Chapter Two
Carson
Walking into Honey Leaf Lodge felt a little like walking onto a stage without knowing your lines.
The room was big and warm with logs stacked high around the stone fireplace, but the heat that hit me came mostly from the group of people staring directly at me.
The entire Harper family was assembled in a loose semicircle as if they had been waiting specifically for this moment.
I recognized the parents from the emails I’d exchanged with them, but it was the siblings who held my attention.
Mostly because one of them had just dropped a cocoa mug at the sight of me. I recognized her from the website.
Sienna Harper. A name I had heard more than once.
A guide with a reputation for enthusiasm, competence, and a slight unpredictability that guests found charming.
What the emails and background notes had not mentioned was that she was beautiful in a way that hit a person without warning.
Her golden braid had come loose near her temple, and a streak of pink warmed her cheeks.
When her drink rolled to my boot, and I bent to pick it up, she stared at me with soft brown eyes like I had performed a magic trick.
Then she said the word raisins.
Nothing else. Just that.
I had guided hikers through lightning storms, navigated avalanche conditions, and once extracted a grown man who had wedged himself between two boulders because he thought it would make a funny photo.
None of that prepared me for a woman blurting raisins in greeting.
I should not have found it funny. I definitely should not have found it charming.
Yet something about her expression hit square in the chest.
She looked like she wanted the earth to open and swallow her whole.
Her siblings clearly loved every second of it.
Their snickers and groans filled the room while Sienna tried to recover one word at a time.
Even her parents fought smiles. Whatever this family was, it was lively and close and absolutely used to teasing each other at full volume.
Nothing that I was used to. I was a man who lived by the quiet of the night, trees swaying, and a tent far away from crowds.
As soon as she told me to get my bags so she could show me to my bed, the siblings erupted.
Sienna turned an alarming shade of red as she tripped over every correction she attempted.
Room. Guest bed. Bedroom. The place where a human sleeps in a normal way.
Alone. She was flustered, but she still tried to regain control, which somehow made her even more endearing.
I did my best not to laugh, but a smile escaped anyway.
When she moved out the door, I followed without question but quickly learned that this family moved as a unit.
Violet and Fiona fell in immediately, Beck trailed behind us, and her parents came along at an amused pace.
It occurred to me that I was being escorted. Possibly assessed. Possibly initiated.
I leaned slightly toward Violet. “Do you all walk in groups at all times?”
She replied brightly, “Only when something interesting is happening.”
As we stepped outside, the spring chill hit sharply and woke up every nerve. Spots of snow crunched under our boots as we headed toward the truck I had parked earlier. One heck of a spring welcoming.
Sienna stopped and turned, her expression both resigned and mortified. “You all really don’t have to come out here.”
Her siblings exchanged identical looks of innocence before Beck said, “Oh, we know.”
Violet added, “We simply enjoy being supportive observers.”
Fiona chimed in cheerfully, “Think of us as the welcome committee.”
Her father muttered something about family unity. Her mother declared that curiosity was a virtue.
I tightened my grip on the zipper of my coat and thought that the Harper family might be more intense than any trail crew I had worked with in the past ten years.
But the energy around them was warm rather than pushy.
Protective rather than invasive. They teased their sister out of affection.
I could see it in the way they watched her out of the corners of their eyes.
They might poke fun, but they adored her.
It was hard
Sienna gave me a look that apologized for all of them and also warned me to ignore whatever was about to happen next.
“Sorry. They feed off new experiences. And drama. And apparently my suffering.”
I unlocked my truck and opened the bed. Two well-used duffel bags sat inside, along with a crate of gear I had sorted earlier in the truck bed.
Beck stepped forward like he was analyzing my packing habits. “You travel light.”
“I tend to move around a lot,” I told him.
Sienna’s eyes flicked over the bags, then back to me. She did not ask for details, but she was curious. “Do you guide everywhere or just seasonally?”
“Mostly seasonally.” I lifted one bag. “Montana. Idaho. Sometimes the Southwest.”
“Ever go abroad?” Fiona asked.
“Not recently.”
“Planning to?”
“Not sure.”
Violet laughed softly. “He is very economical with his answers.”
I gave a half shrug. “Only with strangers.”
That made all three sisters laugh again. I was not trying to be funny, but the reaction surprised me. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about being the center of this much attention, but I could tell they were harmless.
When Sienna stepped forward and reached as if to help with a bag, I reacted before I meant to. “I’ve got it.”
She paused. “It’s really not heavy.”
“I know.” I softened my voice because the sharp note that had slipped out wasn’t her fault. “I just prefer to carry my own things.”
Understanding flickered in her eyes, and she nodded without offense. She did not pry. That surprised me. Most people did. Most people looked for the story behind the boundary. Or acted offended. She simply accepted it and stepped back.
I slung both bags over my shoulder and closed the truck bed.
As we walked back toward the lodge, Violet peppered me with more questions about the retreat schedule, Fiona asked whether I preferred mornings or evenings on the trail, and Beck took an unreasonable amount of interest in my GPS unit.
I answered what I could and left the rest untouched.
Privacy was something I carried with me the same way I carried my gear. It was essential.
It was non-negotiable.
Sienna noticed. She shot her siblings a warning look. “Can you three stop interrogating him for five seconds?”
They lifted their hands in surrender.
“We are welcoming him,” Violet insisted.
“By evaluating him,” Sienna replied.
“It is a helpful process,” Beck said.
Sienna’s brows lifted. “Helpful to whom?”
“To us,” he said proudly.
I could not help laughing. Their family dynamic was chaotic but genuine.
They knew each other’s edges and pushed right up to them without crossing over.
It was disorienting at first glance, but underneath the noise and humor was something steady.
Something reassuring. Something I hadn’t had for far too long.
We reached the porch, and Sienna stepped in front of me. The cold breeze caught a loose strand of her hair and blew it across her cheek. I reached out without thinking and brushed it back.
I regretted it instantly, not because it was unwelcome but because it was instinctive. Personal contact was not something I offered lightly. But her brown eyes lifted to mine, and something warm passed between us, subtle but unmistakable.
She blinked. “Oh. Thank you. I mean, not thank you. I mean, yes, thank you for touching my hair, which is a sentence I regret entirely.”
Beck snorted. Violet covered her mouth. Fiona wheezed.
I felt a smile break free. “It looked like it was bothering you. That is all.”
“Right.” She nodded too quickly. “That makes sense. Logical. Practical. Good.”
Her siblings were losing their composure behind us.
Her parents looked torn between rescuing her and enjoying the moment.
I found myself reluctant to step away from her, which was strange.
I didn’t usually experience anything this immediate.
But there was something about her that felt alive in a way I had not encountered in a long time.
Even so, the line was clear. This was work. This was temporary. And I had come here for structure, not complication. The end of September, and I’d be onto my next gig.
But when she opened the lodge door and warmth washed over us, she looked back at me with a mix of curiosity and unease, and something in my chest shifted. It wasn’t enough to declare anything aloud, but enough to acknowledge the truth quietly.
I was in trouble. I had walked into the middle of a world that was already full of life.
And Sienna Harper stood at the center of it, flustered and radiant and entirely unexpected.
I carried my bags across the threshold and followed her inside, fully aware that whatever this summer had in store, it was not going to be simple.
It was going to be her.
Sienna led me back through the lodge, weaving past the fireplace, the game shelf, and a group of guests playing cards at a side table.
She moved quickly, almost purposefully, with that restless energy she carried like a second heartbeat.
I followed with my bags, feeling the warmth of the lodge fade the closer we got to the rear doors.
Once we stepped outside again through the back kitchen door, the quiet hit instantly.
The laughter and chatter from inside dimmed behind us, replaced by the muffled hush of snow blanketing the forest. A narrow trail branched behind the lodge, lined with soft lantern lighting and tall pines glittering with frost.
“This way,” she said, not looking back.
Her voice was different now. Shorter. Tighter at the edges.
I had expected her family to follow, maybe continue the interrogation, but somewhere between the fireplace and the back door, they had vanished. Either she shook them off, or they knew to give her space. I suspected both were true.
We walked the short path until the tree line broke open and a small row of cabins emerged, dusted with fresh snow. Smoke curled from a few chimneys. The windows glowed with lamplight.
I stopped without meaning to. These weren’t standard bunk-style guide lodging. These were private. Quiet. Warm. They were better than anything I’d stayed at in the last ten years.
She reached the third cabin and fished a key from her pocket.
“This one’s yours,” she said. “It’s small, but it has a kitchenette and a shower that works most days. If not, you can use the one in the main lodge.”
I stared at the cabin for a second too long. “I wasn’t expecting… this.”
She unlocked the door and pushed it open, shrugging. “What? A roof?”
“Privacy,” I said.
Her brow creased. “Where did you think you were staying?”
“Somewhere with a mattress if I were lucky. Guides don’t usually get their own space.”
She blinked, genuinely surprised. “You’re not just a guide. You’re working with us. That means you get a cabin.”
Her tone was simple, matter-of-fact, but something in it tugged at me unexpectedly.
She stepped inside first, flipping on the light. The cabin was warm. Pine walls, a neat bed, a small table, a lamp with a woven shade. A place someone might actually want to stay in, not just use to sleep between shifts.
As she moved around the space, pointing to the heater, the storage, the extra blankets, I noticed the shift again. The slight tension in her shoulders. The way she kept her gaze on the floor or the walls, not me.
Her family wasn’t here to fill the silence anymore. It was just us, and she suddenly seemed more unsettled than before.
I set my bags down slowly. “Sienna.”
She paused at the foot of the bed. “What?”
“Are you all right?”
She exhaled sharply through her nose. Not angry. Not upset. Just… deflated. “I didn’t know they thought I needed help.”
The words hung there between us, heavy in the warm cabin air.
I winced. “Ouch.”
A laugh escaped her, small and surprised, like she hadn’t meant to let it out.
“Yeah. That about sums it up.”
She looked around the cabin again, trying for a lighter tone. “Anyway. This is it. Your… place. For the season. I hope it’s fine.”
“It’s more than fine.” I held her gaze for a moment. “Thank you.”
She shrugged, unable to hold eye contact for long. “Sure. Welcome to Honey Leaf Lodge, Carson. I’ll be by in a bit to show you the gear shed.”
And with that, she stepped back out of the doorway, carrying the weight of something she hadn’t said yet.
Something I was starting to realize mattered more than she let on.