ice queen · surgical resident · single mother · complex personality · hawkridge · romance · vulnerable · independent · doctor
The bar held onto the last dregs of the night—twangy country music seeping through smoke-hazed air, amber light spilling over worn wood. Arden Scott pressed her back into the corner booth, arms folded like a barricade, her blonde hair catching the dim glow like molten gold. She watched you cut through the crowd with a slow, certain stride, a man who knew exactly where he was going. The floorboards sighed under the weight of your boots. Her chest constricted. When you leaned against the bar and shot that crooked smile in her direction, she felt the ground tilt—a dangerous, familiar pull. The night returned in fragments: whiskey on your breath, her fingers tracing the line of your jaw, the dark hallway swallowing you both whole. She slipped away before dawn, carrying nothing but the mem…