Page 9 of Battle of Hearts

Sawyer rose as well, stepping beside her, their shoulders almost touching. The heat from the fire radiated against their faces, but it did little to ease the chill that had settled between them.

“You think we’ll be okay here?” Sawyer asked. “You know…will the weather become dangerous?”

Mirren hesitated, her eyes flicking to Sawyer’s lips before she could stop herself. “We’ll manage,” she said, but there was an edge to her voice, a nervousness that hadn’t been there before. The captain’s stare was as intense as her presence, and the woman’s tall, muscular frame was so close to her.

The air between them grew thick. They returned their focus to the fire, but their eyes inevitably met once more. This time, neither of them managed to say a word as they held each others stare. The wind outside howled violently.

Mirren turned to face Sawyer fully, their bodies almost touching now. The firelight cast a warm glow on Sawyer’s features, highlighting the lines of her strong jaw, the intensity in her green eyes. Mirren felt her pulse quicken, the distance between them shrinking by the second. Desire trickled into her bloodstream, and she couldn’t contain it. Her hand burned with the desire to cup Sawyer’s face, to rest her rough fingertips alongside the edges of the older woman’s cheekbones, to trace her lips with her thumb.

“I—” Mirren started to speak, but the words caught in her throat as Sawyer took a step closer, their faces mere inches apart.

For a moment, neither of them moved, the air charged with a tension so thick it was almost suffocating. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the relentless howl of the storm outside.

Suddenly, Mirren lost all control of herself. She lifted her hand, her fingers brushing against Sawyer’s cheek with a tenderness that took them both by surprise. Sawyer’s breath hitched as she leaned into the touch, her own hand rising to rest on Mirren’s arm.

And then, without warning, Mirren closed the distance between them entirely as she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Sawyer’s.

5

SAWYER

The kiss had been a mistake.

At least, that’s what Sawyer kept telling herself as the storm continued to howl relentlessly outside. The walls of the outpost continued to rattle with an unsettling fury. The cold seeped through the walls further with each passing minute. Soon, the fire would no longer be enough to keep them warm.

Yet despite the gravity of their troubling situation, despite the fact everything only seemed to worsen with each passing second, it wasn’t the storm that consumed her thoughts. Sawyer’s mind remained distracted with something far more disruptive than the elements—Mirren.

It was almost as if Sawyer could still feel the lingering warmth of the meteorologist’s lips against hers. The shock of the kiss had sent waves through her like an unexpected avalanche. It had been brief, barely a second, but it had felt like something monumental. And in that moment, as their lips parted, Sawyer couldn’t deny a large part of her wanted more, wasdesperatefor more.

When it was over, when Saywer had finally dared to open her eyes and met Mirren’s, she could have sworn she’d noticed acertain hunger glistening in the woman’s gaze that told Sawyer she felt similarly.

But nothing else happened.

The kiss came quick, and then it was done, just like that. Sawyer couldn’t deny how the kiss had made her feel a certain way, a more feral expansion of the emotions that already brewed in the presence of the younger woman since their initial meeting. In a way she didn’t yet understand, the kiss was special to her—but it was also irreversible. It hadn’t been planned, and it sure as hell hadn’t been expected. Despite her growing attraction toward Mirren, Sawyer hadn’t even thought about it—until she had. And once it had happened, there was no taking it back.

Now, as she stood by the window watching the snow pile up against the walls of the outpost, she felt the weight of her own actions settling in.

It wasn’t just the kiss. It waseverything. The immense attraction had been building the moment she’d set foot into that control room and had continued to simmer beneath the surface every moment they’d shared since. Sawyer thought she could keep her emotions in check, that she’d be able to ignore them and prioritize the mission. She’d convinced herself that her professionalism, her discipline, would override whatever feelings she harbored.

But she’d been wrong.

She glanced over her shoulder at Mirren, who was busy arranging their supplies on the small table in the corner of the room. The tension between them was thick, hanging in the air like the cold that seeped through the cracks in the walls.

The worst part of it all wasn’t the fact that they’d kissed. It was that Mirren hadn’t said a word about the kiss. She’d barely spoken at all since it had happened, and that silence, more than anything, gnawed at Sawyer’s insides.

Sawyer wanted to break the silence, but she was at a loss of what to say, so she said nothing. She clenched her jaw, turning her attention back to the storm.

She had to forget about the kiss. They needed to focus—on survival, on making sure they had enough wood to last through the night. They were stranded here, after all, and there was no room for distractions. Not when the temperatures were plummeting and the storm showed no signs of letting up.

With a deep breath, she pulled away from the window and strode across the room, her boots heavy against the wooden floor. “We need to check our inventory,” she said in a sharp and authoritative voice, as if she could drown out the thoughts in her head with sheer command. “Make sure we have enough food, water, and fuel to last through this.”

Mirren looked up, her eyes meeting Sawyer’s for the briefest of moments before darting away. “Right. I already started going through the supplies. It looks like we have enough for a few days, but it’s going to be tight if we go far beyond that.”

Sawyer nodded, her gaze flicking to the table where Mirren had neatly laid out their rations—canned food, a few bottles of water, a handful of MRE’s. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

“Good. Let’s make sure everything’s accounted for.” Sawyer slid into a chair and methodically counted the supplies while trying to ignore the awkwardness that had settled between them. She was a leader, after all. This was her responsibility, her mission. She couldn’t afford to let one moment of weakness compromise everything.

But it was hard to ignore the silence. The way Mirren moved so carefully around her as if she was afraid of brushing up against Sawyer again. As if the space between them was toodangerous, too charged. Sawyer both hated it and appreciated it.

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