Chiseled Mountain Man (Seduction Summit Lumberjacks #3)

Chapter 1

1

brONTE

I was religious about my morning run. My roommate thought I was out of my mind, getting up at seven in the morning to run down the hiking trail the woman at the front desk suggested when I checked in yesterday.

Maybe my roommate was right. It was thirty-something degrees outside and snow covered the ground. Yet here I was in my long-sleeved shirt, coat, and thermal pants under my yoga pants, with a band under my hat to cover my ears.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

The sound of my feet smashing snow was strangely gratifying. I was super stressed about the day ahead. The stakes were high. If I didn’t place in the finals, I had to honor the promise I made to my parents to go to law school. Winning that fifty-thousand-dollar prize, along with help setting up a bakery, could make the difference between doing what I wanted for a living and going down the same road everyone else in my family had taken.

“I can do this,” I said out loud, then repeated it, over and over, with each step. “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.”

My voice grew louder until I had to remind myself it wasn’t guaranteed nobody was around. I’d passed one cabin about ten minutes ago, and now I heard hammering up ahead. That had to mean a human was up there. Or was there some kind of bird that made hammering noises?

Hell if I’d know. I wasn’t a nature lover or anything. I just needed my morning run like some people needed caffeine.

I saw something off in the distance. It was a guy, I was pretty sure. At first, I thought it might be a bear, the guy was so big.

Suddenly, he stood, and my jaw dropped. He turned to look at me and, while he was too far to make out details, I didn’t need binoculars to see the guy was freaking hot. I wanted to pull out my phone and snap a picture to send to my friends back home. Look what I found out in the wild .

Didn’t they call these mountain men? He wore a black and white plaid shirt under a black vest with a black matching beanie. That was more of a lumberjack look.

I was so busy checking him out, I forgot to watch my footing—something I’d been doing obsessively before I spotted Mr. Hunkalicious. I realized too late that my foot had caught on something. A root, a limb, a rock…who could tell under the snow that covered the path? All I knew was both feet were off the ground, and I was flying, the forward momentum of my run working against me.

I wasn’t sure what was worse—the fact that I might break something or that I was making a complete fool out of myself in front of this guy. At least I had the presence of mind not to brace myself by putting my arms out in front of me. Instead, I did a weird sort of midair twist, which put me on my side and yes, hit my right arm a little too hard.

That was my baking arm. If I couldn’t bake, I was screwed.

“Please don’t let me have broken anything,” I whispered, staring up at the sky. “Don’t let this be my story of how I ended up practicing law in a small town in North Carolina.”

“You okay?”

A face partially blocked my view of the sky. I blinked several times, not sure if what I was seeing was for real. If I hadn’t noticed him before my fall, I probably would have assumed I was hallucinating. Maybe I’d passed out and this was a dream.

“Fine, I think,” I said. “Just really embarrassed.”

“Did you hit your head? Can you sit up?”

“No.” I closed my eyes. “I mean, I think I can sit up, but no, I didn’t hit my head.”

As if to prove that, I kept my eyes closed but pushed myself to a seated position. Perfectly fine. I opened my eyes and moved both legs until my knees were pointing upward, feet solidly planted on the ground.

No pain. That was good, right? I started to push myself up but fell immediately back to my butt again when the world began spinning.

“I don’t feel right,” I said.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter that the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen was standing next to me. It wasn’t even about the embarrassment anymore. I did not want to throw up. I hated throwing up. I’d rather sit through an eight-hour seminar on the most boring topic imaginable. Get a root canal. Have a stabbing headache that drove me to distraction. Anything but throw up.

“Don’t move,” the guy said. “I’ll get a medic up here. It might take a little while.”

My eyes popped open. I hadn’t realized until then that I’d closed them again. He was standing off to the side, staring at a phone, which he was holding in front of him.

Wow, he was gorgeous. Okay, so maybe I was a little worried about throwing up in front of him. But the nausea was passing, thank God.

I took a deep breath and sat up. Nothing spun—no stars in front of my eyes. I was fine.

“I’m better now,” I said. “Can you help me up?”

I reached out, afraid to try to push myself up again, like him pulling me up would be any different. But if I were completely honest about it, I’d admit that I wanted to touch the guy.

When he pocketed his phone and thrust out his arm, I felt tingly all over. Then his big hand wrapped around mine and all the air seeped out of my lungs. Having his big, rough hand around my much smaller, softer one did something to me. It was something I wouldn’t have expected over such a small thing.

He didn’t release me right away, even when I was standing. That meant we just stood there, my right hand in his, almost like we were shaking hands.

“I’m Bronte,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

He didn’t shake, though. Neither did I. I just stood there, looking into his eyes.

“I’m Sean,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?”

I should nod. My mind was telling my head to do just that, but nothing was happening. I was just staring at him like a moron.

“You know what?” he asked. “My cabin’s right here. Why don’t you come in and sit down for a couple of minutes? Make sure you’re okay.”

I should go back to the lodge, maybe grab some breakfast in the restaurant before going back to my room to shower and get ready. I had to be at the tent at ten o’clock for a full day of baking.

But instead, I found myself saying, “That would be great. If, you know, you could spare a glass of water.”

He released my hand and gave a nod. “Can do. Are you okay to walk?”

If I wasn’t, would he carry me? That was the question that went through my mind, and I found myself blushing under his intense stare.

Everything about him was intense. I was starting to learn the definition of the word swoony. Just looking at him made me feel like I could faint, and I had a feeling that had nothing to do with my lightheadedness from earlier.

“Yes,” I said, giving up on my fantasy of feeling his hands and arms around my legs and back as he held me against him.

We walked side by side as I searched my mind for something to say. The silence was just too awkward, and he wasn’t making a move to break it. I had a feeling he was completely comfortable not saying a word.

“I’m part of the baking competition happening at the lodge,” I finally said. “Have you heard about it?”

“Nope,” he said.

This wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe I should have turned down his offer to rest in this tiny cabin in front of us for a while. But we were almost to the front door. There was no backing out now.

“I was just doing my morning run to wake up,” I said. “I do it every day. The woman at the front desk said this was the only trail around here. I guess at a ski resort, you wouldn’t expect a walking trail, so that’s no surprise.”

I winced at my own wordiness. When I was nervous, I tended to babble. I had a feeling this guy was not a fan of babbling.

“Not many people run by here,” he said. “Or walk. Too cold.”

He climbed the porch steps ahead of me and opened the door, spreading his arm wide to indicate I should enter. I did my best not to trip over my own feet as I crossed the threshold and found myself inside a cabin that was nothing at all like I expected. I figured on a bachelor pad, or at least something very primitive. But instead, there was a nice leather couch and matching recliner in front of a fireplace. The couch had a fringed beige throw folded and draped over the back.

What really stood out about the place, though, was the décor. Bear carvings everywhere. But on closer inspection, I saw they weren’t all bears. To my left was a giant wood carving of a golden retriever, and near the fireplace was a boy with a towel draped over his arm. Everything was made out of wood, including the towel.

“Have a seat,” he said as he breezed past me through the cabin, heading over to the kitchen, which was to my left.

I stopped next to the couch and tried to look over my shoulder at my butt. The last thing I wanted to do was sit if I had snow and mud all over my pants. I still felt a little wet back there from my fall. I looked up, and our eyes met over the small round table that sat between the kitchen and the living area.

“Don’t worry about the couch,” he said. “It’s not real leather.”

That shifted my gaze to the couch. It looked like real leather to me, but I wouldn’t know the difference. Still, I swatted at my butt with my hands before perching awkwardly on the edge of the seat cushion while I tried to calm my racing heart.

I could write it off as adrenaline from the fall, but deep down, I knew it had nothing to do with that. It was this man. Even looking at him got my pulse pounding. No one had ever done that to me.

I’d had crushes, of course, going all the way back to middle school, but this was next level. This was an attraction I hadn’t experienced before. And now that I was in his house, I wasn’t sure what to do about it.