10. Wade

Chapter ten

Wade

I woke tasting smoke.

The remnants of the dream clung like cobwebs, sticky with the persistent memories I'd spent three years trying to forget. I'd seen hands reaching through flame-split walls, but this time, instead of strangers' faces in the inferno, I saw Holden. His eyes were wide. Trusting. Burning.

The sweat-soaked sheets tangled around my legs like the ropes we'd used to secure the warehouse perimeter that night in Chicago. My heart hammered against my ribs with the all-too-familiar desperate rhythm— get them out, get them out, get them out .

3:47 AM. My clock's red numbers shone in the night like emergency exit signs.

The lake would help. It had been my healing salve so many times before. I threw on swim trunks, not bothering with a shirt. The chilly night air bit into my scarred skin as I stepped onto the cabin's porch, but I welcomed the cool sting. It was ten times better than phantom flames.

Stars scattered across the pre-dawn sky like glowing embers, but the thought didn't trigger me like it would have just a year ago. As my therapist insisted, I'd made progress. Or maybe I was merely exhausted.

Lake Michigan stretched black before me to the horizon, where the water met an indigo sky. Usually, her spring-fed depths could wash away anything, even horrific nightmares. Lately—since Holden started gazing at me with his artist's eyes—the lake's embrace was different. It was less solitude and more lonely.

The water closed over my head, cold enough to steal my breath. I let myself sink until my toes brushed the bottom, counting heartbeats. One-two-three-surface. One-two-three-surface. The rhythm was as familiar as breathing, but it wasn't enough.

Something had shifted since that morning Holden captured me with his camera. It was like a crack developing in a load-bearing wall. I knew it was only going to spread.

My dreams were getting worse again, but it wasn't a sign of backsliding. It told me that I was wanting things again. I imagined possibilities that couldn't easily fit into my carefully reconstructed life.

The gentle waves broke the moonlight's reflection into silver sections. It was beautiful, the kind of beauty Holden loved to preserve with his Polaroids. Just like that, he'd crept into my thoughts again.

"Damn it." My voice scattered across the water. Even here, in my pre-dawn sanctuary, I couldn't escape him. I couldn't stop wondering if he'd see the lake's moods the way I did or whether he'd understand why sometimes the only peace I could find was in her depths.

The eastern sky began to lighten to a pearl color, and I decided it was time to drag myself back to shore. My toes had gone numb, but the dreams pulled back, replaced by something potentially more dangerous—hope.

I checked my watch. Two hours until our meeting for the shelter assessment. Two hours to rebuild the walls that kept me safe—kept everyone safe.

That was the plan, but as I trudged back toward my cabin, towel wrapped around my shoulders, I knew it was already too late. You can't forget about the light once it finds the cracks in your darkness. You can only decide whether to let it all the way in or keep fighting the dawn.

Dawn was winning.

***

I heard Maya's infectious laugh well before I reached the ranger station's open door. It wasn't her usual professional chuckle. It was a real laugh that made her sound her age. I knew before I walked in who had caused it. Only one person had that impact on my fellow rangers.

"So then Sarah says, 'Well, if the squirrels are unionizing, we better start paying them in premium trail mix.'" It was Holden's voice, warm as the morning sun. He perched on the edge of Maya's desk, wearing the volunteer vest I'd left out for him. It hung slightly crooked on his shoulders, with the park service patch folded where it should lie flat.

My fingers itched to straighten it.

"Morning. Look who's all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—not." Maya's eyes danced with barely contained mischief. "Coffee's fresh. Made it strong, figured you might need it after your swim."

I grunted, not asking how she knew. Small towns. Probably three people had reported my pre-dawn lake visit to Sarah before the Bean even opened.

Holden turned toward me. His hair was still shower-damp. He needed a cut. It curled slightly at his collar. He beamed with that smile that made him look even younger than his twenty-five years. "Does the vest look okay? Maya was showing me the proper way to record condition notes, but I think I'm getting inspector's block. Is that even a thing?"

Too close . He was too close. I'd let him in too far. All that youth and warmth was taking up space in my carefully ordered world. I retreated to my office, calling over my shoulder, "We should head out. Light's best for documenting damage this time of morning."

"Right behind you." His footsteps followed, lighter than mine on the old floorboards. "I brought a few of Gran's journals with the notes, thinking they might help with—oh!"

He'd stopped in my doorway. I didn't need to look to know what had caught his attention. The architectural drawings spread across my desk were hardly official ranger business.

"These yours?" He moved closer, radiating that quiet intensity that took over when he saw something he liked. "The perspective work is incredible."

I growled. "Basic documentation." I shoved them into a folder, but not before he'd picked up one detailed study of the shelter's internal structure. His fingers traced the careful shading around the ventilation shafts.

"This isn't basic anything." His voice was soft and appreciative. "You've captured exactly how the light moves through the space. See how you've shown the way it falls across—"

"We're losing prime documentation time." I grabbed my pack, needing to get out of the close confines of the office. I had to put space between us before some sort of dam broke. I couldn't risk that at the ranger station.

As I turned to leave, my arm brushed his shoulder. Even through two layers of fabric, the contact sent electricity dancing across my skin.

His head tilted slightly. "Wade?"

"The, uh, shelter records." I grabbed my keys. "There are better copies at my cabin. Historical documentation. They might help with the assessment."

Somehow, I'd invited him to visit my home. It was unintentional and happened out of thin air. I waited for him to make an excuse and maintain the professional distance I'd failed to keep all morning.

"Lead the way." He smiled like I'd offered something far more valuable than musty paperwork. Maybe I had.

The drive up the utility road unfolded in slow motion. Holden sat too close in my truck's cab, his knee occasionally brushing mine when we hit rough patches. Each touch sent pulses through my veins. My ranger uniform was too tight, stretched taut across my body.

He filled the silence with quiet observations about the morning light filtering through the trees and how light fog clouds settled in the hollows. "It's like the trees are breathing." He saw beauty where I'd trained myself to look for hazards. The contrast made my chest ache.

The last quarter mile was the worst. The narrow track forced me to drive slower, each curve revealing another slice of my private world. I'd spent three years learning every shadow of these woods, and now Holden was seeing them all. Reading them like he read everything else about me.

Finally, my cabin emerged from the pine shadows. I hadn't brought anyone here since... since Chicago, really.

"Wow, what an awesome place. It's perfect. Looks storybook perfect."

I didn't respond. It was impossible to know what to say. Instead, I led him up the creaking porch steps.

Inside, morning light spilled through the windows I'd enlarged myself. Holden moved through my space like he belonged there, taking in the leather chair worn smooth from sleepless nights and the bookshelves heavy with field guides.

"The records are..." I headed for my desk, but his hand on my arm stopped me.

"Wade." It was just my name, but the way he said it made my skin hum. "Thank you for bringing me here and letting me see this."

I looked down at where his fingers rested just above my wrist, pale against my sun-weathered skin. "It's just a cabin."

"No." He stepped closer, and suddenly, the room was too small for both of us, too intimate. "It's your sanctuary. I know what that means."

His other hand came up, hesitating near my shoulder. I knew I should step back. I should remember all the reasons it was a terrible idea. Instead, I found myself leaning toward him like a pine bending in storm winds.

"The shelter documentation..." My voice sounded rough, foreign. "The papers are in my desk."

He heard me, but neither of us moved. Staring back at Holden, I saw that the damned vest was still crooked.

Without thinking, I reached out to straighten the patch. His breath caught as my fingers brushed the fabric near his collarbone.

"Your scars." His voice was barely a whisper. "Do they still hurt?"

"Not the way you mean." My honesty surprised me. I never talked about them, yet here I was, spilling truths like water running out of a faucet.

He lifted his hand, hovering near my shirt collar. "May I see?"

Of course, he'd seen some of them—the most visible—many times in his photo. Everything in me screamed to run. I suddenly recalled the night terrors and therapy sessions and all the reasons I lived alone in a cabin in the woods, but… I nodded once, sharp and jerky.

His touch was feather-light where one pale scar peeked above my collar. It wasn't clinical curiosity like the doctors. He didn't show any pity like the department shrink. Just... acceptance. Like they were brushstrokes in a larger painting he was trying to understand.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

I barked out a laugh. "Damn, your artistic eye needs checking. There's nothing—"

"No." His fingers rested feather-light against my skin. "They tell your story. Show where you've been and what you've survived. That's always a beautiful story."

The dam, constructed of years of meticulously defined defenses, broke inside my chest. I pushed forward and kissed him again. His lips were soft, and a light moan from him escaped into my mouth.

The tips of our tongues touched, and then they danced. It was slow and twisting. Reality crashed back when Holden started unbuttoning my shirt. The scars. He'd see all of them up close. They were the permanent map of my failures. In the photo, the mist made them hazy. Now, he would see them in sharp relief.

"Hey." He froze, reading my tension. "We don't have to—"

"No, I..." Words failed. They always did when it mattered most.

Holden waited patiently, hands steady on my chest. He didn't make demands or exert any pressure. It was just his quiet presence while I fought my urge to run.

Slowly, watching his face, I reached for my buttons and undid another one. His breath caught as more scarred skin came into view, but not in horror.

He uttered that word again. "Beautiful." This time, I didn't laugh at it or even smirk.

His fingers traced each mark with an artist's care. No one had ever touched them like that. No one had ever made me feel...

The chime of my phone shattered the moment. I quickly tugged it out of my pocket. It was a text message from a Chicago area code.

It told about the annual memorial service for the warehouse victims. It was the reminder I dreaded every year.

Reality slammed into me. Christ, what was I doing? Holden was twenty-five.

"Wade?" The concern in his voice made me blink. "What's wrong?"

I stepped back, immediately missing his warmth. "This isn't... I can't..."

"Yes, you can." He moved forward and closed the distance I tried to put between us. "Stop thinking so much."

"Holden. You deserve—"

"What I deserve is the chance to choose for myself." He set his jaw. "And I choose this. Choose you."

The phone buzzed. It was a call this time from Chief Matthews.

"You need to take that?" Holden's voice was steady.

I shook my head, letting the call go to voicemail. The message could wait, like all the others I avoided. Chief wanted me on the memorial planning committee. It was a survivor's group. The whole damn department wanted to remind me of everything I'd left behind.

"It's the Chicago Fire Department, isn't it?" Holden missed nothing. "A memorial service?"

My silence was answer enough.

"Hey." One of his hands moved to cup my jaw, thumb brushing over stubble. "Look at me."

I did, though it cost me. I started to drown in his eyes.

"Three beautiful things." His voice was soft. "Right now."

"What?"

"It's Gran's trick for grounding. Tell me three beautiful things you can see right this moment."

A laugh caught in my throat. "This really isn't—"

"Humor me." I stared at that stubborn chin again.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds and then reopened them. It was like a reboot, and I hoped I could see everything around me differently. "The light." The words came out rough. "Through the windows. How it hits the pine floors. Makes wavy patterns like... like the lake."

His thumb stroked my jaw, encouraging.

"Your hands." I'd dragged those words from somewhere deep inside. "How careful they are when they t… touch me."

"One more." His voice was almost a whisper.

I swallowed hard. "The way you look at damaged things. Like they're worth saving."

"They are." He gripped the collar of my shirt and pressed his lips to the worst scar, the one that hooked over my collarbone. "You are."

Something new broke loose in my chest. It wasn't the dam burst of emotion from before. It was something deeper and colder than that. Something that had been frozen since that night in Chicago.

I buried my face in his neck, breathing in coffee and sandalwood and hope. His arms wrapped around me, strong despite being slender. They anchored me.

"I've got you." His voice hummed against my skin. "I've got you."

For the first time since the fire, I let myself believe it. Let myself lean on someone else's strength.

Finally, my breathing steadied.

"I should..." I pulled back reluctantly, caught between need and duty. "The shelter assessment."

"Will keep. Some things matter more."

I touched his face, wondering at the miracle of having him in my cabin where no one else ever ventured, not even Tom and Maya. His mere presence began to make broken things feel whole.

"I'm not good at this." The words were all sandpapery and still halfway down my throat. "Whatever this is becoming."

"Good thing I'm an expert in works in progress." He smiled. "And I've got time."

But the memorial service date flashed in my mind like warning lights. Three weeks. Three weeks until I had to face everything I'd run from. Every life I couldn't save. Every reason I didn't deserve this chance.

Holden read it in my face.

"Hey." He caught my hand. "One step at a time. We'll figure it out."

We . Such a simple word, but it was the massive wrecking ball tearing down three years of walls.

I gazed at him, standing in my cabin's morning light with that ridiculous vest still crooked. I shivered, thinking about how vulnerable I'd suddenly become.

"Yeah." My voice was rough, but my hands had stopped shaking. "We will."