Bunking with the Lumberjack (Sexy Lumbersnacks #5)

Chapter 1

HARTLEY

Three days into what was supposed to be a relaxing girls’ trip, and I was hauling a pink rolling suitcase up a gravel road toward a stranger’s garage apartment.

So much for a “restorative mountain getaway.”

The morning had started perfectly. Brooklyn and I were at the Pancake House—again. Third day in a row. At this point, Lauralie didn’t even ask what we wanted. She just winked and called out, “Two blueberry stacks!” like we were regulars with punch cards.

Paisley, meanwhile, was missing in action.

She’d been slipping out before dawn every morning with her trail maps and GPS coordinates like she was training for some secret wilderness audition.

After yesterday, though, she’d vanished entirely.

Something about one of the outfitter guys showing her a “bypass trail.” Which sounded suspiciously like code for “abs.”

She hadn’t answered a single text.

Brooklyn wasn’t much more interested in the wilderness portion of this trip than I was.

She’d signed up for the scavenger hunt because the grand prize was fifty thousand dollars and because she was Brooklyn—she’d enter a competitive goat-grooming contest if there were cash on the line.

But so far, her strategy had been to photograph wildflowers from the Pancake House parking lot and hope for the best.

I was halfway through a pancake—blueberries, syrup, joy—when my phone rang.

Bobbi. The innkeeper.

Never a good sign.

A pipe had burst. My room—just mine, of course—was flooded. My things had already been moved to the front desk. She was “so sorry,” but with festival week in full swing, every bed within a twenty-mile radius was taken.

“But don’t you worry,” she’d said in that honey-drizzled voice that could make a tax audit sound festive. “I’ve arranged something lovely. One of the outfitter boys has a sweet little apartment above his garage. Separate entrance. Separate key. You won’t even know he’s there.”

She had the address. The key location. Turn-by-turn directions. Almost like she’d planned this before the pipe decided to explode.

And now here I was, suitcase wheels snagging on rocks, staring up at an exterior staircase that allegedly led to my “sweet little apartment.” Allegedly because the stairs were completely blocked.

Sawhorses straddled the bottom step, balancing an uncut plank of lumber like some sort of construction shrine.

A chainsaw lounged on the fourth step as if it paid rent.

The rest of the staircase was buried under tools—a hand axe, a coil of rope, and a plastic bin overflowing with chains and hardware that looked like it had been placed there “temporarily” a few years ago.

I stood at the base of the stairs, key in hand, taking in my new reality. I was an events coordinator. I’d once rerouted a seventy-person corporate dinner around a flooded ballroom in forty-five minutes when my boss had been on a plane and left it to me to handle. I could manage a staircase.

Probably.

I reached for the nearest sawhorse.

“I wouldn’t move that.”

The voice came from behind the garage. I turned.

He rounded the corner carrying an armload of split firewood stacked from his waist to his chin, moving like the load weighed nothing.

Tall. Broad enough to block the light behind him.

Dark hair a little too long, sawdust caught near his temple.

A flannel shirt open over a gray T-shirt, sleeves shoved past his elbows, and forearms that looked like they’d been carved from the same wood he was hauling.

He stopped when he saw me. His eyes dropped to my suitcase—a hard-shell roller in dusty rose, currently collecting gravel dust on wheels designed for airport terminals, not mountain driveways.

One eyebrow lifted. “You must be the burst pipe.”

“Hartley. And those are my stairs.”

“Technically, they’re my stairs.” He shifted the firewood to one arm as if it were a stack of magazines. “The reason I said ‘don’t move that’ is because the plank’s not secured. You pull the sawhorse, it slides, and you’ve got eighty pounds of white oak coming at your shins.”

“Then maybe don’t store eighty pounds of white oak on a staircase people need to use.”

“Nobody uses that staircase.”

“I use that staircase. As of today.”

He looked at me for a long moment—not annoyed, exactly. More like he was recalibrating something. Assessing. His mouth twitched at the corner, the beginning of a grin he hadn’t committed to yet.

He set the firewood down and cleared the stairs in three efficient trips—plank, sawhorses, chainsaw, tools…all of it relocated to the garage in under two minutes. Then he stepped aside and swept an arm toward the stairs like a doorman at a hotel that had seen much better days.

“It’s all yours, Hartley.”

I hauled my suitcase up the steps, bumping over each one because there was no way I was asking him to carry it.

The apartment was one room—bed against the far wall, mini fridge, bathroom through a half-open door.

A plaid comforter that matched nothing. A lamp with no shade.

And the whole space smelled faintly of sawdust and motor oil.

It was functional. I could work with functional.

I unzipped my suitcase, and the familiar sight of my packing cubes settled something in my chest. Pink for tops, teal for bottoms, lavender for intimates. Everything in its place. I might be sleeping above a stranger’s garage, but at least my suitcase made sense.

A text from Brooklyn interrupted my unpacking. Is there really no other room? Want me to ask around?

I typed back, It’s fine. Separate entrance. Practically an apartment.

Is the outfitter guy hot?

I looked out the window. He was below, splitting wood on a stump near the tree line. He’d dropped the flannel and was working in just the T-shirt, and every time he swung the axe, the fabric pulled across his back in a way that made the word “hot” feel clinically inadequate.

He’s a disaster, I typed. His stairs were blocked with power tools.

So he’s hot. Got it.

I tossed my phone on the bed and finished unpacking. Toiletries lined up on the bathroom sink in order of use—cleanser, toner, moisturizer, left to right. Charger by the nightstand. Tomorrow’s itinerary folded neatly in my day bag.

I needed coffee. The mini fridge was empty. No kitchen. Not even a microwave. Which meant I was going to have to go back down those stairs and find the dude who lived here.

The sound of the axe stopped. I looked down. He was leaning on the handle, looking up at me like he’d been waiting.

“Coffee’s on if you want some,” he called. “Kitchen door’s open.”

I hated that he’d known I needed coffee before I did.

His kitchen was a mess. Mugs in three different cabinets. Yesterday’s grounds still sitting in the coffeemaker basket. The counter buried under mail, a tape measure, granola bar wrappers, and…

What the heck? There was a greasy engine part on his kitchen counter.

I moved it to the windowsill, cleared a space, found a clean mug on the third try, and poured myself coffee. It was strong and hot and actually decent—which annoyed me because it didn’t fit the narrative I was building about him.

“You always rearrange people’s kitchens within the first hour?” He was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, sawdust still in his hair.

“I moved one thing. And it was an engine part.”

“Chainsaw air filter, actually. And I was cleaning it.”

“On a kitchen counter.”

“Where else would I clean it?”

I took a sip of coffee instead of answering. The list of appropriate places that were not a kitchen would fill one of my event-planning binders.

He crossed to the coffeemaker and poured his own mug. The kitchen was small enough that the space between us felt like a suggestion rather than a boundary.

“Name’s Dash,” he said, raising his mug slightly.

“I know. Bobbi told me.”

“She tell you anything else?”

“She said you were one of the outfitter guys, and I should consider myself lucky because the other options were ‘less refined.’” I paused. “I’m afraid to ask what ‘less refined’ looks like.”

That crooked grin again. “Smart.”

He studied me over the rim of his mug.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Apartment’s yours, no strings attached. Kitchen, shower, whatever you need—back door’s always open. I’m out by seven most mornings doing trail work, so you’ll have the run of the place. One rule.”

“What’s your rule?”

“Stop moving my stuff.”

I looked at the counter I’d already cleared. The air filter on the windowsill. The mug I’d selected from his disorganized cabinet.

“No promises,” I said.

His eyes held mine, and something flickered there—like he was updating a file in his head, and the new information was more interesting than he’d expected.

“Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “That’s what I figured.”