Page 13 of Roaring Heat
I shove the thought away and sit up straighter, glaring at the ceiling like it might knock some sense into me. I don’t want this. I don’t even know what this is. It feels reckless. Dangerous. But it also feels like gravity, slow and relentless, drawing me in whether I want it or not. My breath comes too fast, shallow and restless, like I’m trying to outrun something inside my own chest. The room feels smaller than it should. The walls closer. The quiet too aware.
I inhale deeply, try to focus, but every breath feels like a lie. Like the woods themselves are watching and waiting, knowing I’ve already lost control.
Instead, I bury myself in field notes and analysis. My recorder shows nothing out of the ordinary—no sound, no movement. But something had been there. I saw it. I felt it. I wrote it down, which means it happened. I make myself believe that.
Around midday, I leave the cottage with my gear slung over one shoulder and fire in my blood. If Beau’s out here trailing me through the trees again like some backwoods guardian angel, he can explain why half the forest seems to be tracking my every move. And if he isn’t? I’ll find him anyway.
I don’t have to look far. His truck is parked half off the gravel path near the ranger station again, and the moment I spot it, my stomach dips. Not in fear; it's something hotter, more unpredictable. My pulse stutters like it’s racing ahead of me, and I hate how easily my body reacts to the thought of him. I square my shoulders, determined not to let heat masquerade as anger,but it already is. Dammit. hood up, tools splayed across the bumper like he’s been making excuses to hang around. Figures.
"Hey!"
He doesn’t startle or flinch. Just lifts his head slowly, gaze rising from the guts of the engine to lock with mine. His eyes are steady, unreadable, and too calm for the way my heart stumbles. That look should cool me off. It doesn’t. It lands like a touch, unsettling and direct, making my skin prickle with awareness. The air between us sharpens. I feel it rising, low and coiled and restless, like something inside me is waking up just from the way he looks at me.
"Morning, Cole," he says, his voice low and unreadable. The casual confidence in his tone makes my stomach tighten in a way I don’t like admitting. There’s a flicker of something in his gaze, something knowing. I swallow hard, annoyed by the way my pulse reacts almost as if it’s not mine to control.
"Don’t 'Cole' me like we’re on a baseball team. I have questions."
He wipes his hands on a rag with slow, deliberate movements, like he’s got all the time in the world and no interest in hurrying for my sake. "Do you now," he says, one eyebrow lifting just enough to needle me, like my frustration amuses him more than it concerns him.
I close the distance between us with quick, deliberate steps. "I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but I’m not in the mood. First the ley line incident, then the animal near the schoolyard, then the porch last night? Wherever I go, something follows."
He folds the rag with slow precision. "You think that’s a coincidence?"
"I think it’s suspicious."
"Suspicious," he echoes, like the word itself is a joke.
My fingers twitch at my sides. He’s so damn calm, like nothing I say could ever rattle him. It should infuriate me. And it does. But there’s also a flicker of something else curling low in my belly, hot and insistent. Like I’ve thrown down a challenge without meaning to, and now I’m bracing for the consequences. A part of me is desperate to see if he’ll rise to it. Another part wants to run before I find out.
"Yes. Suspicious. And creepy. And weird. Every time something strange happens, you show up like you were waiting for it. Or me."
His jaw tightens just slightly. "Maybe because I was."
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"Maybe because I knew something was coming. Maybe because I didn’t want you to face it alone."
His voice isn’t loud, but it hits with the weight of a thrown stone, sharp and deliberate. The impact lodges in my chest, stopping the breath in my throat and leaving behind a thrum that feels too personal. It knocks the rhythm of my thoughts off-kilter, and for a moment, all I can do is stare at him, shaken by the force of something I hadn’t prepared for.
"You don’t get to make that decision," I say tightly. "You don’t even know me."
"Don’t I?"
That again. The same quiet insistence he used at the ranger station. I step in close, anger rising to cover the shiver that prickles along my spine. Not because he said it. Because some treacherous part of me wants to believe him. Wants to lean into the heat in his voice and ask what else he thinks he knows about me. I hate that it stirs something warm and dangerous in my chest—something that feels too much like longing.
"You’re not some wilderness prophet. You don’t get to stand there and act like you know what’s best for me."
"I’m not trying to know what’s best for you," he says, voice low. "I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt. There’s a difference."
I shove past him, my shoulder brushing his chest in a flash of contact too hot to ignore. My steps are quick and sharp, pacing toward the side of the building, desperate for space that doesn’t hum with the echo of his nearness. But he follows, quiet as falling snow, a wall of shadow and heat at my back that makes escape feel impossible. Every inch of air between us crackles like it remembers the way he touched me.
"You have no idea what last night felt like."
He stops behind me. "Try me."
I spin, heart hammering. "Don’t. Don’t do that silent woodsman thing. Don’t make this about some weird mystical gut instinct. I need facts. I need real answers. Not half-truths wrapped in lumberjack brooding."
His mouth twitches, a subtle movement that doesn't quite reach his eyes. It isn't a smile. It's something leaner, more dangerous, like the edge of a blade just before it cuts. There's heat in it too, an unspoken challenge that tightens the air between us and makes it impossible to pretend this is just a conversation.
