Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 39414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Wyatt’s eyes gleam. “Now sit down. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Wade scoffs. “I just hiked for two weeks.”
Wyatt opens a cabinet and pulls out a bag of chocolate-covered almonds I’d stashed away, tossing it to Wade like a peace offering.
Wade catches it and pops a few into his mouth. “Got to get washed up, do some laundry and then book a flight.”
“A flight? Where are you going now?”
My brother’s grin turns up. “Met a girl on the trail. She’s from Sacramento, meeting up with her this weekend.”
“Woh—really?”
He waggles his eyebrows. “I guess love is in the mountain air.”
Wyatt breaks into laughter. “You? In love? God help us all.”
Chapter 8
Ellie
The storm doesn’t leave the way it arrived. It lingers, sulking over the mountain, making the cabin feel like an island. The next morning the world outside is white and quiet, the kind of quiet that usually feels peaceful until you realize quiet can also mean watching.
Wyatt moves through the cabin like he hasn’t slept. Not frantic. Not sloppy. Controlled in that way that makes my skin prickle because control this tight always has teeth under it.
He checks the back door twice. He checks the windows. He checks the locks. Then he checks the tree line through the glass like he can burn holes in it with his eyes. Jake follows him like a loyal shadow every step of the way.
I stand in the doorway of the bedroom in his flannel, arms crossed, trying to pretend my pulse isn’t still racing from the sound last night—metal against wood—like someone testing my boundaries the way Graham used to, only this time the boundary is Wyatt’s door.
“You’re pacing,” I say.
Wyatt doesn’t look at me. “I’m thinking.”
“That looks like pacing.”
He turns his head then, slow. “Do you want me to sit down and pretend nothing happened?”
I swallow. “No.”
“Then let me work.”
There’s no softness in it. No apology. Just a command dressed up as logic.
My mouth opens anyway because I’m me. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m—”
“Ellie.” He says my name like a warning. Like a leash. “Stop.”
The single word lands hard enough to shut my mouth.
Wyatt holds my gaze for a beat, then his eyes drag down my body—flannel, bare legs, the fact I still don’t have my clothes—and he looks away like it costs him.
He grabs his phone from the counter and checks it again, thumb moving fast.
“You hear from Ethan?” I ask.
“Not yet.”
“Maybe it was just the storm.”
Wyatt’s gaze snaps back to mine, sharp. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Minimize.”
I flinch, because it’s too accurate. Because minimizing is how I survived Graham. If I pretended it wasn’t that bad, then I didn’t have to admit how trapped I’d been. If I joked, if I downplayed, if I called it a misunderstanding, then I could keep moving without falling apart.
Wyatt watches my face like he can see the exact moment the truth hits.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
He takes one step toward me. “No, you’re not.”
I lift my chin. “I’m standing.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
It’s infuriating—how he can be controlling and right at the same time.
I cross my arms tighter. “I’m not going to be some damsel who—”
Wyatt closes the space between us until I’m backed into the doorframe. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to. His presence does it. His gaze does it. The heat of him does it.
“You’re not a damsel,” he says, voice low. “You’re stubborn as hell. That’s why you’re still standing. But you’re going to stop pretending this is small.”
My throat tightens. “You don’t get to tell me—”
A knock hits the front door. Hard. Not storm-noise. Human.
Wyatt’s head turns instantly. His whole body shifts, the calm snapping into something more lethal. He gestures at me with two fingers—stay—then moves toward the door without a sound.
He opens it a crack.
Ethan stands there in ranger gear, snow dusting his shoulders. Maddie is beside him, beanie pulled low, cheeks pink from cold, eyes bright and sharp like she’s been awake for hours and chose violence for breakfast.
Ethan’s gaze scans past Wyatt into the cabin. “Morning.”
Wyatt opens the door wider. “You find anything?”
Ethan steps in, boots scraping snow. “Tracks are faint, but they’re there. Whoever it was knows how to move without leaving a clear trail.”
My stomach drops. “So it wasn’t the storm.”
Maddie walks in like she lives here, eyes going straight to me. “Hi, mail-order bride.”
“I’m not a—” I start.
Maddie’s mouth quirks. “Sure.”
Wyatt shuts the door behind them, locking it with a heavy click. “Talk,” he says to Ethan.
Ethan nods toward the window. “They stayed off the main paths. Cut across rock, used tree cover, kept to wind direction. That’s someone who doesn’t want to be found.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightens. “How close.”
“Close enough to test your lock,” Ethan says, calm but grim. “And close enough to watch the windows.”
My skin prickles, the hair on my arms lifting under the flannel. I force a laugh that comes out wrong. “That’s… comforting.”