The Mountain Man's Commanding Instinct (Granitehart Ridge Guardians #1)

1. Skye

Chapter one

Skye

So this is what rock bottom looks like: a rental cabin in the Virginia mountains, a car packed so full of planner supplies that I can’t see out the back window, and seventy-two hours to save a business that's been circling the drain for weeks but I've been too stubborn to admit it.

At least the view is nice. Or it would be if I had time to actually look at it.

The peaks of Granitehart Ridge rise up through the trees, the kind of rugged Shenandoah Mountain beauty that belongs on a postcard.

Storm clouds the color of old bruises are rolling over those peaks right now, moving fast enough that I can practically hear them laughing at me.

Cold air leaks through the door seal, smelling like wet leaves and coming weather.

Because of course there's a storm coming.

Of course there is. The universe has a sense of humor, and apparently I'm the punchline.

The engine dies with a shudder as I twist the key, and I sit there with my hands still gripping the steering wheel, staring at the cabin through the windshield.

It's smaller than it looked in the photos.

They always are, but it's got four walls and a roof, and it's about half an hour from the nearest town, which means no one can witness whatever breakdown I'm about to have when I realize this plan is just as doomed as every other plan I've tried in the last three weeks.

My phone buzzes in the cup holder. I ignore it. I know what it says. Another customer asking where their order is. Another reminder that I'm one bad review away from watching everything I've built collapse.

Three hundred and seventeen orders. Seventy-two hours. One extremely burnt-out human who thought running away to the mountains would somehow make this manageable.

Spoiler alert: it's not manageable.

But I'm here now, so I guess we're doing this.

The car door flies open under my hand, and the wind immediately slaps me in the face, cold enough that my eyes water.

The first drops of rain hit my cheeks as I pop the trunk, and I'm already mentally cataloging what needs to come inside first. The planners with the custom covers; three days of work per batch, can't afford to let them get wet.

The insert pages that took me six hours to print and cut because my trimmer kept jamming.

The laminator that I'm pretty sure is held together by bubblegum and prayer at this point.

My arms are full before I've thought it through, boxes stacked up to my chin, and I'm stumbling toward the porch like some kind of deranged pack mule.

The steps are uneven. Of course they are, and I nearly go down on the middle one, catching myself at the last second with a move that's more graceless flailing than actual coordination.

The door, thank God, is unlocked. I hip-check it open and half-fall inside, dropping everything in a heap on the floor.

Dust swirls up in the dim light. The cabin smells like fireplace and old wood and the dreams of every person who's ever rented this place thinking a change of scenery would fix their life.

It hasn't worked for them, judging by the layer of dust coating the windowsills and the faint smell of abandonment clinging to the walls. It won't work for me either. But hey, at least I'm consistent in my poor life choices.

The next trips blur together: wind tearing at my jacket, rain soaking through my jeans, my shoulders burning as I haul box after box inside. By the time I slam the door against the weather for the last time, my muscles are sore and my lungs are burning from the altitude or the panic or both.

And then I turn around and take in what I've done.

The cabin floor is covered. Boxes and bins and shopping bags are everywhere, spilling out materials and half-finished orders and supplies I'm not even sure I'll need but packed anyway because my brain stopped making rational decisions somewhere around hour nineteen of my last work binge.

There's barely room to walk. Definitely no room to work.

Standing there in the middle of it all, turning in a slow circle, I feel laughter or panic or both trying to claw its way up my throat.

There's nowhere to work.

The cabin is one main room with a kitchenette that looks like it came straight out of 1987 and a wood stove in the corner that I definitely don't know how to use.

There's a table, but it's tiny, maybe big enough for two people to eat breakfast if they don't need personal space.

There's a couch that's seen better days and possibly better decades.

There are windows that offer a stunning view when you're not watching your entire business implode in real time.

There's no workspace. No flat surfaces. No system.

"Okay," I say out loud, and my voice sounds shrill in the empty space, too thin against the sound of rain starting to hammer the roof.

"Okay, this is fine. This is totally fine.

You've worked in worse conditions. Remember that craft fair in the parking lot when it was ninety-five degrees and you were sitting on hot asphalt? This is better than that. This is—"

I'm talking to myself. Great. That's a good sign. Very stable. Very in control.

Dropping to my knees, I start ripping into the nearest box because if I stop moving, I'm going to start thinking, and thinking is what got me into this mess in the first place.

If I can just get organized, maybe planners in one area, inserts in another, tools within reach, then I can set up some assembly-line situation on the floor.

I can make this work. I've made worse things work.

I once fulfilled forty orders in a library study cubicle because my apartment's power was out. I can do this.

I have to do this.

My hands are shaking as I tear the tape off a box.

A stack of planner covers slides out and scatters across the floor in a cascade of floral patterns and motivational quotes that feel deeply ironic right now.

Scrambling to gather them up, trying to keep them in order, I'm halfway through the pile when I hear it.

Footsteps on the porch.

Heavy. Deliberate. Definitely not the wind.

My hands freeze mid-reach, planner covers slipping through my fingers.

My heart kicks hard against my ribs, a stuttering rhythm that has nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the fact that I'm in the middle of nowhere and someone is on the porch and the road up here was more like a suggestion than an actual road.

There's a storm rolling in. Who the hell would be out here right now?

The door swings open, and a man fills the entry.

He's tall enough that he dwarfs the frame, broad enough that he fills the entrance completely. Rain drips from his jacket onto worn floorboards, and the cabin shrinks around his presence. Or maybe that’s me shrinking.

Dark hair, wet from the rain. Flannel shirt under the jacket with the total package looking like he could carry everything I've been trying to hold alone.

The thought flickers through my mind unbidden, unwelcome, and I shove it down hard.

He's holding a toolbox in one hand like it weighs nothing, and his eyes, which are dark, steady, and unsettlingly calm, sweep over the scattered supplies in about three seconds flat.

Then they land on me.

I'm kneeling on the floor surrounded by what looks like the aftermath of a craft store explosion, my hair is plastered to my face, and I'm pretty sure I have packing tape stuck to my jacket. I'm living my best life.

"Hi," I say because my brain has apparently decided that casual politeness is the appropriate response to a strange man appearing in my doorway during a rainstorm. "Can I help you?"

His attention moves from me to the scattered supplies in one slow sweep, cataloging everything. I watch his jaw work, barely perceptible, like he's running calculations I can't see. When his eyes return to mine, there's recognition there, like he knows me without actually knowing me yet.

"You're Skye Lochary," he says. It's not a question.

"That's me," I say, slowly getting to my feet and trying to look like a person who has control over any aspect of her life right now. "And you are...?"

"Hunter Channing. I own the property." He steps inside without waiting for an invitation, closing the door behind him against the wind.

The cabin immediately feels smaller. The air shifts with his presence, pressure and heat and something that makes the back of my neck prickle.

"Got a message from the agency that someone was renting for an extended stay.

Wanted to make sure the cabin was ready, but it looks like you beat me here. "

I look around at the mess. At the boxes everywhere. At the complete and total lack of anything resembling "ready."

"It's great," I lie. "Very... rustic."

His eyes, dark enough to make heat crawl up my neck, track across the room again. He's not looking at me anymore. He's looking at the setup. Or the lack of setup. The boxes. The scattered materials. The way I've clearly been trying to organize something and failing spectacularly.

"You're working," he says.

"Very observant."

"Out of here."

"That's the plan." I cross my arms, suddenly aware that I'm defensive and not entirely sure why. "I've got a tight turnaround, and I needed somewhere quiet. This seemed perfect."

He's silent for a long moment, still taking in the scene. Then his gaze comes back to me, and there's recognition in it. Assessment. The look of someone who's seen this before, seen someone pushing past their limits, and knows exactly how it ends.

"How long's your turnaround?" he asks.

I shouldn’t tell this stranger about my impending business doom. I should definitely not admit that I'm three weeks behind on orders and running on fumes and one minor setback away from a complete meltdown.

"Seventy-two hours," I hear myself say.

His jaw tightens again, more visibly this time. It's the first real reaction I've seen from him, and I can't tell if it's surprise or concern or if he's just doing math in his head.

"And you're planning to work... here." He gestures at the floor, at the tiny table, at the complete lack of functional workspace.

"I'm flexible," I say. "I've worked in worse places."

"You shouldn't have to."

The words land quiet but solid, and my breath catches. It’s something softer than defensiveness, a thing I don't have time to examine. My pulse skips strangely at my wrists, a flutter that feels too much like hope, and I blink at him.

"I'm sorry?"

But he's already moving, setting his toolbox down by the door and walking farther into the cabin with the confidence of someone who knows this space better than I do.

Which is fair: He owns it. But there's something about the way he moves, the way his eyes track over everything, that makes me think he's not just looking.

He's assessing. Building a plan I can't see yet.

"You can't work like this," he says, more to himself than to me. "No workflow. No organization. You'll burn through twice the time just looking for what you need."

"I was going to organize—"

"The table's too small. Floor's not level—you'll have product sliding everywhere. And you're going to need real light. These overhead fixtures aren't enough for detail work."

I stare at him. "How do you know I'm doing detail work?"

He glances at me, then picks up one of the planner covers from the floor. Studies it for half a second. Sets it down precisely where he found it.

"Custom work. Small components. Assembly required." He's already moving again, examining the space like he's running calculations. "You'll need stations. Separate areas for each phase. And you'll need them set up in sequence so you're not wasting movement."

"I—" I don't know what to say. I don't know what's happening.

This man walked in here sixty seconds ago, and he's already mapped out my entire production problem more efficiently than I have in three weeks of panic-planning.

He sees the mess I'm drowning in, and he's not overwhelmed by it.

He's solving it. Like it's simple. Like I don't have to figure this out alone.

He turns back to me, and for the first time, something that might be the ghost of a smile touches the corner of his mouth.

"I'll be back in twenty minutes," he says. "Don't try to set anything up until then."

"Wait, what—"

But he's already heading for the door, picking up his toolbox like this conversation is over.

"Twenty minutes," he repeats, and there's a command in his voice that makes my spine straighten involuntarily.

My body hears an order it wants to follow even if my brain is still three steps behind, still trying to catch up to the fact that I just got told what to do, and some traitorous part of me liked it.

Then he's gone, the door closing behind him with a solid click that somehow sounds final.

The cabin feels different in his absence.

Emptier. Like he took some of the pressure with him when he left but also like the air is thinner now, harder to breathe.

I stand there in the middle of my disaster zone, surrounded by three hundred and seventeen orders and seventy-two hours of impossible work, my heart still doing something complicated against my ribs.

I realize two things:

One, I have no idea what just happened.

And two, I'm not entirely sure I'm in control of this situation anymore.

The rain hammers against the windows. The wind howls around the cabin's corners.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, underneath the panic and the exhaustion and the stubborn determination that's been holding me together for weeks, a whisper rises: Maybe that's not a bad thing.

My pulse kicks against my wrists, but this time, the rhythm doesn't feel like panic.