Updated Apr 11, 2026 • ~10 min read
Chapter 15: Silence
Jackson
I wake to silence.
Not the complete silence of the wilderness—that’s never truly quiet—but the absence of the howling wind that’s been battering the cabin for the last eighteen hours. The storm has calmed, leaving behind a stillness that feels almost eerie after the violence of the night.
Sloane is in my arms.
That’s the second thing I notice, and it hits me with more force than the storm ever could. She’s curled against me, her back to my chest, my arm wrapped around her waist like I have every right to hold her like this. Her breathing is slow and even, still asleep, and her hair is spread across my pillow smelling like pine soap and something uniquely her.
She fits perfectly.
The thought is immediate and undeniable. She fits in my arms like she was made for this, like every curve of her body was designed to align with mine. And it’s not just the physical fit—though that’s perfect too, better than anything I could have imagined—but the way she fits into this life, this cabin, this space I’ve carved out for myself.
Bear is at our feet, the traitor, his massive body stretched across the bottom of the bed like he’s been sleeping there his whole life. When he sees I’m awake, his tail thumps once against the blankets, and the sound seems loud in the quiet cabin.
Family.
That’s what this feels like. This moment, this scene—Sloane in my arms, Bear at our feet, the three of us wrapped in warmth and safety and belonging. It feels like family in a way I haven’t felt since I lost my unit, since I lost the brothers who understood me, who knew me, who would have died for me.
And they did die for me.
And I lived.
And now I’m lying here with a woman I’ve known for two weeks feeling things I swore I’d never feel again, and the terror that realization brings is so acute I can barely breathe.
I’m falling for her.
No—I’ve already fallen. I’ve fallen so hard and so fast that I didn’t even realize it was happening until I was already lost. Somewhere between teaching her to make fire and talking her through my nightmares and watching her laugh with Bear, I fell completely and irrevocably in love with Sloane Whitmore.
In love.
God help me, I’m in love with her.
And she’s leaving.
The thought slams into me like a physical blow. She’s leaving. The storm is calming, which means in a day or two—maybe three at most—the rescue helicopter will be able to come. She’ll go back to her life in New York City, back to her law firm and her partnership review and her world that has nothing to do with mine. She’ll go back to civilization, and I’ll stay here in the mountains, and this—whatever this is between us—will end.
I’ll be alone again.
More alone than I was before she arrived, because now I know what it feels like to wake up with her in my arms. Now I know what it feels like to have someone who understands me, who sees my damage and doesn’t run, who makes this cabin feel like a home instead of just a shelter.
Now I know what I’m going to be missing.
The panic starts to build in my chest—that familiar tightness that signals the onset of an anxiety attack—and I have to focus on my breathing, on the weight of Sloane in my arms, on the steady rhythm of her heart beating against mine.
You knew this would happen, I tell myself. You knew she was temporary from the start. You agreed to this—no expectations, no promises, clean break when she leaves.
But knowing something intellectually and being prepared for it emotionally are two very different things.
I can’t think about this. Can’t think about her leaving, about going back to the solitude that used to feel like peace but will now feel like loneliness. Can’t think about sleeping alone in this bed, eating alone at this table, existing alone in this space that she’s filled with her presence for two weeks.
Can’t think about never seeing her again.
“You’re thinking too loud.” Her voice is sleep-rough and amused, and I realize she’s woken up. “I can literally hear your brain spinning from here.”
“Sorry.” I press a kiss to her shoulder because I can, because she’s still here, because I’m going to take every moment I can get. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Storm stopped.” She rolls over in my arms to face me, and her gray-blue eyes are soft and warm and devastatingly beautiful in the morning light. “That means rescue soon.”
“Yeah.” The word comes out rougher than I intend. “Probably tomorrow or the day after. Weather needs to fully clear first.”
She’s quiet for a moment, searching my face, and I wonder what she sees there. Can she tell that I’m falling apart? That the thought of her leaving is tearing me up inside?
“We should talk about—” she starts, but I cut her off with a kiss because I’m a coward and I can’t have this conversation right now.
She melts into it with a soft sigh, her arms coming up to wrap around my neck, and for a few minutes I can pretend. Can pretend that this is just another morning, that we have all the time in the world, that she’s not counting down the hours until she can leave.
When we break apart, we’re both breathing hard, and there’s heat in her eyes that makes my blood run hot despite the cold cabin.
“We should get up,” I say, even though every part of me wants to stay in this bed with her forever. “Fire’s probably low. Need to check on the cabin after that storm.”
“Always so practical.” She smiles, but there’s something sad in it. “Can’t we just stay here a little longer?”
“We could.” I pull her closer. “But then we’d freeze, and that kind of defeats the purpose of surviving the storm.”
“Worth it.” She burrows into my chest, and I feel the exact moment she finds the scar from the ambush—the jagged line across my ribs that marks where shrapnel tore through me. Her fingers trace it gently. “Does it still hurt?”
“Sometimes. When the weather changes.” I catch her hand, bringing it to my mouth to press a kiss to her palm. “Why?”
“Just thinking about all the things that tried to kill you and failed. The war. The ambush. The PTSD. The mountains. You’re a survivor, Jackson Torres.”
“So are you.” I trace the fading bruise on her ankle from when she twisted it that first night. “City girl who got lost in the woods and lived to tell the tale.”
“Because someone saved me.” She looks up at me, and there’s so much emotion in her eyes that my chest aches. “Because you saved me.”
“You saved yourself too. Learned how to survive.”
“You taught me.”
“You were a good student.”
We’re both dancing around what we really want to say, around the elephant in the room that we’re both trying to ignore. But I can feel the weight of it pressing down on us, making every moment feel both precious and painful.
She’s leaving soon.
And I don’t know how to let her go.
“Jackson—” she starts, and I can hear in her voice that she’s going to try to have The Talk, the one about what happens next and how we move forward and all the practical logistics that I absolutely cannot handle right now.
“Don’t,” I say quietly. “Not yet. Just… give me a little more time. Please.”
She studies me for a long moment, and then she nods. “Okay. A little more time.”
We stay in bed longer than we should, wrapped around each other, stealing kisses and touches and moments that we both know are numbered. Bear eventually gets impatient and starts whining for breakfast, which forces us to face reality and get up and go through the motions of the morning routine.
But it’s different now. Everything’s different. Every touch feels weighted with meaning, every glance charged with emotion we’re not saying out loud. We move around each other in the small cabin with a familiarity that feels both natural and heartbreaking, because this is what it would be like if she stayed. This is what our mornings would look like—comfortable domesticity mixed with heat, partnership mixed with passion.
This is what I’m going to lose.
I watch her make coffee, watch her feed Bear, watch her tend the fire with competent hands, and I try to memorize every detail. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear. The way she bites her lower lip when she’s concentrating. The way she smiles when she catches me watching her.
I try to memorize it all, because soon it’s going to be just a memory.
Soon she’ll be gone, and I’ll be here alone, and this cabin is going to feel empty in a way it never has before.
And I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to survive it.
But I will. Because that’s what I do. I survive.
Even when surviving feels like the hardest thing in the world.
Even when part of me wishes I could just follow her back to civilization, back to her world, back to wherever she goes.
But that’s not who I am anymore. The mountains are my home, my sanctuary, the only place where my PTSD doesn’t feel like it’s going to kill me. I can’t leave. Can’t go back to that world.
And she can’t stay here forever, trapped in the wilderness, giving up her career and her life for a damaged mountain man who can barely function in society.
We’re impossible.
I’ve known that from the start.
But knowing something doesn’t make it hurt any less when it becomes reality.
“Hey.” Sloane’s voice breaks through my spiral, and I realize I’ve been standing at the window, staring out at the snow-covered landscape without really seeing it. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I turn to face her, plastering on a smile that I know doesn’t reach my eyes. “Fine. Just checking the weather.”
She doesn’t believe me—I can see it in her face—but she doesn’t push.
Instead she comes over and wraps her arms around me, and I hold her like she’s the only thing keeping me anchored, the only thing keeping me from drowning in the panic and grief and fear of losing her.
And maybe she is.
Maybe for these few days, she’s exactly that.
The thought should terrify me.
Instead, it just makes me hold her tighter.
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