Liam I got back to Pine Hollow before nine. The gravel lot was already half full. Midweek hikers from Saratoga had taken over the front porch again. Two women in bright windbreakers were arguing over trail maps as intensely as if they were planning a military campaign. I parked the truck in my usual spot and shut the engine off, then sat there with my hands on the steering wheel. My brain had not fully caught up with the fact that I had left Zoey in her kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of panties and a look that suggested she was actively resisting the urge to jump me again. The physical part wasn’t the problem. I could manage that. I had spent most of my adult life managing that. What I couldn’t seem to manage was the quiet pull that had settled de ep inside me. The instinct had started the moment she st epped in that hole and refused help. And now, I wanted to solve things for her before she even asked, wanted to calm her when she pushed too hard against the world. The urge lived low in my chest now, and it made concentrating on ordinary things more difficult than usual. I closed my eyes briefly, took a de ep breath, then I got out of the truck. Work helped. Work always helped. I walked to the maintenance and unlocked it, then started my usual checks. Water pressure gauges. Pool filtration. Hot tub temperature. I ran my hand along the spa cover and checked the seal. Everything was exactly where it belonged. That helped more than it should have. Order had always been the easiest way to quiet the noise in my head. If the systems were correct and the property ran smoothly, then the world was more manageable. But now that my mind had slowed down again, it wandered right back to Zoey. Her laugh the night before. The way she challenged everything I said. The look she had given me in her living room when she decided not to run from the moment between us. Nora found me ten minutes later. She walked across the patio, carrying a clipboard and the expression of someone who had been waiting patiently to ask a question. “Vacation over?” she asked. I tightened one last fitting on the spa valve and straightened. “Yes.” “That was quick.” “It wasn’t technically a vacation.”
“Mm.” Nora had known me long enough to recognize when my routine had been interrupted. She noticed things most people missed, which made sense since she had watched this property and the people inside it long enough to understand how we all functioned. She knew exactly how rarely I allowed anything to disrupt my schedule. “So,” she said with a smile. “Did you have fun?” I wiped my hands on a rag and set it back on the counter. “I had a productive time.” The understatement hung between us, and I had to try really hard not to think about the feel of Zoey’s hands gripping my shoulders or how she’d said my name, or when she’d traced the scars across my chest and looked at me with something that felt dangerously close to care. Nora leaned against the railing. “So.” I tightened the last fitting on the spa valve and stood. “Yes?” “Woman with the blue hair.” I wiped my hands on the rag. “Yes.” She watched me for a moment. “You know, I met her the first day that group checked in.” “Yeah, I know.” “And the other day you left here so fast, Pete thought something was on fire.” My chest tightened slightly. The truth was that I had left faster than I intended to. The moment Zoey needed help, there hadn’t been any real decision in volved. My body had simply moved. “Liam.” I snapped my focus back to her. “Yes?” “I’ve known you for six years. In that time, you’ve never sprinted off this property for a guest.” “I don’t know about that.” She snorted. “Name one time.” I said nothing. Nora nodded slowly and pushed off the railing. “Right. For the record,” she added calmly, “she’s very pretty.” I picked up the wrench and set it back in the tool bin. “That’s not relevant.” Nora smiled. “Mmm.” Despite myself, my lips twitched. Nora noticed immediately. “You like her.” The words landed with uncomfortable inaccuracy. Like was not the right word. Like was simple and manageable. What I felt when I thought about Zoey had none of those qualities. I turned back to the equipment panel. “Everything in the spa system is calibrated now.” “You’re not denying that you like her.” “Guests check in at four.” Nora laughed under her breath. “Okay, I’ll leave you to your feelings.”
“I’m not having feelings.” I was having entirely too many. “Of course not.” She walked away, looking extremely pleased with herself. After I finished the rest of the system checks, I moved to the woodshed. Pete was sitting on an overturned bucket with a heating pad strapped across his lower back. “You survived,” he said. “Yes.” “Shame.” I stacked three pieces of split oak against the rack and adjusted the pile until the edges lined up. Pete squinted at me. “You left here real fast the other day.” “There was a situation.” “Is that what we’re calling it?” “Yes.” Pete nodded thoughtfully. “The blue-hair situation.” I didn’t answer, because every answer that came to mind made me sound more invested than I intended to admit. He leaned back slightly and grinned. “She’s a knockout.” “What is it with you people? The way she looks isn’t relevant.” Pete watched me stack another piece of wood. “Kid,” he said. “What?” “In the six years you’ve been working here, you have turned down every woman who has attempted to flirt with you.” “That’s not true.” “Oh yeah?” I placed the final log into the stack. Pete waited for me to r eply, and when I didn’t, he nodded. “That is what I thought.” I brushed my hands together. “Zoey was a guest.” “She is also very obviously interested in you.” “That is speculation.” And also what had k ept me awake half the night. I knew the difference between attraction and something de eper. I had no idea which one she felt. Pete snorted. “You think we didn’t see the way she looked at you while you were fixing that filtration unit?” I picked up the axe and checked its blade. “You deserve something good, kid.”
I looked at him. “That’s not the point.” “It should be.” The words landed heavier than I expected. Pete and Nora had both heard enough of my past to understand why I rarely let people close. Their concern felt suspiciously familial, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Silence stretched between me and Pete. The wind moved through the trees behind the lodge, and guests laughed somewhere near the fir epit. Pete shifted on the bucket. “So,” he said. “So?” “You gonna see her again?” I rested the axe against the chopping block. “Honestly... I don’t know. But I hope so.” The admission made me feel more vulnerable than I cared to admit. Pete nodded once. “Good.” He reached down and turned the heating pad up another notch. “Just try not to scare her with the whole mysterious- forest-man routine.” “I do not have a mysterious-forest-man routine.” Pete scoffed. “You absolutely do.” Considering that, I picked up the next log and set it on the block. Pete grinned. “Boy, you got it bad.” I brought the axe down, and the wood split neatly in half. The impact ran up my arms and settled into my shoulders. Physical work helped burn off the restless energy sitting under my skin, and for the first time all morning, my mind stopped trying to reorganize itself around the memory of Zoey standing naked in her kitchen with a mischievous look on her face. The problem was that I already knew I wasn’t capable of treating her casually. Whatever existed between us had moved past casual the moment she looked at my scars and told me she wanted to make someone pay for them—probably way before that if I was being honest with myself. I stacked the wood carefully, piece by piece, trying very hard not to count the hours until I could text her without seeming desperate. The next log also split cleanly. The sound echoed through the trees. As I lifted the axe again, a voice cut across the yard. “Unbelievable.” I lowered the axe. Mr. Harlan stood at the edge of the gravel path, his arms crossed over his chest and his face twisted into the scowl that had become a regular feature of his face over the past year. “Your guests,” he said, pointing toward the fir epit area, “are loud... again.” Three hikers sat around the pit, drinking coffee and arguing about whether bears were active this season. They were speaking at a perfectly
normal
Volume I set the axe down. “Good morning, Mr. Harlan.” “It is not a good morning,” he said immediately. Pete watched the exchange with open interest as Mr. Harlan marched a few st eps closer. “I have lived next to this property for fifteen years,” he continued, “and lately there is constant noise. Talking. Laughing. Car doors slamming. People stomping around at all hours.” “They checked in yesterday,” I said calmly. “They’re leaving tomorrow.” “That is not the point.” I nodded and suppressed a sigh. “What is the point?” Mr. Harlan opened his mouth, closed his mouth, opening it again. He looked a little like a fish that had found itself on the lakeshore unexpectedly. Pete leaned forward on his bucket. Ordinarily, I was patient with Mr. Harlan. His complaints followed a familiar pattern. Noise. Parking. The smell of firewood drifting across his property on cool mornings. None of it was new, and none of it required confrontation. Most days I listened, nodded, and offered a solution that satisfied him enough to send him home feeling heard. Today, my attention refused to stay where it belonged. Zoey had been alone in her apartment for several hours now, and the thought had followed me across the property all morning, settling into the back of my mind and refusing to leave. Was she resting, or had she already buried herself in work again? Had she remembered to eat something? The image of her limping slightly when she walked slammed into me. I’d noticed it when she got out of the car yesterday. She had brushed it off with that familiar shrug of hers, the same way she brushed off most things that mattered. Zoey pretended a lot of things were nothing. Was she pushing herself too hard again? Was she hunched over that laptop right now while Markie shouted obscenities in the background? Had she remembered to take the pain medication, or had she decided she didn’t need it the way she didn’t like needing help? There was nothing I could do about any of that from here. Work usually solved that kind of restless energy. If my hands stayed busy, my thoughts tended to follow. Exc ept, it wasn’t working so well today. Mr. Harlan was glowering at me. It took me a moment to realize he had been speaking again, and I had missed most of it. I spoke before he could gather enough momentum to start over. “Mr. Harlan,” I said quietly, “do you have anything better to do this morning than come over here and yell at people drinking coffee?” Pete made a small choking sound behind me and I heard him turn away, probably hiding a smile.
Mr. Harlan’s mouth opened again, but no sound came out. His shoulders dropped a fraction and the anger drained from his face so quickly it caught me off guard. The reaction stirred the same surprise inside my chest. I hadn’t meant to snap at him. Frustration had slipped through the edges of my control without permission—that almost never happened. I ran a hand over the back of my neck and forced myself to slow down. This was not about Mr. Harlan. The tension sitting under my ribs had a different source entirely, one that had followed me across the property. I was worrying about someone who didn’t belong to me, someone who had made it very clear she preferred handling things on her own. The realization settled heavily in my gut. I was not behaving like my normal self, and the cause of that problem was currently sitting in a kitchen an hour away with blue hair and a stubborn refusal to let anyone take care of her. Mr. Harlan looked down at the gravel. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t.” The answer grabbed my attention immediately. Wind moved through the trees behind us while Mr. Harlan studied the ground for several seconds, his shoulders slumping as though something had drained out of him. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Darlene used to ke ep me busy.” The name settled between us. Pete straightened slowly behind me and the shift in his posture told me he recognized it too. Mr. Harlan continued staring at the gravel as he spoke. “She died two years ago.” The words came out flat, but they still carried weight. “I ke ep thinking I’ll find something to do,” he continued. “Somewhere to go. Something to fix.” He gave a small shrug. “But the house is already fixed.” Pete shifted quietly behind me. Mr. Harlan cleared his throat. “So now I walk around complaining about noise.” He attempted a smile that faded almost as soon as it appeared. I recognized the shape of it. Grief had a particular presence that was hard to miss once you knew it. “Do you like venison stew?” I asked. Mr. Harlan blinked at me. “What?” “I’m making dinner tonight. Seven o’clock.” He stared at me, confusion r eplacing the frustration that had been there earlier. I suspected the invitation surprised him as much as it surprised me. If I was honest, I needed something to occupy my thoughts this evening anyway. Pete watched us with open approval. Mr. Harlan frowned. “You’re inviting me to dinner?” “Yes.” “Why?”
I shrugged. “Because you don’t have anything better to do.” Pete laughed. Mr. Harlan studied me for a few seconds longer before nodding. “I guess I’ll see you at seven,” he said, then turned and walked back to his house without another word. When he disappeared across the property, Pete looked at me, his eyebrows nearly in his hairline. “You’re collecting strays, kid.” I picked up the axe. “He seems lonely.” Pete studied my face while I brought the axe down. The log split cleanly in half, and I stacked the pieces beside the shed, one at a time. “You been doing a lot of thinking today,” he said. “Yes.” “That usually means trouble.” I adjusted the pile of wood. “Maybe.” Pete nodded slowly. “Blue hair.” I rolled my eyes and let my silence answer for me. Dinner started quietly, which suited both of us. Mr. Harlan sat at my small kitchen table with the bowl cradled in both hands while the stew cooled. He leaned over it slightly, studying the contents with the careful attention of someone encountering an unfamiliar object. The seriousness of his inspection made me pause at the counter longer than necessary while I wiped down a surface that was already clean. “You cook often?” he asked. “Not really. This stew is the only thing I’m mildly successful with, and that’s only because it’s so simple.” He tasted the stew with obvious caution, as though the bowl might contain something unpredictable. A second bite followed almost immediately. I watched the tension in his shoulders ease a little as he continued eating. “Well,... it’s good,” he said. “I’m glad.” For several minutes, we ate without conversation. The cabin filled with the quiet sounds that come with a simple meal: spoons touching ceramic, chairs shifting slightly against the floorboards, the low creak of the wood stove settling. The wind outside made the tree branches slap against the windows every now and then. Mr. Harlan eventually leaned back and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “You live out here alone?” “Yes.” He nodded as if confirming a fact he had already suspected. “Darlene wouldn’t have allowed that.” I looked up from my bowl. “She liked people,” he continued, glancing around the cabin again. “Neighbors. Guests. Hell, anyone who wandered through town long enough to sit down at the table.” His gaze moved slowly across the room. “This place would’ve been full if it were hers.”
The cabin was orderly. Every surface served a purpose. The furniture sat where it needed to sit, the shelves were organized, and the stove warmed the room efficiently when it was cold. It was also very quiet. “She dragged me everywhere,” he said. “To the lake, up hiking trails. Farmers’ markets. Church picnics.” His mouth curved faintly. “I complained the whole time.” The small smile lingered for a moment before settling. “I liked it. She knew I liked it.” “How long were you together?” I asked. “Forty-two years.” The number settled into the room with a weight that surprised me. Mr. Harlan lowered his gaze to the table as if the memory lived somewhere on the surface of the wood. “Forty-two years of waking up next to the same person,” he said slowly. “Forty-two years of knowing someone would be sitting across from you at dinner.” His thumb moved along the napkin, smoothing a fold that didn’t need smoothing. “You don’t realize how much of yourself lives inside another person until they’re gone.” The words were quiet, yet the meaning inside them carried force. Forty-two years. I couldn’t imagine it. For a long time, my life had been defined by movement. It was easier to leave a place before anyone expected too much from me than to stay long enough to risk failing people who d epended on me. New towns, new work, temporary arrangements that ended before anyone looked too closely at who I was or what I carried with me. At the time, I had told myself that suited me. Freedom sounded better than admitting I simply didn’t trust myself to stay. Pine Hollow had changed that, even if I rarely allowed myself to think about it. Somewhere along the way, the work here had stopped feeling temporary. Pete and Nora had stopped feeling like coworkers, and their routines had started to matter to me. They had started to matter to me. The lodge had become a place where I woke up each morning, already thinking about what needed to be fixed, checked, or pr epared before anyone else noticed. I had put down roots here. The part I still k ept guarded told me that letting people d epend on you carried weight. The closer someone stood to the center of your life, the more damage you could do if you failed them. That possibility had always made distance feel safer. Mr. Harlan was describing a life built beside another person for forty- two years, a partnership steady enough to shape decades of shared direction. That kind of closeness required a level of trust I had never fully tested. Mr. Harlan took another bite of stew. “You ever married?” “No.” “Ever come close?”
I thought about the people who had crossed my path over the years. There had been friendships and occasional relationships, connections that lasted for a while before the natural pull of different lives carried everyone in s eparate directions. None of them had ever settled into the center of my world. “No,” I said. Mr. Harlan nodded slowly, as if that answer confirmed something he had already suspected. He focused on the stew again, turning the spoon through the broth. “Darlene used to say people aren’t built for too much quiet,” he said after a moment. He glanced around the cabin as he spoke, taking in the small table, the single chair, the orderly surfaces that rarely changed from one day to the next. “She hated eating alone,” he continued. “If she knew someone in town was by themselves, she’d find a way to invite them over for dinner. Didn’t matter if they barely knew each other.” He gave a small shake of his head. “I used to tell her the house was already busy enough without adding more people to it.” His mouth curved slightly. “She never listened. Strange thing about that now,” he added. “What’s that?” “You notice the empty spots more once somebody’s been sitting there a long time.” His gaze drifted briefly toward the single chair before returning to the bowl. The words settled into the room quietly. I thought about what he had said while the wind moved through the trees outside the cabin. Because the truth was that I already had somewhere I returned to. Even if it was mostly in my mind. Zoey. Blue hair that caught attention even when she stood still in a room. The sharp way she looked at the world often made people underestimate how carefully she observed everything around her. She carried herself with a kind of stubborn ind ependence that suggested she had spent a long time learning how to rely on herself alone. I imagined her sitting at her desk surrounded by glowing screens and half-finished mugs of coffee. Markie would be providing commentary that Zoey pretended not to appreciate. I could picture the way she leaned back in her chair when she argued with him, her expression caught somewhere between irritation and reluctant amusement. The thought stayed with me longer than I expected. Mr. Harlan wiped the last of the stew from his bowl with a piece of bread. “You find someone good,” he said. “Hold onto them.” He looked up at me, a man who had built that kind of life for more than four decades. A life shaped by shared direction. Shared belonging. I already understood the instinct to protect the people around me. That responsibility had always come naturally. Making sure others were safe and supported was simply part of who I was. But I had never had someone standing fully beside me.
Someone who shared the center of things. Mr. Harlan stood slowly and carried his bowl to the sink. “Good meal,” he said. “Thank you.” He moved toward the door and paused, resting his hand on the frame. “Really... thank you,” he added. The door closed behind him a moment later. The cabin returned to its usual quiet. I remained where I was, considering the conversation we had just shared. For most of my life, I had convinced myself that ind ependence was enough, that movement and flexibility were preferable to the risk that came with building something permanent. Tonight had shifted that perspective. I wanted more than that—a partner, someone who stood beside me instead of passing briefly through my life. And when I let myself think about that kind of future, my mind returned to Zoey without hesitation. Her stubborn ind ependence. Her intelligence. The kindness she k ept trying to hide behind irritation and sarcasm. What existed between us felt real, and if there was even a chance she felt it too, then ignoring it would be its own kind of mistake. I wanted to show her I was someone she could trust, someone worth building something with, and as that certainty settled into place, slow but firm, I realized I would protect whatever this connection between us became. By then the cabin had gone completely quiet. I cleared the table automatically, rinsing the bowls and stacking them beside the sink, giving my hands something to do while my mind k ept circling back to the same place. Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached for my phone. Her name appeared immediately when I opened my contacts, and I hesitated only a moment before pressing call. The line rang once. Then twice. Then a third time, and with each one, my stomach tightened in a way I didn’t particularly enjoy. By the fourth ring, I told myself she was probably still working. Her job in volved strange hours and constant interruptions. It was entirely possible she had simply st epped away from the phone. The call rolled to voicemail. I lowered the phone slowly and considered sending a text message. Just checking in. My thumb hovered over the screen. Then I stopped. Zoey valued her ind ependence more than most people I knew. Calling once to check on her was reasonable. Filling her phone with messages because she hadn’t answered immediately would cross a line she had made very clear. I put my phone down on the counter. Still, the uneasiness remained. A small, persistent knot of concern settled low in my stomach, the same instinct that usually appeared when something in the environment felt slightly off. I told myself she was fine. She was capable. Intelligent. More than capable of handling her own evening without supervision. None of that stopped the quiet tension from lingering.
After a moment, I picked up the phone again and checked the screen, just to confirm there hadn’t been a missed call in the last thirty seconds. Nothing. I set it back down and forced myself to st ep away from the counter. She would call if she needed something. Until then, the most respectful thing I could do was give her the space she had asked for. Even if part of me still felt uneasy walking away from the phone.