Updated Jan 14, 2026 • ~11 min read
POV: Reid
The coffee was too hot and the silence was perfect.
I stood on my cabin’s porch at 6 AM, watching dawn break over the mountains, steam rising from my mug into the frigid air. This was my favorite time of day—before the world woke up, before people started existing at me, before I had to pretend I was anything other than what I was.
Alone. By choice. By necessity. By penance.
The weather radar on my phone showed red and purple—the storm was coming, and it was coming hard. Forecasts had moved it up twenty-four hours. It would hit tonight instead of tomorrow. Good. More time alone. More time where people would leave me the hell alone because the roads were impassable and I had a legitimate excuse beyond just being an antisocial bastard.
My phone buzzed. Wade.
I considered not answering. But Wade was one of exactly two people in Pine Ridge I tolerated, and he was also the sheriff, which meant if I ignored him, he’d just show up.
“What,” I answered.
“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Wade said, voice dry. “Storm’s hitting tonight instead of tomorrow. You stocked up?”
“Always am.”
“Course you are. Got enough supplies for a month up there, don’t you? In case society collapses and you can finally live out your mountain man fantasy.”
“What do you want, Wade?”
“Just checking on you. Making sure you haven’t frozen to death up there. Or decided to become one with nature in some tragic, poetic way.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re always fine. That’s what worries me.” A pause. “Parker’s wedding party is all accounted for at Candace’s place. Everyone’s safe in town. You’re good to ride this out alone, which I know is your idea of paradise.”
It was. It absolutely was. Alone meant safe. Alone meant I couldn’t fail anyone else. Couldn’t hurt anyone. Couldn’t—
“Reid? You still there?”
“Yeah. I’ll check in when it passes.”
“You better. Or I’m sending a search party, and you know how much you hate visitors.”
He hung up before I could respond.
I went back inside, added more wood to the fire, checked the generator for the third time. I’d been preparing for winter storms since I moved here three years ago. Knew exactly how to survive them. Preferred them, actually. Storm meant isolation. Storm meant peace. Storm meant—
Meant time alone with memories that wouldn’t leave me alone anyway.
I pushed the thought away and focused on practical things. Food inventory. Wood supply. Generator fuel. All set. I could last two weeks if I needed to.
Not that I needed to. Storm would pass in three, maybe four days. Roads would clear. Life would resume. Parker would get married and I’d have done my duty by lending him the cabin and I could go back to being left alone.
The way it should be.
The way it had to be.
I checked the weather radar again. Storm intensifying. Moving faster. Would hit by 2 PM instead of tonight.
Fine. I was ready.
I spent the morning chopping more firewood—didn’t need it, but the physical work helped. Helped not think. Helped not remember. Helped not hear the sound of concrete cracking, steel bending, people screaming—
I split another log. Then another. Then another.
By noon, I had enough wood to last a month and my shoulders were burning in a way that felt like punishment and relief.
Good.
At 1:47 PM, my phone rang. Candace.
That was weird. Candace didn’t usually call me. We had an understanding: she left me alone, I left her alone, and occasionally I fixed things at the inn when Parker was busy.
I answered. “Yeah?”
“Reid, honey, is the wedding planner with you?”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“Hailey—Morgan’s friend, the event planner. She went to your place this morning to prep the venue. Said she’d be back by noon. It’s almost 2 PM and she’s not back. Can’t reach her phone.”
I looked out the window. Snow was already falling thick and fast, visibility dropping rapidly. And somewhere out there was a woman I’d barely met yesterday—barely spoke to, barely looked at except to notice she was small and way too cheerful and had looked at me like I was a problem she could solve.
I’d closed the door in her face.
And now she was somewhere between my cabin and town in a storm that was about to turn deadly.
“I’ll check,” I said, already grabbing my keys.
“Roads are getting bad—”
“I’ll find her.”
I hung up, shoved my phone in my pocket, and headed for my truck. The only vehicle I owned that could handle this kind of weather. The only one built for exactly this situation.
The drive to the cabin—the rental cabin where the wedding was supposed to be—was a mile through increasingly impossible conditions. Visibility was maybe ten feet. Snow piling up fast. Temperature dropping.
And there—through the whiteout—a shape that didn’t belong.
A car. Small. Rental plates. Buried up to its bumpers in snow.
Damn it.
I parked as close as I could, trudged through knee-deep snow to the cabin. The lights were on inside. Spare key was missing from the lockbox—she’d had access for venue prep.
I opened the door without knocking.
She was there—sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by fabric samples and decoration mock-ups and her laptop, which was about to die based on the battery warning flashing. Her phone was on the table, completely dead.
She looked up when I entered, and relief flashed across her face before she masked it with that bright smile.
“Oh thank god,” she said. “I tried to leave around 1 but couldn’t see the road and thought maybe I should wait it out a bit. My phone died and I—”
“You’re stuck here,” I said flatly.
Her smile faltered. “What do you mean stuck?”
“Roads are closed. This storm’s going to last three days minimum. Maybe a week. You’re not getting back to town.”
I watched the news hit her. Watched her process it. Watched her smile determinedly not fall apart even though I could see panic in her eyes—hazel eyes, I noticed now, expressive and currently terrified.
“But the wedding’s Saturday—”
“Will be postponed. No one’s getting anywhere in this.”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “No, it can’t be postponed. It’s supposed to be perfect. I promised Morgan—”
“It’s a storm, not a personal attack.”
She stood up, all five-foot-three of her trying to look authoritative. It didn’t work. She just looked small and scared and—
And not my problem. Except she was my problem now because she was here and the storm was here and we were both stuck.
“You don’t understand,” she said, voice cracking before she caught it. “This wedding has to happen. It has to be perfect. I need—”
She stopped herself. Reset. That smile clicked back into place like armor.
“Okay! Okay. We’re both adults. We can share space for a few days. It’ll be fine!” She was lying. To me or to herself, I wasn’t sure. Maybe both.
“…Right,” I said, because I’d never heard anything less convincing.
Her phone buzzed on the table—last gasp of battery life. She grabbed it, read the message, and I saw her entire body deflate for one second before she straightened.
“Parker says the wedding’s postponed to next Saturday,” she said quietly. “Everyone’s safe. I’m supposed to stay here until roads clear.”
“That’s the plan.”
She looked around the cabin—one main room, kitchen area, bathroom, loft sleeping area. One bed. Fireplace. Not much else.
“Where do I sleep?”
“Fireplace. It’s the only heat once the generator dies.”
“When does the generator die?”
“About two hours.”
She looked at me. Really looked at me. And for a second, I saw past the performance—saw actual fear there. Not of me. Of the situation. Of being stuck. Of things being out of control.
I recognized that fear. Wore it differently, but recognized it.
“How cold will it get?” she asked, voice smaller than before.
“Cold enough.”
Not helpful. I knew I wasn’t being helpful. But helpful required conversation and conversation required caring and caring was dangerous and I’d already proven I was dangerous when I cared so—
“I’ll set up sleeping arrangements,” I said instead. “You inventory the food in the kitchen. That’s actually useful.”
She flinched at “actually useful” and I felt like an asshole.
Good. Better she knew what she was dealing with.
She didn’t argue. Just nodded and went to the kitchen, started organizing with quick, efficient movements. I noticed she was good at it—methodical, thorough, making mental lists.
The generator hummed in the background. Two hours left.
Two hours before we were stuck in very close quarters with very limited heat and very much forced to deal with each other.
I grabbed sleeping bags from the storage closet, set them up by the fireplace. Three feet apart. Maybe four. Not much privacy but enough distance to pretend we weren’t basically sleeping next to each other.
She finished the kitchen inventory, came over to inspect the setup. Her eyes widened when she saw how close the sleeping bags were.
“This is—we’re really—”
“Only warm area,” I said. “Unless you want to freeze.”
“No. No, of course. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.” That smile again. That lying smile.
The generator sputtered. Once. Twice.
We both looked at it.
“That’s not two hours,” she said.
“Storm must’ve hit the fuel line.”
And then the lights went out.
The generator died completely.
Temperature in the cabin started dropping immediately.
I moved to the fireplace, started building up the fire. She stood there, hugging herself, watching me work.
“We’re really stuck here,” she said quietly. “For days.”
“Yeah.”
“With each other.”
“Yeah.”
Long pause. Just the crackle of fire and the howl of wind outside.
“You’re not exactly thrilled about this,” she said.
I glanced at her. First real eye contact. She was looking at me with something like resignation. Like she was used to not being wanted.
That look bothered me more than it should.
“Are you?” I asked.
She didn’t have her performance smile ready. For just a second, she was honest: “No.”
Fair enough.
“Get some sleep,” I said, turning back to the fire. “Tomorrow’s going to be harder.”
I heard her move to her sleeping bag. Heard her settle in. Heard her breathing even out but not slow down—she wasn’t sleeping. Just lying there. Probably panicking quietly.
Not my problem. She was safe, she was warm enough, she’d survive this.
That was all I needed to worry about.
I added another log to the fire and tried not to think about how aware I was of her three feet away. Tried not to notice how small she looked curled in that sleeping bag. Tried not to care that she was scared and trying not to show it.
Caring was dangerous.
Caring led to failure.
Caring destroyed everything.
So I didn’t care.
I just stared at the fire and listened to the storm and pretended the woman three feet away wasn’t quietly whispering to herself: “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
She’d been saying that a lot.
I wondered when she’d stopped believing it.
Not my problem, I reminded myself.
Not my problem.
But somewhere in the back of my mind—the part that used to care about people, used to want to help, used to be someone other than the ghost I’d become—that part whispered: She’s lying. She’s scared. She needs—
I shut it down.
I didn’t help people anymore.
I just hurt them.
So I’d keep my distance. Keep her safe. Keep everyone safe by keeping everyone away.
That was the plan.
That had been the plan for three years.
But as I listened to her restless breathing and felt the storm rage outside and knew we were stuck here—together—for days…
I had a feeling that plan was about to become a lot more complicated.
Reader Reactions