Chapter 9 Aspen
Aspen
The storm hasn’t let up in hours.
It howls like a living thing outside the windows of Devil’s Peak Lodge, clawing at the walls, shaking loose a gutter every so often in a way that makes me flinch and curse under my breath. Wind keeps trying to peel the roof off while snow piles higher against the door.
The power’s still out. The generator’s still dead.
So I’ve spread candles across the room like some séance-loving vampire queen.
And yes, I did light the pumpkin spice one.
It’s a coping mechanism. So is the blanket I’m wrapped in.
And the fact that I’m currently reading ghost stories out loud—to myself.
Desperate times, okay?
“‘The sound came from the attic. Slow. Dragging. Heavier than footsteps—’” I read dramatically from the battered book I found in the lodge library, “‘—as if something inhuman remembered how to walk but not how to stop.’”
My voice echoes in the glow of the fireplace. Shadows flicker and stretch up the log walls. Goosebumps rise on my arms, but I’m not scared. I’m… lonely.
Pathetic, maybe. But lonely.
Thorne disappeared two hours ago. No explanation. No trace. Just put on his coat and vanished into the storm like some mountain cryptid with a tragic backstory.
Fine. Perfect. Whatever.
I pull my knees closer and keep reading.
“‘The air turned sharp with the smell of—’”
“You trying to summon something?”
The deep voice snaps me out of my skull. I jerk so hard half the blanket goes flying.
Thorne stands in the doorway. Snow dusts his broad shoulders, melts slowly into his hair. He looks like a storm god who got into a bar fight and walked away pissed off—but victorious.
“You climb out of a tree again or did the wind actually carry you home this time?” I snap, hand on my heart.
He walks in like he owns the entire mountain. “I checked the shed.”
“Great. Riveting. You could’ve said goodbye first like a normal person.”
“Not normal,” he says simply, shutting the door behind him.
No kidding.
He pulls off his gloves, tosses them on the table. Our eyes meet. Something shifts in the air. He notices the candles. The blanket around my shoulders. The book clutched in my hand.
“You were reading,” he says.
“Look at you, master of observation.”
He ignores the jab. “Out loud?”
I shrug. “Sometimes when it’s too quiet, I fill it. Running commentary is my coping mechanism.”
“You got a lot of coping mechanisms.”
“You’ve got a lot of repressed tension.”
His mouth twitches. He doesn’t deny it.
He walks toward the fire, crouching to stack wood like the man personally has a vendetta against the cold. The muscles in his arms flex beneath his shirt with every movement. He’s quiet. Focused. Too intense for a simple task.
The kind of man who doesn’t do anything halfway. Even burning shit.
He glances toward the book. “Ghost stories?”
“I figured if I’m trapped in a creaking hunting lodge during a blizzard with a grumpy mountain hermit, I might as well commit to the aesthetic.”
“Could just go to bed,” he mutters.
“Sleep is for people who aren’t overthinking their entire existence,” I mutter back.
He pauses mid-reach. Looks over his shoulder at me. Then back to the fire.
Silence again. But not the cold kind. Something… warmer.
He sits across from me on the hearth. Close enough I could stretch out a foot and touch him if I wanted to. (I do not. Probably. Maybe.)
“Read,” he says.
I blink. “You—you want me to keep going?”
“Won’t be able to sleep anyway.”
“I have warm milk in the kitchen.”
“Do I look like I drink warm milk?”
“No,” I say. “You look like you chew nails.”
He nods. “True.”
I pick the book back up. Try not to let him see how his attention affects me—this man never asks for anything. Never invites anything. Yet he just did.
I read. His gaze stays on the fire, but I can feel him listening—no, studying. It sends a weird thrill across my skin. Someone should not be able to listen like that. It feels… intimate.
Dangerously so.
By the fourth story, I lower the book. “Tell me something, Thorne.”
“No.”
I smile. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“You were going to ask something I don’t want to talk about. That’s your brand.”
My eyebrows lift. He’s not wrong. “Okay, but let’s try something new. You pick the question.”
He scoffs. “That’s not how this works.”
“It could be.”
“No.”
“You’re scared.”
His eyes snap to mine. “Try again.”
“You hide behind deflection because talking about yourself is hard.”
“Better,” he says dryly. “Still no.”
I let the silence stretch until I know he feels it. Until it starts to bite.
Then I say, softly: “Where’d you go earlier?”
His mouth tightens. I brace for shutdown. But he surprises me.
“I hiked to the ridge,” he says. “Old habit.”
“Why?”
He looks into the fire. “Used to go there with my sister,” he says quietly, like the words cost him. “When we were kids.”
My chest tightens. This is it. The crack in the armor.
“What was her name?” I ask.
“Wren.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” he mutters. “She hated it. Thought it sounded fragile. Started going by Ren instead.”
A tiny smile ghosts my lips. “Sounds like a badass.”
He nods once. “She was.”
“What happened?”
He goes still. Breathing but not moving. Not blinking.
Then—finally—he answers.
“She got sick,” he says. “And she didn’t get better. I joined the Army. By the time I got leave to come home—” He stops. Jaw flexes once. “Never got to say goodbye.”
My throat stings. No drama in his voice. No theatrics. He says it like a fact of weather. Something he endured and learned not to speak about.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He nods once. “Holidays were her thing. Halloween especially. She’d make us carve pumpkins with kitchen knives and awful stencils. Glue googly eyes on pinecones. She made me dress up.”
I laugh softly. “No.”
He reaches into a wood box on the side table, pulls out a worn Polaroid, and flicks it toward me. I catch it.
Teenage Thorne—longer hair, younger eyes—standing next to a girl with a massive smile… and he’s wearing devil horns.
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “You were adorable.”
“Don’t.”
“Like, painfully adorable. This is a crime.”
“Nobody knows about that picture.”
“I love it.”
He doesn’t smile. But his shoulders shift like some weight loosened.
I hand it back gently. “Thank you… for telling me.”
“I didn’t,” he says gruffly. “You stole it out of me.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “But you let me.”
Silence. Something heavy moves between us, but not the bad kind. The honest kind. The terrifying kind.
“So now you don’t do holidays,” I say.
“No holidays. No family. No bullshit.”
“Sounds… lonely,” I say before I can stop myself.
He stares at the fire. “Got used to it.”
“You don’t have to be used to it.”
He glances at me. “Life isn’t a movie, Aspen.”
“I know,” I say softly. “But it doesn’t have to be a prison either.”
His eyes hold mine. Long. Unblinking.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asks quietly. “Just… rewrite everything after thirty-five years?”
“Maybe not rewrite it,” I say. “Just… make a new chapter.”
He watches me like I’m saying something dangerous. Something he almost believes.
“And what—” his voice drops, “—exactly do you think I fill that chapter with?”
I exhale. “Joy.”
He huffs. “I don’t do joy.”
“You don’t have to.” I reach and place one candle between us. “You just… let a little in.”
He stares at the candle. Then at me.
And then, in a voice that almost isn’t there, he says:
“You’re joy, witch.”
My heart caves. Just—gone. Flattened. Heat rises behind my eyes. Damn him. I look away fast.
“Careful, Mountain Man,” I murmur, throat tight. “Almost sounded like a compliment.”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
I feel him watching me again. And not in the way that says he’s trying to figure me out. In the way that says he already has—and it’s wrecking him.
The fireplace pops. The wind screams. The candles flicker.
My eyes feel heavy, and I don’t know if it’s grief or comfort or something new entirely, but I curl deeper into the blanket.
Without a word, he shifts closer. Not touching. Just… there. Heavy warmth beside me.
He doesn’t say lie down.
He doesn’t suggest sleep.
He just rests his hand palm-up on the floor between us. A silent offering.
I stare at it for a long moment. Then I slide my fingers into his, lacing them slow.
His hand closes around mine. Strong. Protective. Possessive in a quiet way.
We don’t talk.
We don’t move.
We just stay.
And for the first time in a long, long time—I don’t feel alone.
Not in this storm.
Not in this lodge.
Not in this world.
With him.