I stared at the desperate, snow-dusted man filling my doorway, his shout crackling in the air like a snapping branch.

Snowflakes melted into rivulets on his heavy coat, pooling on my threshold.

His ice-blue eyes, wild with barely restrained panic, raked over my cramped apartment with a hunter’s focus.

“Have you seen my girls?!”

The words tore from him, raw, clawed from some deep, primal wound.

My mouth parted, but no sound came out.

My mind lurched between instincts: shield the two children huddled on my couch, ease this frantic father’s terror, unravel how a stranger knew to come here.

He stepped inside uninvited, and I eased back, my socked feet silent on the chilly hardwood.

Up close, he was towering—six-foot-something, with a broad frame that screamed power and hands that could probably crush stone.

His tailored coat, worth more than my yearly rent, was caked with snow, ruined by the storm and his desperation.

His gaze snagged on the sagging couch, the tablet glowing with a cheerful cartoon, then locked on the small figures curled under my worn plaid blanket.

“Clara. Lily.”

His voice broke on their names, relief and reverence tangled together, a man finding his heart still beating.

The girls’ heads turned from the screen, their matching hazel eyes lighting up with recognition and something like joy.

“Daddy!”

They scrambled off the couch, the blanket slipping to the floor as they hurled themselves across the tiny room.

He dropped to his knees on my rug, heedless of the melting snow or his designer clothes, and gathered them against his chest with a fierce, trembling grip that spoke of horrors narrowly escaped.

I watched the reunion unfold in my small living space.

“My girls,” he murmured into their snow-damp hair. “I was so scared. I searched everywhere. I thought—”

His voice splintered, and he pulled back to cradle their faces, scanning for injuries with a precision that hinted at a life braced for disaster.

“Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

“We’re fine, Daddy,” the older one, Clara, said.

“Lily hurt her leg sledding, but the nice lady wrapped us up and played a movie.” She glanced back at me, her smile bright. “Her blanket smells like cinnamon.”

His gaze followed hers, and for the first time, he truly saw me.

Recognition sparked in his ice-blue eyes—not of me, but of what I’d done.

I’d taken in his daughters, kept them safe, warmed their shivering bodies.

"Thank you," he said, and I heard a dozen emotions packed into those two words.

Relief, gratitude, and something else that made my pulse skip strangely.

"I'm Cole. Cole Kingston."