.
But something cold settles in my stomach anyway.
I make my own coffee for the first time since I arrived. It's not as good as his. I burn the toast I attempt. I sit on the couch wrapped in his quilt, surrounded by his things, and feel suddenly, acutely out of place.
What am I doing here?
The question has been lurking at the edges of my mind since Derek was hauled away in handcuffs.
While the threat was active, everything felt urgent and necessary.
Staying at the cabin made sense. Being with Wolfe made sense.
The intensity of our connection made sense because we were in crisis mode, clinging to each other in the face of danger.
But the danger is gone now. Derek is in custody awaiting trial. Sheriff Parker called yesterday to confirm the federal charges were filed. My stalker is behind bars, probably for years.
So why am I still here?
I pull out my phone. Signal is still garbage, but I've been using Wolfe's satellite setup to check my accounts.
My followers have been going crazy. Three days of radio silence, then a vague post about "unexpected adventures" and "finding safety in unexpected places.
" The comments are full of concern, curiosity, and speculation.
SadieInTheWild, are you okay???
Girl WHERE are you, we've been worried sick
Is this about Derek? I saw his arrest report online. Holy shit.
Please tell us you're safe, we love you
The Derek news has spread, apparently. I scroll through more comments, more messages, more demands for information.
My inbox is overflowing. My manager has left six voicemails.
Two brand partners are asking about delayed content.
The life I put on pause when I drove to Nevada is still out there, waiting for me to come back.
Can I come back? Do I even want to?
I think about San Diego. My apartment with the ocean view. My hiking trails and coffee shops and carefully curated routines. The life I built after leaving Derek, the independence I fought so hard to reclaim.
Then I think about this cabin. The quiet. The snow. The man who speaks in single sentences and looks at me like I hung the moon.
Two completely different worlds. I don't know how to exist in both.
The door opens and Wolfe comes in, stomping snow off his boots, his cheeks flushed from the cold. He's carrying something, a bundle of fabric or maybe fur, and his expression is the usual unreadable mask.
"You're up." He sets the bundle on the table. "I caught breakfast."
I stare at the bundle. It's a rabbit. A dead rabbit, freshly killed, snow still clinging to its fur.
"You caught breakfast," I repeat.
"Snares." He shrugs off his coat. "Protein's been low. Figured fresh meat would help."
He says this so casually. Like catching and killing wild animals is just a normal Tuesday morning activity. Like everyone wakes up before dawn to check their trap lines and bring home dead rabbits for their girlfriend to admire.
Girlfriend. Am I his girlfriend? We haven't discussed labels. We've barely discussed anything beyond the immediate crisis and the immediate need to get each other naked.
"I don't know how to cook rabbit." The words come out flatter than I intended.
Wolfe pauses in the middle of hanging up his coat. "I'll handle it."
"That's not the point."
He turns to face me fully, and I see him register my expression. The tight jaw. The arms crossed over my chest. The way I'm sitting on the edge of the couch like I'm ready to bolt.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Everything." I shake my head. "I don't know."
He doesn't push. Just stands there, waiting, giving me space to figure out what I'm trying to say. It's one of the things I love about him. Also one of the things that drives me crazy.
"You left this morning without telling me."
"I didn't want to wake you."
"That's not the point either." I stand up, pacing to the window, staring out at the endless white.
"I woke up alone in your bed and I didn't know where you were.
I made coffee and it was terrible. I burned toast. I sat on your couch in your cabin wearing your shirt and I realized I don't know how to do any of this. "
"Any of what?"
"This." I gesture at the space between us. "Living here. Being with you. Whatever this is that we're doing."
Silence. I can feel him watching me, processing, trying to figure out the right response.
"You're scared," he says finally.
"I'm realistic." I turn to face him. "Derek's gone. The storm's over. There's no reason for me to still be here except that I want to be, and wanting to be somewhere isn't the same as belonging there."
"You belong here."
"Do I?" I laugh, but it sounds bitter. "I'm a social media influencer from San Diego.
I make content about hiking trails and sunset views and which energy bars taste least like cardboard.
You're a former Navy SEAL who catches rabbits with snares and speaks maybe fifty words a day. We have nothing in common."
"We have this." He closes the distance between us, stopping just out of reach. "Whatever this is."
"This is adrenaline and proximity and really good sex. This is two people who got thrown together by circumstances and convinced themselves it meant something."
The words taste wrong in my mouth. I don't believe them, not really. But I can't stop saying them, can't stop poking at the fragile thing between us like I'm trying to prove it will break.
Wolfe's expression doesn't change. "Is that what you think?"
"I don't know what I think. That's the problem."
"Then let me tell you what I think." He moves closer, and now he's in my space, close enough to touch but not touching.
"I think you're scared because what we have is real and real things can hurt.
I think you're looking for reasons to run because staying means being vulnerable.
I think you're picking a fight because it's easier than admitting you don't want to leave. "
My breath catches. "That's not fair."
"It's true."
"You don't know that."
"I know you, Sadie." His voice is low, intense. "I've known you for five days and I know you better than I've known anyone in years. You talk when you're nervous and you deflect with humor and you push people away when they get too close because you're terrified they'll leave first."
My eyes sting. I blink hard, refusing to cry.
"Derek made you feel like you were too much," Wolfe continues. "So now you're trying to convince yourself that this is too much too. That I'll get tired of you. That the sunshine act will wear thin and I'll realize you're exhausting and annoying and not worth the effort."
"Stop." The word comes out cracked.
"I won't." He cups my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him.
"You need to hear this. You're not too much.
You could never be too much. I spent three years in silence and I never once thought I was missing anything until you showed up and started talking at me nonstop about algorithms and woodpile aesthetics and the superiority of oatmeal. "
A wet laugh escapes me. "I never said oatmeal was superior."
"You implied it." His thumbs brush away the tears I couldn't stop from falling. "I'm not going anywhere, Sadie. Not unless you tell me to. And even then, I might put up a fight."
"I have a life in San Diego." I'm grasping at straws now, throwing up obstacles to see if any of them stick. "A career. Responsibilities. I can't just abandon everything because I met a mountain man with pretty eyes."
"I'm not asking you to abandon anything."
"Then what are you asking?"
"I'm asking you to stay. Not forever. Not right now. Just... don't run." He rests his forehead against mine. "Figure out what you want. Take whatever time you need. But don't leave because you're scared. Leave because you've decided this isn't what you want. There's a difference."
I close my eyes. His breath is warm on my face. His hands are steady on my cheeks. He's solid and certain and everything I've never had, and it terrifies me.
"I don't know how to do this," I whisper.
"Neither do I."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's honest." He pulls back enough to meet my eyes. "I don't have a roadmap. I don't have a plan. All I know is that when I imagine tomorrow, you're in it. And the day after that. And the day after that. For the first time in three years, I can imagine a future, and you're the reason."
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
"What if it doesn't work?" My voice is small. "What if we try and it falls apart and we both end up hurt?"
"Then we'll be hurt. But at least we'll have tried." His grip tightens slightly. "I'd rather have you for a month and lose you than never have you at all. Wouldn't you?"
The question cuts through all my defenses. All my carefully constructed walls and logical objections and fear-driven excuses.
Would I rather have him and risk the pain, or protect myself and never know what we could have been?
The answer is obvious. It's been obvious since he carried me out of that snowbank.
"Yes," I whisper. "I'd rather have you."
"Then stay." Simple. Direct. A request, not a demand. "Stay and let's figure this out together."
I don't answer with words. I kiss him instead, pouring everything I can't say into the press of my lips against his. He responds immediately, one hand sliding into my hair, the other wrapping around my waist, pulling me against him like he's afraid I'll disappear.
When we finally break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"I'm still scared," I admit.
"I know. Me too."
"And I still don't know how to cook rabbit."
He laughs, a low rumble that I feel in my chest. "I'll teach you."
"I'm probably going to be bad at it."
"Probably."
"And I'm going to keep talking too much and making your cabin chaotic and generally disrupting your hermit lifestyle."
"I'm counting on it."
I look up at him, this impossible man who caught me when I fell and refused to let me push him away.
"Okay," I say.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I'll stay. For now. And we'll figure out the rest as we go."
His smile is small but real. "That's all I'm asking."
We stand there in his cabin, holding each other, the dead rabbit still on the table and the coffee still cold and the future still uncertain. The cold feeling in my stomach from this morning is gone.
Replaced by something that feels dangerously like hope.