Page 18 of Pucked Mountain Man
I rake a hand through my hair. “It wasn’t—Christ, Stevie, it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No kidding,” she snaps. She crosses her arms, defensive, vulnerable. “You think this is easy for me? That I don’t know how he’ll react if he finds out? That I don’t know what it’ll look like when I’m just—just?—”
“His little sister,” I finish, bitter.
Her jaw clenches.
The guilt curdles. I back up, pace, trying to outrun it. “This shouldn’t be happening.”
Her eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“This—” I gesture between us, wild, too sharp. “You and me. Thatchers’s sister. My best friend’s baby sister. In the middle of nowhere, storm-drunk, playing house?—”
“Stop,” she says, voice cracking.
I do. Only because I see what I’ve done: put that look on her face, the one that says I just confirmed every fear she carries about being invisible, secondary, a fling in secret.
I hate myself for it. I hate that I don’t have the words to fix it.
Instead, I do the cowardly thing. I turn. I limp down the hall. The knee throbs with each step, a punishment. Her silence follows me, heavier than the storm ever was.
In the bedroom I shut the door too hard and brace my hands on the dresser, breathing like I just played overtime. My reflection stares back in the dark window—ink, scars, shadows. A man who just kissed the only girl who’s ever made him feel whole and then told her it was nothing.
I don’t recognize him. I don’t want to.
But I don’t know how to be anyone else.
SEVEN
STEVIE
The cabin creaks like an old ship in a black ocean. Wind moans under the eaves; somewhere, ice lets go of a branch and clatters downslope. I lie on top of the covers staring at the fan that hasn’t moved in days, replaying the kitchen argument until the words blur and the hurt stays sharp.
This shouldn’t be happening.
He didn’t mean it how it sounded—I know that. I know the way he tenses when guilt hits, the barricades he throws up when cornered. But the ache under my ribs is older: I’m somebody’s little sister first. If this goes public, the headline won’t say Stevie; it’ll sayThatcher’s Sister.
Lightning flashes through sheer curtains; thunder grumbles, stubborn. I can’t listen to my brain one more second.
I pad down the hall. Light leaks under his door; he’s awake too. I knock, barely.
A rough, low “Yeah.”
He’s on his side, back to me, tee stretched over wings of ink. The room smells like cedar and heat and him. He doesn’t turn, but awareness rolls through him like a tide.
“Can I?—”
“Yeah,” he says again, softer.
I slide under the covers, cool sheets against my shins, heat pouring off him. I fit my knees to the backs of his, careful with his brace. For a beat, neither of us breathes.
Then he exhales and curls around me. One arm slips under my pillow; the other drapes over my waist, palm spreading across my stomach like he’s claiming ground he barely believes he deserves. His nose nuzzles my hairline, breath warm at my nape. The apology arrives in touch first—hesitation melting into shelter.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, raw. “For earlier. For being a coward.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I did.” A kiss between my shoulder blades—more bruise in memory than skin. “I panicked. Thought about him. The team. Ruining the only good things I haven’t already broken.”
