"You thinking about them?" Nash asks, coming up beside me.
"I'm thinking about the future," I say. I turn to look at him. "The grant money means I can come back. I can finish the study. But the logistics … getting the gear up here, building the station … it's a lot for one person."
"You're not one person anymore," Nash says. "We have boats. We have sleds. And apparently, we have a welder who works for attention and applause."
I grin, looking back at the house. I look at Reid posturing with his welding torch, at Rhys pointing at something on the roof with a clipboard, at the smoke curling from the chimney where Finn is stoking the fire.
"May Sweeney warned me about this place," I murmur. "She said Misty Meadows takes things from you. That the wilderness eventually wins."
"Do you believe it?"
I look at Nash, at the scars on his hands, the windburn on his face, and the fierce, steady love in his eyes.
"I think it tried," I say softly. I reach out and take his hand. "But I think we won."
"Yeah," Nash says, squeezing my fingers tight. "I think we did."
Reid yells something about starting a bonfire, and Mags tells him to sit down before he loses an eyebrow. The noise rises up around us, comforting and chaotic.
I look at the reinforced window, at the vast, empty white of the frozen creek. And I don't see a threat anymore. I see a blank page.
"Ready to go inside?" Nash asks.
"Not yet," I say, leaning my head against his shoulder. "Just one more minute."
We stand there together, watching the sun go down, not as survivors of a siege, but as the new keepers of the land. The wolves are gone. The night is coming.
But for the first time in my life, I'm not afraid of the dark.
Chapter Thirty
NASH—ONE MONTH LATER
For ten years,the silence of Misty Meadows was my only roommate. I chose it, and for most of those years it was decent company. Then we lost Mom, and the silence turned heavy and jealous, pressing against the cedar and stone of the house, reminding me of everything I couldn't keep. It became the silence of a held breath, waiting for the next disaster.
But tonight, as I stand on the porch nursing a mug of coffee, watching the aurora borealis ripple across the sky in curtains of green and violet, I notice the silence has changed.
It isn't empty anymore. It's peaceful, the sound of nature exhaling.
The snow in the yard, which had been churned into a violent mess of blood and mud during the siege, is gone, covered by a fresh, pristine blanket of white. The incinerator barrel has been replaced. The claw marks on the door frame have been sanded down, though I left the deepest gouges, a reminder that we held the line.
Behind me, the cabin is warm. The new window, Reid's "masterpiece," gleams in the firelight. True to his word, the maniac has constructed a steel mesh frame that looks less like aprison and more like art deco armor. It's rugged, excessive, and completely indestructible.
A log shifts in the woodstove inside. I cross the porch on a leg that isn't done healing, stiff but mine. The scar on my calf has faded from angry red to pink, Aris's neat line of stitches doing exactly what she promised.
I open the door, and the warm cabin washes over me, smelling of pine, woodsmoke, and the vanilla lotion Aris wears.
Aris is sitting at the dining table. She isn't huddled in a coat, shivering, terrified that the darkness outside is trying to get in. She's wearing one of my heavy flannel shirts, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, typing furiously on a laptop connected to the new high-speed satellite internet Rhys bullied me into installing.
She stops typing, sensing my eyes on her, and spins her chair around. Her face, once pale and drawn with exhaustion, is vibrant now.
"You're staring," she says, one eyebrow up.
"I'm supervising," I correct, closing the door and locking out the cold. "It's a guide's job to monitor the wildlife. Make sure it doesn't overwork itself."
"The wildlife is currently finishing the abstract for the calving ground study," she counters, stretching her arms over her head. "And the wildlife is thinking about changing into something that isn't flannel for tonight."
I walk over to her, resting my hands on the back of her chair. I lean down, pressing a kiss to the curve of her neck. She smells like life.
