Chapter 2: The Satellite Phone Interruption
The first thing Aria became aware of was the smell of coffee. Rich, dark, and cutting through the lingering scent of sex and woodsmoke. The second was the profound, bone-deep ache between her thighs. It was a raw, unmistakable reminder, a visceral footnote to the chaotic text of the previous night.
She opened her eyes. Grey dawn light filtered through the single window, outlining Liam’s form at the small kitchenette. He was shirtless, his back to her, a panorama of toned muscle and faded tattoos—a tribal design on one shoulder, the silhouette of a bird in flight on the other. He poured water from a large camping jug into a French press. The mundane domesticity of the act, performed by this man in this context, was utterly surreal.
She lay still, inventorying the wreckage. Her body felt used in the most literal sense. Her mind was a scramble of conflicting data: the academic panic of being trapped, the primal echo of pleasure, the stark memory of his hands and his mouth. She had engaged in hardcore philology, all right. Bea’s mocking prophecy hung in the air, tasted of ash and irony.
“I know you’re awake. Your breathing changed.” Liam didn’t turn around.
“I’m a quiet breather,” she protested, her voice morning-rough.
“You were. For about five minutes last night. Then you weren’t.” He turned, a ghost of a smirk on his bearded face. He held up the French press. “Coffee. The last of the good stuff. A peace offering for the bureaucratic fuck-up.”
She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. Her clothes were a sad pile by the table. His flannel shirt lay nearer. She pointed. “Can I?”
He nodded. “Sure. It’s seen worse.”
She slipped out of bed, the cold floorboards a shock on her bare feet. She grabbed the shirt, shrugging into it. It swallowed her, the sleeves falling past her fingertips, the hem brushing her thighs. It smelled overwhelmingly of him. She padded to the small counter, accepting the chipped mug he offered.
The coffee was perfect. She closed her eyes as she sipped. “You’re proficient.”
“Survival skill.” He leaned against the counter, mug in hand, watching her openly. The blue eyes were assessing, but not unkind. “How’s the processing coming?”
“I’ve moved from catastrophic system failure to initial damage assessment.”
“And the verdict?”
She looked out the window. In the cold light of day, the scale of the landslide was breathtaking. A vast, brown scar cut down the mountainside, a river of destruction that had swallowed trees, boulders, and the access road whole. Her little sedan was just a glint of buried metal under a tonne of mud and debris. The world beyond was impassable.
“The verdict is we’re still stuck.” She turned back to him. “What’s the protocol here? Do we ration the instant oatmeal and wait for a rescue that might take days? Or do we attempt a traverse across unstable terrain, likely falling to our deaths?”
“You’ve got a real gift for framing options.” He sipped his coffee. “First, we see if my sat phone can get a signal now that the weather’s cleared. If it can, we call the retreat office, let them know we’re alive and not murdering each other. Then we take stock of supplies. I’ve got enough protein bars and jerky for two people for about four days. You brought the world’s most organized backpack. Between us, we won’t starve.”
“I have a water filtration system,” she offered, slipping into practical mode. “And a comprehensive first-aid kit.”
“Of course you do.” The smirk returned. “See? Civilized resource-sharing.”
The word ‘civilized’ now felt loaded, a euphemism for something far more animal. She looked down into her mug. “About last night…”
“Yeah.”
“It was… a unique stress response.”
He laughed, a short, sharp sound. “Is that what they’re calling it in the linguistics department? A ‘unique stress response’?”
“It’s an accurate descriptor. Elevated cortisol, adrenaline, a heightened need for dopamine release. Proximity and circumstance created a perfect biochemical storm.” The clinical words felt like armor.
He set his mug down and took a single step into her space. He didn’t touch her, but his proximity was a physical fact. “Bullshit.”
“It’s not—”
“It is. You can parse it into syllables all you want, professor. It was simpler than that.” His voice dropped. “You wanted me. I wanted you. The mountain fell down. So we did, too.”
His reductive clarity was infuriating. And thrilling. It stripped away the academic veneer, leaving the raw core. She had no syntactic defense against it.
Before she could formulate one, a loud, persistent beep-trill erupted from his duffel bag. It was an alien, electronic sound in the quiet cabin.
“Sat phone,” he said, pushing off the counter. He rummaged in the bag and pulled out a bulky, rubberized device. The screen showed a single, flickering bar of signal. “Well, look at that.”
He hit a button and held it to his ear. “Yeah?… No, we’re fine. Cabin seven… Both of us. Yeah, a double booking… Tell me something I don’t know.” He listened, his expression growing grimmer. “A week? You’re sure?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. Yeah. Keep us posted.”
He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the sofa. “Well. The access road is gone for about a quarter-mile. County says it’s a minimum five-day fix before they can even get heavy equipment up here. Then they have to clear it. We’re looking at a week, maybe more. The retreat is evacuating everyone they can reach from the other side. We’re on the wrong side of the slide. We’re officially not a priority.”
A week. The word expanded in the room, vast and suffocating. Seven more days and nights in this confined space with this man. With the memory of what they’d done hanging between them like a third occupant.
“So we wait,” she said, her voice quiet.
“We wait.” He picked up his coffee again. “You should call someone. While the signal holds. Before it clouds over again. Let them know you’re not dead in a ditch.”
He was right. Bea would be orchestrating a national search by now. Aria took the offered satellite phone, its weight unfamiliar in her hand. She moved to the porch for a semblance of privacy, pushing the door open onto the cool, pine-scented morning.
The view was brutal and beautiful. The jagged ridge opposite looked like a broken bone against the sky. She dialed from memory.
It rang once.
“ARIA COLLINS, IF THIS IS A TELEMARKETER I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL FIND YOU AND—”
“Bea. It’s me. I’m okay.”
A choked sob echoed down the line, followed by a torrent of words. “Oh thank Christ. I’ve been calling the state patrol every hour. They said there was a major slide in that area, phones were down. Are you hurt? Where are you?”
“I’m at the cabin. I’m not hurt. The cabin is fine. My car is… not.”
“The cabin. Right. The structured solitude.” Bea’s relief was rapidly morphing into her natural state of interrogative curiosity. “How’s the library? The silent breakfasts?”
“About that.” Aria took a steadying breath. “There’s been a… complication. The retreat double-booked my cabin.”
Silence. Then, slowly, “Double-booked. Meaning…”
“Meaning there was already someone here. When I arrived. Before the slide.”
Another, heavier silence. Aria could practically hear the gears turning in Bea’s brilliant, literary mind. “Aria. Sweetie. Who is ‘someone’?”
“His name is Liam. He’s a wildlife photographer. He was here on assignment.” She kept her tone neutral, factual.
“A wildlife photographer.” Bea’s voice was now carefully, dangerously even. “And you’re both… currently in the cabin.”
“Yes.”
“Alone.”
“Yes.”
“With no way out for a week.”
“Approximately.”
The line exploded. “YOU’RE BANGING NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC?!”
The shriek was so loud Aria had to hold the phone away from her ear. At that exact moment, the cabin door opened behind her. Liam stepped out onto the porch. He had pulled on a thermal shirt but it was unbuttoned. He came to stand beside her at the railing, looking out at the view, close enough that his arm brushed hers.
He’d heard. Of course he’d heard.
Bea was still ranting. “—a literal mountain man? Aria, this is not what I meant by ‘modern-day dick’! I meant a nice bartender with a philosophy degree, not Grizzly fucking Adams with a telephoto lens! Is he there right now? Can he hear me?”
Liam’s mouth curved. He leaned in, his lips close to Aria’s ear. His whisper was a warm, low vibration that she felt straight down her spine. “Tell her yes.”
Aria’s breath caught. His hand settled on the small of her back, a solid, possessive weight through the thin flannel. It was a claim, casual and deliberate. His fingers drifted lower, palming the curve of her ass through the fabric, pulling her slightly into his hip. The contact was electric, a blatant reminder of the night before.
“Bea,” Aria managed, her voice strangled.
“Oh my god, he’s right there, isn’t he? You’re doing that thing where you get quiet and breathy. You’re with him right now. On the phone with me. You minx.”
Liam’s chuckle was a soft puff of air against her neck. His hand squeezed gently.
“It’s… not like that,” Aria tried, the lie pathetically weak.
“It is exactly like that! I can hear it in your voice! You sound… ravished. In the best possible way. Okay, emergency protocols. Do you have condoms? Please tell me a man who wrestles bears for a living carries condoms.”
Aria felt a flush of pure fire spread from her cheeks to her chest. “Bea, for god’s sake—”
“I’ll take that as a no. Fantastic. Well, use something. Honestly, Aria, a week? You’re going to need to forage for berries and wild herbs for birth control. This is like a Margaret Atwood novel meets a particularly steamy issue of Outdoor Life.”
Liam took the phone from Aria’s nerveless fingers. He held it to his own ear, his other arm now sliding around her waist, anchoring her to his side.
“Bea?” he said, his voice calm, amused. “Liam here. We’re good on supplies. And yes, I hear you. Loud and clear.” He listened, his smile widening. “I’ll take that as a compliment… She’s holding up better than the road, I’ll tell you that… Yeah, I’ll have her call when we can. Don’t send the helicopters. Yet.”
He ended the call and handed the phone back to Aria. Her face was burning. “I will never recover from that.”
“She’s something.” He didn’t let her go. He turned her to face him, his hands