"I think energy doesn't just disappear. It changes form." He sets his mug down. "He put his life into this. You picking it up … that keeps him in the game."
I look at his hands resting on his knees. They're large, scarred, capable hands. Hands that can field dress a deer or fix an engine or, apparently, gently guide a grieving academic toward peace.
"You're not what I expected, Nash Hollister," I say softly.
He looks up, his gaze holding mine. "What did you expect?"
"A brute," I admit, the honesty slipping out. "A trophy hunter. Someone who saw animals as points on a scoreboard. Someone loud and arrogant who would mansplain the woods to me."
He laughs, a low, genuine sound. "And now?"
"Now …" I hesitate. My heart is hammering against my ribs. The air in the tent feels suddenly thin. "Now I see someone who respects the land more than anyone I've ever met. Someone who listens."
I lean forward slightly, closing a distance I have no business closing. "Someone who makes me feel safe when I should be terrified."
Nash's eyes darken. He leans in too, the space between us shrinking. The tension is a physical weight, heavy and sweet. I look at his mouth, wondering, wanting.
"Aris," he whispers. It's a warning and an invitation all at once.
I could close the gap. I could reach out and touch that scar on his jaw. I could let this happen, let the adrenaline and the triumph and the isolation push us into something reckless.
Professional boundaries,my brain screams.He is an employee. You are a scientist. This is a field expedition, not a romance novel.
But God, I want to.
I take a breath, holding his gaze for one jagged heartbeat longer. Then I pull back.
"I need to review the herd photos," I say, reaching for the camera. "Check for any other anomalies."
Nash freezes. I see the conflict in his eyes, the desire, the restraint, and then, finally, the resignation.
He nods slowly, leaning back against his pack. The distance between us is only a few feet, but it feels like a canyon I've just desperately, deliberately carved.
"Right," he says. "Review the photos."
He picks up his mug, but he doesn't drink. He watches me as I power up the tablet, his eyes unreadable again. But his hand, resting on his knee, is clenched into a fist.
I stare at the screen, the image of Waldo blurring before my eyes. We found the caribou. We achieved the breakthrough.
But as I sit here in the lantern light, listening to Nash breathe, the caribou starts to look like the easiest thing I'll have to wrestle with out here.
I scroll through the photos, seeing nothing, feeling everything.
Chapter Eight
NASH
The tent had felt toosmall after the intensity of the day, or maybe just too intimate. The air inside had been thick with the smell of damp wool, down sleeping bags, and the undeniable awareness of the woman sitting cross-legged next to me.
So, after the hot chocolate and the freeze-dried stew I rehydrated over the fire, neither of us had been ready to sleep. We'd moved outside, dragging the heavy log rounds we used for seats closer to the fire pit I'd dug into the snow. We used the snowmobile sleds as a windbreak, creating a small, sheltered pocket of warmth in the middle of the vast, freezing valley.
Now, with our bellies full of the freeze-dried stew that tasted like gourmet cuisine after twelve hours of breaking trail, the silence of the wilderness has settled over us again.
The fire is a living thing between us, snapping and popping as it devours the dry spruce I gathered earlier. Sparks corkscrew up into the black sky, joining the millions of stars that clutter the darkness above the high country inland. The aurora is out tonight, faint ribbons of green dancing on the northern horizon, a silent light show that feels like it's just for us.
It's a perfect night, cold enough to freeze your breath in your chest the second it leaves your lungs, but still and silent in that heavy, bone-quiet way that only happens after a major storm.
Across the flames, Aris is staring into the fire. The orange light dances over her features, softening the fatigue lines around her eyes and casting shadows in the hollows of her cheeks. She's wrapped in her heavy parka, her hands cupped around a mug of tea to steal its warmth, looking small and fierce and beautiful.
