"No." I close my eyes, savoring the warmth. "But you were right."
"About what?"
"The lines. They're gone. I can't look at you as my guide anymore. I can't look at you as … as just Nash."
"What am I then?"
I look up at him. His hair is messy, his lips are swollen, and he looks at me with an openness that steals my breath.
"You're a man I could love," I whisper.
The words slip out before I can stop them. They hang in the air, terrifying and true.
Nash goes still. For a second, I panic. I've gone too fast. I've pushed too hard.
Then his expression softens, melting into something that looks like wonder.
"I tried so hard not to," he says quietly. "I told myself you were a client. I told myself you were leaving. I told myself we were too different."
He brushes a strand of hair off my forehead. "But I think I was falling for you from the moment you lectured me about the meat in that stew."
Tears prick my eyes again. "That was my worst moment."
"It was honest," he says. "You were fighting for what you believed in. Even if you were wrong."
I laugh, a watery sound. "I was so wrong."
"And now?"
"Now I don't know what happens," I admit, the anxiety creeping back in. "The mission … the wolves … Seattle …"
Nash shifts, propping himself up on one elbow so he can look down at me. "Seattle feels like a different planet right now."
"It is," I say. "It's coffee shops and faculty meetings and traffic. It's my entire life, Nash. Everything I've worked for."
"Does this …" He gestures between us. "Does this fit in Seattle?"
The question hangs there. Does Nash Hollister, a man who tracks wolves and builds cabins, fit into my life of symposiums and grant committees?
"I don't know," I say honestly. "But I know that Seattle doesn't have this. It doesn't have … the quiet. It doesn't have you."
Nash traces my lip with his thumb. "My granddad used to say that you can't be in two places at once. If you try, you just end up tearing yourself in half."
"Is that what we're doing?" I ask. "Setting ourselves up to be torn in half?"
"Maybe," he says. "Or maybe we're building a bridge. Bridges are hard to build, Aris. They take a lot of work. But they get you across the river."
He leans down and kisses me softly. "We fixed the antenna today. We figured out the impossible. Maybe we can figure this out too."
"We fixed the antenna," I agree, my mouth curving against his shoulder.
"Tomorrow," Nash says, "we deal with the rest. We get the collar off Waldo. We deal with the pack. But right now …"
He pulls the sleeping bag tighter around us, cocooning us in our own private world.
"Right now," he whispers against my mouth, "you need to sleep. And I need to hold you."
I settle back against him, fitting my body to his like we were made for this. The fear of the future is still there, lurking at the edges of my mind—the grant, the wolves, the inevitable goodbye at the floatplane dock.
