The sun dips lower, painting the sky in bruised purples and oranges.
Chapter Twenty-Six
FINN
I stand lookingout the lodge kitchen window after explaining my perspective to Nash, the scent of coffee and wood smoke flat and stale. His words echo in the quiet.What about her? Are you gonna let her walk away after everything?
The question hits harder than the fall on Raven’s Spine.Walk away?I shoved her out the door with my ego and hesitation.She’s Hollywood. I’m... this.Saying it out loud makes the stupidity of it click into place. Since when do I give up without a fight? When did I let fear steer the wheel?
My ribs ache, a dull fire under my shirt. My arm throbs. But none of it compares to the weight in my gut—that grinding regret. I picture her face again when I threw her offer back at her. How the light drained from her eyes. How she rebuilt the shield of Lena Kensington in front of me—the woman I made her become again.
“So that’s it?” Nash asks, still leaning against the counter, arms crossed, eyes sharp and unrelenting. He never left. Waited for my silence to answer the question for me. “You screw up, push away the first woman who actually sees you past the grumpy-loner thing, and now you ... quit?”
“It’s complicated, Nash,” I say, turning from the window—away from the mountains that usually bring me peace but now stand there, watching, like they know better. “More complicated than deciding to fight.”
“Is it?” Nash pushes off the counter. “You messed up. You were scared—scared of losing this place.” He gestures around the kitchen. “Scared of perhaps not being enough for someone like her. I guess you did what you always do, you put up a wall.” Every word is a punch, accurate and bruising. He’s not wrong.
“She offered me money, Nash,” I say, the justification sounding weak even to my ears. “Like I was some charity case.”
“So? Her world runs on money, Finn. Perhaps that’s how she shows she cares. Did you stop to think about that? Or did your pride register the insult?” He steps closer. “She faced down Grizzletoe, Finn.Grizzletoe.According to Carlos, she didn’t blink. That woman isn’t afraid of much, except perhaps getting her heart stomped on by a stubborn ass who doesn’t know a good thing when it lands on his doorstep.”
His words hit their mark. She had faced the bear. She had offered help, regardless of how clumsily it came out in her world’s currency. She had regarded me, in the cave, as if I were someone worth recognizing.
“What am I supposed to do now?” The question feels ripped from my throat, raw and unfamiliar. Asking for help, even from my brother, goes against every instinct.
“You go find her,” Nash says, his voice softening but losing none of its force. “You apologize. Not some half-assed ‘sorry if I hurt your feelings’ crap, but a sincere apology. It might require some groveling, brother, the kind you’re terrible at. Tell her you were wrong. That you were scared. Tell her how you feel, for once in your damn life.” He claps a hand on my good shoulder. “Then you let her decide. But don’t youdare let her walk away thinking you didn’t fight for her because you were too proud or too afraid to try.”
No. I can’t let it end like this. I owe her more than that. An apology, yes, but more. An explanation. The truth. Maybe it’s too late, perhaps she’s decided I’m not worth the trouble, but I have to try. Nash is right. I can’t let her walk away without fighting. For Mags. For what we had. Can’t lose that.
Decision made, heart pounding a wild rhythm against my sore ribs, I push open the kitchen door and head out into the clearing. The crew is milling around, packing personal items, probably getting ready for dinner soon. Elliott is talking on the satellite phone near the porch, his voice loud. No sign of Mags.
Her cabin. She needed solitude after the hike, Nash said. I walk the path to Cabin Three, my boots crunching on the gravel, each step jarring but fueled by a new urgency. I need to talk to her now, before the wall between us sets in, before she disappears fully into the Hollywood life I know is pulling at her.
I reach her door, hesitate, then knock. Once, twice. No answer. Nothing from inside. Maybe she’s in the shower. Or maybe ... she doesn’t want to see me. The thought lands like a cold fist in my chest.
I turn from the building, scanning the clearing. Where would she go?
I spot Marco coiling cables near the lodge porch.
“Seen Lena?” I ask.
Marco jerks a thumb toward the east side of the lodge. “Saw her heading out to the deck a few minutes ago.”
That’s all I need.
I head that way, faster now, rounding the main lodge until the wide wooden deck comes into view.
And there she is.
Standing at the railing, phone pressed to her ear, backmostly to me. Her posture is straight, poised—the way she carries herself when the cameras are on.
Lena Kensington.
I stop, hidden by the corner of the building, my intention to apologize choked by a wave of dread as I catch the tone of her voice. I should turn around, give her privacy. But I can’t move. Her voice carries on the breeze, snippets of conversation drifting toward me. It’s crisp, professional—the voice of the polished actress. t’s jarring—so far from the softer tones of Mags I heard in the cave. The contrast hits hard, a gut-wrenching realization.
I love her. All of her—the woman who faced down a bear and the one who commands attention on screen. But hearing this voice now, the one that sounds like she’s choosing that other life, feels like listening to the part of her I connect with most disappear.
“Yes, David, the connection’s stable... No, no bear encounters today...” A quick laugh, devoid of actual humor. “Unbelievable, I know... When? Next week? That’s ... fast.”
