📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
How to Tame a Silver Fox – Episode 02
Harper could only stare at Chris Collins while rain streamed from his hair and traced the hard lines of his face. Five Christmases had passed since she had last seen him, yet he had appeared the moment she was in danger as though no time had passed at all. The boyish memory she carried of her father’s friend no longer matched the man standing before her.
Chris barely glanced at the creep after sending him stumbling away. His attention shifted to Harper, assessing her soaked clothes, pale face, and unsteady breathing with a single sweep of his eyes. “You’re shivering,” he said.
She wanted to insist she was fine, but her body betrayed her with another tremor. The rain had soaked her through, and the fear she had held back was beginning to settle into her bones. Chris opened the passenger door.
“Come on, kiddo.” His tone allowed no argument, as if she were still the child who had once hovered around her father and demanded to be included in adult conversations.
Harper’s relief vanished beneath immediate offense. Kiddo? She was twenty-two years old, not twelve, and she hated how effortlessly that one word reduced her to an old version of herself.
She remained outside the vehicle, chin lifting in protest. Chris looked from her to the open door and then back again, his patience thinning. Rain gathered along his jaw before falling onto his shirt.
“Do you want me to roll out a red carpet for you or what?” he asked. “Let’s go.” His bluntness was infuriating, especially after a rescue dramatic enough to deserve at least a little kindness.
Harper climbed in because standing in the rain to prove a point would only make her look childish. The interior was warm, and the door closed out the worst of the storm. Chris settled behind the wheel as if saving her had been an irritating detour rather than an act that had changed the entire night.
She stole another look at him when he faced the road. It had really been about five Christmases since he had visited. In her memory, he had been handsome and intimidating; now his shoulders filled his wet shirt, and time had sharpened rather than softened him.
He was buffer than she remembered. The observation came with enough heat to make her grateful for the dim vehicle. Her gaze drifted down his arm before she could stop it.
Chris noticed without turning his head fully. “Something wrong?” His voice carried the faintest edge of challenge, as though he knew exactly where she had been looking.
“Um.” Harper searched for an answer that would not expose her. The truth—that she had been comparing him to a five-year-old memory and finding the present version dangerously distracting—was impossible to say.
“Your arm is wet,” she managed. It was a ridiculous statement after he had walked through a downpour, but it was the only harmless fact within reach. “From the rain.”
Chris finally looked at her. Silence stretched between them, made intimate by the enclosed space and the drumming water overhead. Harper wished she could pull the words back.
Instead of teasing her, he extended his damp forearm toward her. The movement brought him closer and made every newly defined muscle impossible to ignore. “Wipe it, then.”
Harper blinked. The order was delivered with the same calm authority he had used outside, but this time there was no danger to justify it. He simply expected her to decide what she would do.
Her pride told her to refuse. Her attention, however, remained fixed on the water shining against his skin, and the warmth inside the vehicle suddenly seemed excessive.
Chris waited, one hand on the wheel and his arm offered between them. Harper realized that obeying would mean touching the man her father still expected her to see as an uncle-like family friend. The danger in front of her now had nothing to do with the stranger in the rain.
