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Epilogue

Nora

three weeks later

The mountain looks different after a storm.

Softer somehow.

Less dangerous.

Which is ridiculous considering Devil’s Peak has almost killed me multiple times in the last three weeks.

But this morning the snow sparkles beneath the sunlight instead of threatening to bury the world alive, and smoke curls lazily from cabin chimneys while town trucks crawl slowly down Main Street pushing slush aside. The air smells like pine and woodsmoke and melting ice, and for the first time since I got here, I’m not waiting for something terrible to happen.

Mostly because the terrible thing already did.

And Rhett ended it.

I tighten my fingers around the coffee cup in my hands and stare out the kitchen window toward the tree line behind his cabin. Everything out there looks calm now. Quiet. Harmless.

It isn’t.

I know that better than anyone.

Archer texted this morning that Deputy Foster survived surgery and was already in police custody for corruption and stalking charges. Apparently the FBI wants him too because his crimes crossed state lines. Rhett barely reacted when he read the message last night. Just tossed the phone onto the counter and pulled me into his lap like he needed the physical confirmation that I was still here.

Honestly?

I needed it too.

Footsteps sound behind me.

My body reacts before my brain does, heat curling low in my stomach the second Rhett steps into the kitchen wearing worn jeans and a gray thermal stretched across his chest.

His knuckles are still bruised.

Part of me still can’t stop thinking about the way he looked in the snow with blood on his hands and murder in his eyes because someone hurt me.

That should probably concern me more than it does.

“You’re staring,” he says.

I take a sip of coffee slowly. “You almost killed a man for me. I’m processing.”

His gaze drags over me where I’m standing in one of his flannels and nothing else underneath.

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

“That’s your takeaway?”

“It’s my favorite part.”

Heat climbs into my face instantly.

Annoying.

Rhett notices immediately. The man notices everything.