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Gabriel

Peace and fucking quiet.

That’s all I had wanted when I bought this cabin in the middle of nowhere. No noise, no bullshit. Just me, the mountain, and enough distance from humanity that I could finally breathe again.

I’d come to Lone Mountain to get away from people.

Away from the pitying looks and well-meaning questions no civilian could understand. Away from a world that expected me to just slot back into normal life as if the past hadn’t changed me forever.

Yet somehow, I had a woman dripping on my floor and a dog shaking water all over my cabin. So much for solitude.

I should’ve left the dog outside. Should’ve ignored the pounding on the door. Should’ve turned away from that face—mud-streaked, stubborn, way too pretty—and slammed the door.

But I didn’t.

Because the truth was, I might be half-feral and three-quarters broken, but I wasn’t heartless. Not yet.

The dog—Max, she’d called him—had shown up on my porch earlier today, wet and looking like he’d run through half the forest. I’d let him in because, well, I wasn’t a complete monster. A dog wasn’t a person. Dogs didn’t want anything from you except food and maybe a warm place to sleep.

His owner, on the other hand...

I watched her as she knelt to fuss over the mutt, her soaked clothes forming a puddle around her boots. She was small—the top of her head would barely reach my shoulder—but there was nothing delicate about her. From the moment she’d pounded on my door, everything about her had radiated a stubborn energy that set my teeth on edge.

And something else. Something I didn’t want to acknowledge.

Even soaking wet and bedraggled, she was the most alive-looking woman I’d ever seen. Curves in all the right places that her raincoat did nothing to hide. When she’d first looked up at me with those big amber eyes, something had kicked hard in my chest—a feeling I thought I’d left behind in another life. Before I’d come home with scars both visible and hidden way down deep inside, that had made me a stranger in my own skin. Better to keep her at a distance than risk letting anyone close enough to see the damage.

“You’re getting water everywhere,” I muttered. Not because I cared about the mess—but because it was safer than admitting how watching her touched a nerve I thought I’d severed a long time ago.

I didn’t like people in my space. Too many variables. Too many reminders. Too much temptation to pretend I was someone I wasn’t anymore.

She looked up. Fuck.

Even drenched and scowling, she was a gut punch. Full mouth. Wild curls clinging to her cheeks. A spark in her eyes that said she wasn’t afraid of me—even when she probably should be.

Full lips that even pale from the chill looked soft and entirely too kissable. Even drenched and exhausted, there was something striking about her. Wild. Untamed. Her eyes were the color of whiskey and currently narrowed at me with a mix of gratitude and irritation.

My body tightened. I’d been alone too long. That’s all this was. Three years of isolation, and suddenly there’s an attractive woman in my cabin. Basic biology. Nothing more.

It wasn’t like I missed people. I missed silence I didn’t have to fight for. Nights without the echoes. Days without memories creeping out of the shadows. Hours where I didn’t have to pretend that I was fine when I wasn’t. Where I could just exist with my scars without having to explain them.

“Sorry about that,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I’ll clean it up. Do you have a towel I could use for Max?”

I grunted and pulled a ratty old towel from the hook by the front door. It smelled like cedar and the faint hint of firewood—everything in this cabin did. Everything except her.

When I turned back around, she was unzipping her jacket, revealing a shirt plastered to her curves. My jaw clenched. I shoved the towel at her without a word. I realized I’d been alone too long. I’d forgotten what hunger felt like when it wasn’t for food or sleep or peace.

“So, Gabriel,” she added, like we were chatting over coffee and not trapped in a storm. “Do you always live like a mountain-dwelling hermit, or is this just a rainy day thing?”

I stiffened. “I like my privacy.” The words were only partly true. Privacy was part of it. The rest was the space to heal without an audience. The freedom to have bad days without explanation or apology. The choice to step away from a world that now felt too loud, too fast, too much.

“Clearly.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were shrewd, assessing me in a way that made me want to retreat to the far side of the cabin. I wasn’t used to being looked at anymore.

“Well, I appreciate you taking Max in. He’s still adjusting to being with me. I only adopted him a few weeks ago.”

The radio crackled again. Landslides. Flood warnings. I turned to the window, already knowing what I’d see. Water pouring from the gutters. Trees whipping in the wind.

“That sounds serious,” she said.

“It is. These mountain storms are no joke. Flash floods can take out roads in minutes.”

I caught my reflection in the window glass—tense jawline, guarded eyes. Sometimes I barely recognized myself these days. Captain Gabriel Holt felt like someone I used to know, not who I was now.

“But I need to get back to my rental cabin.” She stood up, the wet towel and her raincoat in hand. “I have all my things there, and I’m sure the rain will let up soon.”

I let the curtain fall back into place. Even though I didn’t want the company, there was no way I was letting her walk back to her cabin in the dark. In the rain. “It won’t. Not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow either.”

Her eyes widened. “Tomorrow? But I can’t stay here that long.”

“Unless you’ve got a helicopter, you don’t have much choice.” I moved to the small kitchen area, filling a kettle with water. Making tea gave me something to do with my hands, somewhere to look besides at the woman invading my space. “Your cabin’s on the other side of Sawmill Creek, which means between you and it is about twenty feet of raging water right now.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d came here to rebuild myself in solitude, to find peace in the quiet, and now I was stuck playing reluctant host to the first person who’d truly caught my interest in years.

“You can’t know that for sure,” she argued.

I set the kettle on the stove with more force than necessary. “I live here, you don’t. I know exactly how these storms work.”

I knew what happened when someone thought they could outpace danger. That someone usually didn’t come back.

She bit her lip, glancing down at Max, who had flopped onto his side, apparently content now that he’d found his owner. “I don’t want to impose...”

“Too late for that,” I muttered.

Her head snapped up, eyes flashing. “I didn’t exactly plan this, you know. If you’re going to be a jerk about it, I really will try to make it down the mountain.”

“And I’ll be the one who has to explain to search and rescue why I let a stubborn woman walk into a flood zone.” I turned the burner on, the click-click-click of the igniter punctuating my irritation. “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do. But we’re both stuck with it until the storm passes.”

She crossed her arms, and her shirt clung to her in all the wrong ways—or maybe all the right ones, because I had to force my eyes to stay on the kettle.

“Fine,” she said after a moment. “But I’ll need dry clothes.”

That was a complication I hadn’t considered. I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling the almost week-old stubble scratch against my palm. I hadn’t gone full mountain hermit despite what she’d said earlier, but I was no longer military ready either. “I might have something that will work. Nothing that will fit properly, though.”

“Anything’s better than these.” She plucked at her soaked shirt, and I deliberately turned my back, opening a cabinet to pull out two mugs.

“Bathroom’s through there,” I said, pointing to the door off the main room. “I’ll find some clothes and leave them outside the door. Towels are in the cabinet.”

“Thank you.” Her voice had softened slightly. “I really do appreciate this, even if you’re not exactly thrilled about it.”

I grunted in acknowledgment, still not looking at her. “Tea?”

“Oh, please, yes. That would be amazing.”

I listened to her footsteps and the soft click of the bathroom door closing before I allowed myself to exhale. Three years of carefully constructed solitude, broken by one woman and her dog in a single stormy evening.

I went to my bedroom, rifling through my dresser for the smallest clothes I could find. A t-shirt, a pair of drawstring sweatpants, clean boxers, still in their package. I’d bulk ordered basics last time I’d gone to town.

Outside the bathroom door, I paused, listening to the sound of the shower running. The thought of her naked, just on the other side of this door...

She had the kind of body that made men start fights, burn bridges, sell their souls for a chance to touch. The kind I stopped letting myself think about years ago. Not because I couldn’t have it. Because I didn’t deserve it.

Not after everything. Not with the nightmares that still jolted me awake most nights. Not with the scars that mapped my body like testament to all the ways I’d barely survived. Not with the parts of me that still felt broken.

Up here, I’m not a man. I’m a ghost with a heartbeat. A self-exiled shadow living in the wreckage of a life.

Touch is dangerous. Wanting is worse. And I’ve got enough scars—on my body, in my head—to send most people running before they ever get close enough to see what’s underneath.

The physical ones were easy enough to hide under clothing. The jagged line across my ribs, the puckered circle on my shoulder, the surgical scars on my back. It was the invisible ones that made relationships impossible—the hypervigilance, the insomnia, the moments when a sound or smell catapulted me back to places I’d rather forget.

I set the clothes down and strode back to the kitchen, annoyed at myself.

Max had taken up residence on my rug, apparently unconcerned by the strange circumstances or the storm still raging outside. Lucky dog. No complicated thoughts running through his head.

The kettle whistled, and I busied myself making tea, adding honey to both mugs because I couldn’t be bothered to ask how she took hers. The cabin suddenly felt too small, the air too thick with the knowledge that I wasn’t alone anymore.

I tried to remember the last time I’d had a conversation with anyone that wasn’t the clerk at the general store or the occasional park ranger. Months, at least. By choice. After what I’d seen, what I’d done, people were the last thing I wanted. Their questions, their expectations, their needs—I’d had enough of all of it to last several lifetimes.

And yet here was Callie Winters, with her defiant eyes and stubborn chin, invading my sanctuary because of a dog and a storm and the absolute worst luck I’d had in years.

The bathroom door opened, and I braced myself before turning around.

She stood in the doorway, my clothes hanging ridiculously large on her frame. Well, in certain places. The front stretched across her breasts and my sweats hugged her curvy ass.

Something stirred in me that I thought had died in the desert—a pull, a want, a need that went beyond the physical. For a moment, I glimpsed what normal might feel like again, and it terrified me more than any firefight ever had.

I wasn’t built to handle softness like this. Not when she wore it on her fucking sleeve like a badge of honor.

But it was the vulnerability in her eyes that caught me off guard. For just a moment, she looked uncertain, like she was suddenly aware of the strangeness of her situation—alone in a cabin with a man she’d just met, miles from anyone who might help if I turned out to be a threat.

Something protective stirred in my chest, an instinct I thought I’d left behind with my uniform.

She had every right to be wary. She didn’t know me. Didn’t know that despite everything, the core of who I was—the part that would sooner die than harm an innocent—remained intact. The mountain hadn’t taken that from me and neither had my service to my country.

“Tea’s ready,” I said, my voice threaded with some of the emotions running through me. “Might help warm you up.”

Her face relaxed into a small smile. “Thanks.” She crossed to the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor. When she reached for the mug, our fingers brushed briefly.

I pulled back as if burned, nearly spilling the tea.

“Sorry,” she murmured, though I wasn’t sure which of us she was apologizing to.

Max chose that moment to let out a loud, satisfied sigh as he sprawled more comfortably on my rug.

“Looks like someone’s made himself at home,” she said with a forced lightness.

I looked from the dog to his owner, standing in my kitchen wearing my clothes, bringing chaos into my carefully ordered existence. “Yeah, well. At least one of us is happy about this arrangement.”

She sipped her tea, studying me over the rim of the mug. “You’re being a great host.”

Her expression was bland except for the small smile curving her full lips. That only pissed me off more. Because I wanted to taste them. “I don’t have guests.”

“Ever?”

“Not if I can help it.”

She shook her head, a curl escaping to fall across her forehead. “You know, most people would be climbing the walls from the isolation.”

“I’m not most people.” I took my own mug and moved to the living area, putting distance between us. “And I’m not isolated. I chose to be alone. There’s a difference.”

Alone means no one sees the cracks. No one witnesses the moments when the past bleeds into the present. No one has to carry the weight of your broken pieces alongside their own.

“If you say so. No one to answer to, no one to worry about, no one to care if you come home at night. Sounds lonely to me.” She followed me. The sitting was limited—one oversized armchair. I started to go back to grab a kitchen chair when she sat down on the floor. Max immediately got up and padded over to her, resting his head on her knee.

“Sounds like freedom,” I countered. “No drama, no expectations, no disappointments.”

No chance of letting anyone down. No risk of someone getting close only to realize they can’t handle the baggage I carry. No false hope of being understood when I barely understand myself some days.

Her eyes met mine, too perceptive by half. “Sounds like someone hurt you.”

I felt my jaw tighten. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’d rather be alone in the middle of nowhere than deal with people. I know you took in a stray dog even though you’re pretending to be annoyed about it. And I know you’re letting me stay even though you clearly don’t want to.” She tilted her head. “That tells me something.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“That your bark is worse than your bite.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about my bite,” I growled.

The words came out harsher than I intended, layered with memories of times when my bite had been necessary for survival—when aggression and quick action had kept me and others alive.

Thunder crashed directly overhead before she could make some sassy comeback. It made her jump slightly. Max whined and pressed closer to her leg.

“It’s okay, buddy,” she murmured, stroking his head. “So, where am I sleeping tonight? Since apparently we’re having an extended sleepover.”

I swallowed hard, confronting the reality I’d been avoiding. “There’s just the one bedroom.”

“And you don’t have a couch.”

I knew it was odd, but the cabin only had the bare minimum of furniture. I did not want or need company.

She glanced around, as if hoping another bed might materialize out of thin air. “Floor?”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor.” My shoulder twinged just thinking about sleeping on the hard surface, but I wasn’t going to let her.

The doctors said I’d never regain full range of motion after the shrapnel tore through it. But I’d made it my personal mission to prove those white-coated bastards wrong. Every day, a little more wood chopped. Every day, pushing through the ache until it screamed. I had refused to be less than what I was before, at least in this one way.

Why? Because I was lucky enough to have the pain. I’d seen too many soldiers sent home in a wooden box. That was a harsh statement, but too true.

“Neither are you,” she countered. “It’s your cabin.”

“I’ve slept in worse places.”

Desert sand that worked its way into every crevice. Hospital beds with tubes and wires. Transport planes with the constant drone of engines. Compared to those, a wooden floor was practically a luxury.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t go all stoic soldier on me. It’s not impressive.” At my startled look, she added, “The military posture, the almost regulation haircut, dog tags you think I didn’t notice under your shirt. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

I wasn’t used to being read so easily. It was unsettling.

“Look,” she continued when I didn’t respond, “this is silly. Your bed is probably big enough for both of us, and Max can sleep between us.” She patted the dog’s head. “He’ll keep us honest, won’t you, boy?”

The suggestion hit me like a physical blow. Sleep in the same bed as this woman who had given me the first hard-on I’d had in years? With her scent surrounding me, her body just inches away?

“No,” I said flatly.

Her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean—I’m not propositioning you. It’s just practical.”

“I’ll take the floor,” I repeated. “End of discussion.”

She threw up her hands. “Fine. Be uncomfortable to preserve your precious boundaries. I don’t care.”

But as she said it, her eyes told a different story. They said she did care, and that she saw through my gruffness to something I’d rather keep hidden. They said this storm had brought more than rain to my doorstep.

It had brought her.

And with her, the uncomfortable possibility that my carefully constructed isolation might not be as impenetrable as I’d thought. Or as necessary.

She was inside now. Inside my home. Inside my head. And I knew, deep in my bones, that once the storm cleared… she wouldn’t be easy to forget.