Page 28 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger
He doesn’t turnas I cross the room. Doesn’t speak. His jaw ticks when I approach. And his grip on the handle of the pan tightens.
“Morning,” I say, aiming for breezy. It lands somewhere around breathless and achy.
“Coffee’s ready.”
Flat.
Neutral.
Like we didn’t nearly combust last night.
I pour myself a mug, deliberately avoiding the memory of how he tasted—rain, pine, heat.
SIN!
The silence stretches between us like a live wire. Yesterday we found something easy. Quiet, yes—but companionable. Today, that silence feels barbed and threatening.
“Thanks for showing me the foxes.” I settle onto a stool across from him. “Got some great shots.”
“Good.” He nods, still not meeting my eyes.
One word. One syllable.
A fucking brick wall.
I can’t take it. “About what happened?—”
“Eggs are ready.” He slides a plate in front of me, cutting me off with more force than necessary. A thin crack echoes through the air as the ceramic plate meets wood.
Right.
Back to strictly nutritional exchanges.
Got it, Mountain Man.
We eat in silence, forks scraping across our plates, the rain ticking softly against the windows like it’s trying to fill the space between us.
His flannel is dry, his expression unreadable. I’m still damp somewhere under my skin, still burned from the inside out. He doesn’t look at me once.
Whatever that kiss meant to him, it’s been filed away.Locked up. Dismissed.
After breakfast, I escape to the window seat and pretend I’m deeply invested in reviewing my photos. In truth, I barely register the images. My skin still remembers the press of his hands. My mouth aches with phantom hunger. My thoughts are all static and heat.
Across the room, Caleb moves with the relentless focus of a man trying very hard not to think. He rifles through paperwork like it personally offends him. Tension pulses off him like a second storm system inside the cabin.
We’re both pretending nothing happened.
Neither of us is convincing.
And the worst part?
I miss the man who couldn’t keep his hands off me.
When I can’t stand the silence—or the thrum of memory still echoing on my lips—I abandon my camera and drift through the cabin like a ghost with nowhere to haunt. The space feels smaller today, like it’s pressing in, thick with everything we’re not saying.
I trail my fingers over the worn spines of books, mostly wilderness manuals and fire science texts, each neatly arranged. Maps cover one wall, edges curled with age and use, marked in red ink and tightly printed notes. His handwriting is clean, controlled, and repressed, just like him.
And then I see it.
