Page 7 of Pucked Mountain Man (Cold Mountain Nights #6)

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 say Thatcher’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.”

I lace our fingers. “You didn’t break me.”

“I could,” he says into my skin, like a confession he hates. “That scares me worse than the knee.”

We lie in that truth while lightning counts time on the walls. His heartbeat steadies mine. Words I usually hide rise up.

“It scares me too,” I whisper. “How much I want this. How much I want you.”

His arm tightens, careful, closing the last unbrave inch. “Stevie.”

I turn my head; his mouth finds mine. Not the kitchen—no rush, no flustered laughter. Deep. Quiet. All yes. He rolls his hips gently, testing leg, testing me. The joint talks, not shouts; he listens. My fingers slip into the hair at his nape; he makes a sound I’ll never forget.

“Hey,” I breathe. “We go slow. We keep your knee happy. I’m in this with you.”

“Always telling me what to do,” he rasps, a scrape of humor like relief.

“Bossy.”

“Perfect.” His palm slides under my shirt, splaying over my ribs where the tiny notes live, tracing them without looking. I feel it everywhere.

What follows is quiet and close. He moves behind me, breath at my ear, our hands tangled.

I guide the angles and pace; when his knee threatens to seize, I shift and brace him, and he turns gratitude into heat with the way he says my name.

The storm keeps time at the windows; the cotton sheet and shadows make the world small enough to choose each other.

After, we breathe together until our pulses settle. His hand cups my hip; mine rests over his, anchoring us to now.

“Rockstar,” he whispers behind my ear. “I’m sorry—again. For ever making you feel small.”

“You didn’t make me small,” I say. “I’m just… done being it.”

“I know.” A kiss along my jaw; his thumb smooths my stomach like he’s memorizing reassurance. “I’m trying.”

“I see you,” I say. “Trying.”

We start to drift, the heavy kind of sleepy. Rain needles the glass. The generator hums. His breath evens at my neck and for a foolish second I think the worst has passed.

The crash is a gunshot through dreams.

We jerk upright. The house shudders—wood complaining, glass detonating in bright, crystalline teeth. Wind screams where it shouldn’t; cold knifes down the hall.

“Window,” Grady says, already swinging his legs out. He staggers; catches the nightstand. I scramble into sweats, yank on his hoodie. The hall floor is ice-cold air.

The great room looks like a crime scene. A pine limb has speared the picture window; snow and needles tear in on a furious gust. Curtains thrash like birds.

“Shit,” I breathe. “You stay there.”

“I can?—”

“Grady.” Both hands on his chest, steady. “Your knee.”

Old habit wins for a second—he steps and the joint locks, that ugly mechanical refusal I once saw in a PT video and prayed I’d never see in someone I love.

I don’t say the word out loud.

“Okay,” he grits. “Tell me what to do.”

“Generator off—no sparks,” I snap into triage. “Grab towels. All of them. Stay on the rug. No glass.”

He nods, pale but present, pivots using the wall like a crutch. I sprint for duct tape and the heavy plastic we stashed for just in case. I drag the fireplace screen forward to shield the flames. They gutter, then catch—stubborn.

He’s back in a minute, arms full of towels. “Generator?”

“Off. Battery’ll die in two.” I toss a towel over the jutting limb to keep it from shifting and start taping plastic across the inside of the broken pane. It bucks in the wind like a living thing. My hair whips my cheeks; glass bites my bare foot. I swear once, sharp and bright.

“Stevie—” He lunges on instinct; the knee punishes him. He snags the couch arm, breath strangled.

“I’m okay.” I cinch another strip. “Kitchen towel. Tie it.”

He hands it over like failure. I knot it around my arch and keep moving. Tape. Plastic. Tape. The wind finds every gap; I slam them shut until the sheet holds. It’s ugly. It holds.

We towel the floor, herd glass into piles with our soles. The battery dies; the house exhales into dark. Only the fire remains, a shallow bowl of light.

“Okay,” I pant, hands raw. “First pass done. We’ll do more in the morning when?—”

“I should’ve done it,” he says flatly, staring at the taped window like it insulted him. “I should’ve?—”

“No.” Too sharp. I catch his face in my hands. Cold skin; colder eyes. “You should’ve not re-tearing your ACL proving something to a tree.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, but nothing lands. The look settling in his eyes is the one from the replay—the self-loathing with a nicer coat.

“Hey,” I say softer. “We handled it. You were smart. You listened. You didn’t make it worse.”

“That’s the bar?” Empty. “Don’t make it worse?”

“It’s the bar tonight.” A beat. “Tomorrow it’s higher.”

He pulls back from my hands like they sting. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

The fire pops, lonely. My heart knocks once, hard. “Come back to bed,” I say. “We’ll freeze trying to be statues.”

He nods like his neck hurts. “You go. I’ll make sure it holds.”

I hesitate—his posture is wrong, not coiled to spring but folded to break. The old instinct rises to smooth, to fix. I swallow it.

“Okay,” I say, because I can’t be the only one choosing us. “Don’t be long.”

I leave him in firelight—ink and storm shadow—staring at plastic that might as well be a mirror. In the bedroom, my hands shake rinsing blood from my foot; a cheerful star Band-Aid feels like a joke. I crawl into his bed because it smells like him and I want that to be enough.

It isn’t.

I wake to pale gray and silence. Ash in the hearth. Wind gone on. The space beside me cold.

The suitcase by the door is packed—his duffel zipped, his hoodie folded on top like a flag. In the kitchen he stands in jeans and a black tee, hair damp from a fast shower, eyes not quite meeting mine.

“Morning,” I say, because if I don’t say something normal I might break something that isn’t.

“Morning.” Neutral. Hello or goodbye.

“You were up early.”

“Window needed a second pass.” He nods toward it—layers tighter, edges tidy, floor clean, towels folded into a stack that’ll never be the same color again.

“Thank you.”

He nods once. “Road’s passable by noon. I called a car.” Finally he looks at me; it’s his face but not—press-conference blank. “We should get back to Seattle. I’ll finish rehab with the staff.”

We —but he means he. I’m nowhere in that sentence.

“Right. Of course.” My voice scrapes. “You didn’t have to pack for me.”

“I didn’t,” he says—then flinches at how it sounds. “I mean—there’s time. If you want to?—”

“Finish my EP?” I try to laugh. It comes out wrong. “Play coffee shops?”

He looks away. “This is the smart move.”

“For your knee,” I say.

“For everything.” He sets his mug down very gently, like louder would shatter us. “We can’t—” He stops. Shakes his head. “It’s better if?—”

I fold my arms so I don’t touch him, because I won’t beg. “Okay,” I say, tilting. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“Stevie—”

“No.” If he says my name like that, I’ll agree to anything. “You’re right. It’s smarter. I’ll get my stuff.”

In the bedroom I fold with surgical precision: socks paired, charger coiled, journal on top as if I’d write any of this down.

It’s ridiculous that it hurts this much after days.

Ridiculous and real. In the mirror, the tiny notes under my ribs—a first breath of “Landslide,” a reminder to begin—look like bravado pretending to be bravery.

Back in the great room, he stands by the door with keys and duffel and that neutral mouth. He looks like he didn’t sleep—like he tried to hold up the house with his shoulders and failed. I still love him a little for trying, even as he won’t let me help.

“Ready?” he asks.

No. “Yes.”

Outside, the morning is so bright it feels rude. Trees glitter with new ice; the road is a thin gray promise. He limps carefully, face set in the mask I’ve seen a thousand postgames.

I repeat the thing I’ve always told myself: Be enough for you, Stevie. If he can’t see it, be enough anyway.

It doesn’t stop the ache. It doesn’t stop the bruised question bubbling up: Maybe it isn’t that he can’t have me.

Maybe I’m not what he wants.