Chapter 4
FOUR
CALDER
I should go to bed.
I should let her go to bed.
Instead, we’re both sitting here pretending we’re reviewing the family arrival schedule while we’re actually staring at the same flickering flame and very much not looking at each other.
She breaks first.
“So,” she says, flipping a page she’s absolutely not reading. “Sleeping arrangements.”
My chest tightens. “Yeah.”
“I’m guessing the loft is…not an option?” she asks, glancing upward.
A draft groans across the ceiling boards. Snow pellets tick the skylight.
“No,” I say. “Unless you like hypothermia.”
She gives a tiny shiver even though she’s closer to the stove than I am. “And you just have the one bedroom.”
“Yes.”
She taps her pen against her notes. “So that means—”
“You take the bed,” I interrupt.
Her head snaps up. “What? No. Absolutely not. It’s your house. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“The couch folds down,” I tell her. “Sort of. Mostly. It’ll do for me.”
“But you’re enormous,” she says, then freezes, horrified. “I mean—not enormous. Just tall. Large. Wide.” Her face heats, pink spreading from her cheeks to her ears. “Not wide-wide. Just—structurally—”
“Solid?” I offer.
She gives a small, strangled noise. “I’m going to stop talking now.”
I huff a laugh and shake my head. “Take the bed, Natalie.”
“I can’t kick you out of your own room.”
“You’re not kicking me out. I’m offering.” I gesture with one hand. “And you’ll sleep better. You need to be functional to keep the whole…operation running.”
She bites her lip, and something lurches in my chest at the sight.
“That’s very considerate,” she says softly.
I shrug like it’s nothing. It’s not nothing.
Outside, lightning flashes—a rare winter crackle that turns the whole cabin pale for a heartbeat. The thunder follows low and heavy, rolling through the mountainside. The lights don’t return. The silence folds back around us.
She tucks her hair behind her ear. “Okay,” she says finally. “I’ll take the bed. But only if you let me change the sheets tomorrow so I don’t feel guilty the entire time.”
I raise a brow. “You guilt-clean?”
“Professionally.”
That tracks.
I stand to check the stove, more to give myself a minute than because it needs tending. The heat blasts my face as I adjust the damper. Behind me, she moves toward the kitchen, her boots scuffing softly against the floor.
“I’ll make tea,” she calls. “If the kettle still has hot water.”
I glance over my shoulder. “Does tea help you not panic when the power goes out?”
Her shoulders stiffen. “I’m not panicking.”
“You jumped a foot when the thunder hit.”
Her head swivels around, eyes narrowed in warning. “I was startled. Totally different.”
“Right.”
She points a finger at me. “Don’t tease me. I’m trying to stay composed.”
I lean against the stove, crossing my arms over my chest. “Storms bother you that much?”
She exhales, shoulders dipping. “It’s not exactly storms. It’s the dark that comes with them. The quiet. The feeling of—” She stops, reconsidering the confession. “It doesn’t matter.”
It does. More than she knows.
But pushing isn’t my style, so I nod once and let her move on.
A minute later, she brings over two mugs of steaming tea and hands me one. Our fingers brush. Warmth jolts up my arm as if the contact had been wired straight into the stove.
“Thanks,” I say gruffly.
She sits back down in the chair, curling her feet beneath her. The socks I gave her are too big, slouching halfway down her ankles. For some reason, that undoes me a little.
I take a sip of tea. It tastes like mint and something floral I can’t quite place. She watches me anxiously.
“Is it weird?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “It’s good.”
She relaxes into the cushions, relief flowing across her features. “Okay. Good. I wasn’t sure if you were a mint guy.”
“I’m a tea guy when it’s this cold out.”
“That’s fair.”
She looks at the windows again, snow hammering hard enough against the glass that drafts whisper around the seams. Then she looks at me.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
“Sure.”
“Do you ever get lonely up here?”
The question hits harder than it should.
She doesn’t ask it like she’s prying or judging. She asks it like she genuinely wants to understand, like she’s been trying to sketch in the lines of who I am since she stepped inside and isn’t sure she has the shading right yet.
My instinct is to deflect.
My instinct is always to deflect.
“I’m used to it,” I say.
“That’s not the same as not lonely.”
I swallow. Look into my mug. “The mountain is quiet. It’s easier to breathe up here. Easier to think.”
She nods, waiting.
I force myself to add the truth I rarely say aloud. “Easier to not feel like I’m messing everything up all the time.”
Her expression softens, so gently it almost hurts.
“You’re not messing anything up,” she says. “You’re one person carrying the load of ten.”
I give a humorless snort. “That’s generous.”
“It’s accurate,” she insists.
Her voice is soft, but steady—like she knows exactly how much pressure to apply not to break something fragile.
“Families are complicated,” she adds. “And grief doesn’t come with instruction manuals. The fact that you’re even trying this year says a lot about you.”
I’m not sure when she crossed that invisible line between guest and…whatever she is now. But her words settle somewhere deep, in a place I’ve been ignoring for a long time.
Another rumble of thunder shakes the air. The cabin lights try to flicker back on, fail, and give up completely. Natalie jumps again—smaller this time, but enough.
I set down my mug.
“Come here,” I say quietly.
Her brows lift. “What? Why?”
“Because you’re vibrating like one of those electric toothbrushes.”
Her lips twitch. “I’m not vibrating.”
“You’re definitely vibrating.”
“I’m—okay, maybe a little.”
I stand and walk toward her. She straightens, startled, as I kneel by the chair and reach for the blanket draped over the back. It’s thick wool, woven in a pattern my mother picked out years ago.
“Here,” I say, settling it gently over her lap, then her shoulders. “Warmth helps.”
She looks at me like I’ve offered her something far more valuable than a blanket.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I sit back on my heels, meaning to stand, but her hand darts out and catches my wrist.
“Stay,” she says softly.
The word is small. Warm. Full of trust I haven’t earned.
I should pull away. I should tell her I’m fine. But the look in her eyes makes something inside me unclench.
So I stay.
I sit on the floor beside her chair, back resting against the couch, blanket spilling slightly across my shoulder. The fire pops softly. The candle flickers.
Her breathing steadies.
Mine…doesn’t.
After a few minutes, she speaks again, voice quiet enough that I barely catch it.
“You don’t have to do everything alone, you know.”
I stare into the fire. “I’m not good at letting people help.”
“Then this is good practice,” she says gently.
A beat passes.
Two.
She yawns, the sound small and unguarded.
“You should get some sleep,” I say. “You’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”
She nods, rubbing her eye. “Can you show me the bedroom?”
I stand, offer my hand. She takes it, small fingers curling into my palm as I guide her toward the hallway. The candlelight follows us in flickers.
The bedroom is simple—bed, dresser, quilt my mom made years back. When Natalie steps inside, she exhales like she’s stepping into a safe place.
“This is perfect,” she murmurs.
“You can settle in,” I say. “I’ll be out here.”
She hesitates in the doorway, turning back toward me.
“Calder?”
“Yeah?”
Her voice goes soft. “Thank you. For…everything tonight.”
I nod, words stuck somewhere between my chest and throat.
She steps inside and closes the door gently.
I stand there for a long moment, staring at the wood grain, feeling something slow and warm crawl beneath my ribs.
Then I return to the couch, lie down, and close my eyes.
The storm howls.
The fire cracks.
And even though I’d never admit it out loud, the house feels less empty tonight.