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“Probably.”

I smile faintly against his chest.

Then his hand slides slowly through my hair once, careful and steady, and something inside me finally gives in.

Not fear.

Not panic.

Trust.

And that might be the most dangerous thing of all.

Chapter Nine

Rhett

I know the second she finds it.

The cabin goes too quiet.

Not normal quiet either. Not the comfortable kind that settles in after coffee and snowfall and too much time spent trapped together in close quarters.

This silence has teeth.

I look up from the woodpile beside the fireplace just as Nora storms out of the bedroom holding my field notebook in one hand.

Shit.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she snaps.

Yeah.

There it is.

I lean back against the couch slowly, watching her pace toward me in nothing but leggings and one of my thermal shirts, her hair still messy from sleep, anger brightening her face hard enough to make my pulse kick anyway.

Problem.

That woman could threaten me with a knife and I’d still want to drag her into my lap.

“What?” I ask calmly.

Her eyes narrow instantly. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like you don’t know exactly why I’m pissed.”

She throws the notebook onto the coffee table hard enough that pages bend.

I glance down once.

Property perimeter.

Movement patterns.

Nora left cabin 8:12 a.m.