“He looks so much like you, Theresa. I’ve wanted to see more of him, to just talk to him, but it didn’t feel right. Not yet.”

“That’s probably best,” she said.

“Where’s Ethan?”

“He was going to stay with Kate for a while after the burial.”

“Some things never change, huh?”

“She lost her husband. She doesn’t really have anyone else.” Theresa sighed. “I told Ethan.”

“Told him . . .”

“About us.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t just go on keeping it from him.”

“How’d he take it?”

“You know Ethan. How do you think?”

“But he understands what the situation was, right? That you and I were trapped here. That we thought he was dead.”

“I explained everything.”

“So does he not believe you?”

“I don’t know if it’s that so much as he’s just trying to come to terms with the idea that, well, you know.”

“That I was fucking his wife.”

Theresa stopped.

So quiet in the woods.

“It was good, right?” Hassler asked. “When it was just you, me, and Ben. I made you happy, didn’t I?”

“Very.”

“You have no idea what I’d do for you, Theresa.”

She looked up into his eyes.

He stared at her with such love.

An energy in the air, Theresa could sense that this moment carried more heft than she realized. Her heart had once been wide open to this man, and if she let him keep looking at her like this, like she was the only thing that existed in his world—

He moved in.

Kissed her.

At first, she drew back.

Then she let him.

Then she kissed back.

He walked her slowly back against a pine tree, and as he pressed into her she ran her fingers through his hair.

As he kissed her neck, she tilted her head back and looked up into snowflakes that fell and melted on her face, and then he was unzipping her jacket, his fingers making quick work of the buttons on her shirt underneath, and she found herself reaching for his.

She stopped.

“What?” he asked, breathless. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m still married.”

“That didn’t stop him.” There was a part of her that wanted him to talk her into it. To keep pushing. To not stop. “Remember how he made you feel? What was it you said to me, Theresa? Your love for him always burned at a hotter temperature.”

“I’ve seen him change in the last month. I’ve seen glimmers of—”

“Glimmers? Is that all you felt from me? Glimmers?”

She shook her head.

“I love you with everything I have. Nothing held back. No bets hedged. All in. Every second of every day.”

Off in the distance, a scream ripped through the forest.

An abby.

High-pitched. Delicate. Bloodcurdling.

Hassler staggered back from her, and she could see the intensity hardening across his brow.

“Is it—”