CHAPTER ONE
Roxie
The first clank was almost polite.
A little metallic cough from under the hood, like my car was clearing its throat before delivering bad news. I turned down the music—some pop song about freedom and open roads that felt a little too ironic—and waited.
Nothing.
“Okay. We’re fine. Just a—”
Clank. Clank. Clank.
The noise sounded like a bad rhythm section in a high school band.
“No. No, no, no. Come on, Scarlet. Not here. Not in the middle of—”
Montana apparently didn’t care about my protests. Neither did Scarlet, my little blue car who’d chosen this exact moment, on this exact stretch of empty highway, to stage a full mechanical rebellion.
I guided her onto the shoulder—-a generous term for the strip of gravel between the road and a whole lot of nothing. Trees. Mountains. Sky so big it made me feel like a speck.
“Scarlet. Please.”
The clanking continued.
I cut the engine dropped my forehead to the steering wheel and took a breath. Then another.
This was fine. This was totally fine. I had AAA. I had a credit card. I had—I pulled out my phone—one bar of service. That was enough.
“Okay. We’re good. We’re adapting.”
I googled mechanics near me and got exactly one result. Lou’s Garage, Lone Mountain, Montana. Distance, three miles.
Lone Mountain. I hit the name of the town to see exactly which spot fate had landed me. I squinted at the facts listed in cheerful bright blue script. Home of the Lone Mountain Lumber company. A farmer’s market, and… Wait? Did that say the Mountain Mates App?
“Mmm,” I muttered to myself. I had actually heard about that.
Then came the long list of activities one could do while in town. Hiking. Rock Climbing. Boating.
“Okay, that’s a hard pass on all those,” I told no one. I was a curvy girl and that explained everything.
“Okay, Scarlet, you’ve got this. Just a few more miles, you’ve got that in you, don’t you girl?” I patted the dashboard and tried the key. She started up like she was fresh off the assembly line. “That’s my girl.”
I checked the road and pulled out—slowly. Scarlet, well she could be a bitch sometimes, so I treated her with kid gloves.
Finally, I saw the Welcome to Lone Mountain sign and gave a sigh of relief.
I was coasting into town, praying every moment I wasn’t doing more damage to Scarlet.
The main street had a diner, a general store that looked like it doubled as the post office, a bar called Mack’s, and—thank God — Lou’s Garage.
Apparently, everyone in town liked simple names for their businesses.
I pulled Scarlet to a stop in front of the garage and she seemed to sigh with relief.
I walked into the open bay where an older gentleman in grease-stained coveralls was bent over the engine of a truck that looked older than him and my mother put together.
“No offense, Mom,” I murmured beneath my breath. “Excuse me? Lou?”
He straightened, wiping his hands on a rag that looked like it could stand up on its own it was so saturated in oil. His face was tanned and weathered and he had the kind of eyes that had seen everything twice. “That’s me. What can I do for you?”
“My car just died. Like, completely gave up on existence. Can you look at it?”
Lou walked around Scarlet like a doctor eyeing a terminal patient. He popped the hood and made a series of thoughtful humming noises that did not inspire confidence.
“When’s the last time you had her serviced?”
I winced. “Define serviced.”
He gave me a look. The look, but I simply smiled back at him. “I check the oil?” I offered weakly.
“Uh-huh.” He dove back under the hood, prodding things with tools I couldn’t name.
Five minutes later, he delivered the verdict. “Your timing belt’s shot. You’re lucky to make it here without it taking out the water pump or the engine seizing.”
My stomach dropped. “How lucky are we talking?”
“Lucky enough that I can fix it. Unlucky enough that I gotta order parts. Week, maybe ten days.”
“A week?” I hadn’t made the squeaky sound since I’d seen a spider crawling its way up the wall of my shower.
“Maybe ten days,” he repeated, maddeningly calm.
“How much?”
He scratched his jaw, doing mental math that I knew I wasn’t going to like. “Parts and labor? Fifteen hundred, give or take.”
I did not have fifteen hundred dollars. I had about four hundred in checking and a credit card I’d sworn I’d only use for emergencies.
Rule #19: Don’t borrow more than you can afford to pay back.
Momma’s voice rang clear in my head.
But what was I supposed to do? Hitchhike to California? Sell a kidney? This counted as an emergency. Definitely counted.
“Okay,” I said, nodding like a functional adult who made good life choices. “Um. Is there a hotel nearby? Or a motel? A room above the bar? Literally anywhere with a bed.”
Lou frowned. “Well. There’s the Lone Mountain Inn, but—”
“Perfect. I’ll—”
“—they’re booked solid. Some destination wedding this weekend. Whole town’s packed. Every room, every cabin, every rental within forty miles.”
The hope in my chest popped like a balloon. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Couple from California wanted to get married in nature. Flew in a hundred guests. Town’s been preparing for months.”
“I bet it was the dating app, wasn’t it?”
He scratched his head, confused. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess. So I’ll just...” I pulled out my phone, scrolling through options I didn’t have. “There has to be something.”
“Next town with lodging is about fifty miles south. But without a car...” He trailed off, almost apologetic.
I stared at my phone as my brain offered increasingly unhinged suggestions.
“Do you know a kid with a tree house that would take chips as payment? There has to be a barn somewhere? Cows have to sleep don’t they and they’re so cute.” I bit my nail, my brain racing. “I could sleep in my car?” I said to the universe at large. “A park bench?”
Lou shook his head. “Sheriff’ll cite you for that. Town ordinance.”
“Right. Of course.” I laughed. That was the way my luck was going today. “Okay. I’ll figure something out. I always figure something out.”
Lou studied me for a long moment, then his face brightened. “Actually. Hold on. I might have just the thing.”
“A secret hotel?”
“Better. Come on.”
He wiped his hands on his coveralls and headed toward the back door of the garage. I put my phone in my purse and followed, because what else was I going to do?
We walked out into the afternoon sunshine. The main street stretched ahead, slow moving and picturesque in that small-town Montana way. We passed a couple walking hand-in-hand and I saw a dog sleeping on a porch and wondered if he’d mind sharing tonight.
Lou led me past the general store, past the diner with its faded awning, toward what had to be the town square—literally a large square of grass with a gazebo and an overabundance of benches.
And that’s when I heard it.
The buzz of a chainsaw.
Loud. Aggressive. The kind of sound that made you think of lumberjacks and horror movies in equal measure.
Lou walked right toward it.
“Um,” I said, almost having to run to keep up. Lou, despite his age, was quite spry. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
We walked to the other side of the square and I stopped dead.
There was a man on the square, surrounded by wood chips and sawdust, holding a chainsaw.
And not just any man.
He was easily six-three, maybe more. He wore a white t-shirt that clung to muscles that had no business existing outside of a gym. Dark hair, messy and slightly too long. Scruff that looked like he’d forgotten to shave for a few days and somehow made it work.
Tattoos ran up both arms and vanished under his sleeves.
Red hot mountain man, my brain supplied helpfully. Because of course that’s what he was. Tall, tattooed, holding a chainsaw, covered in sawdust. Every romance novel cover I’d ever seen, standing in the middle of a tiny Montana town like he’d been waiting for me to break down on his doorstep.
He was carving something out of a huge tree trunk. I couldn’t tell what yet, but the way he moved was mesmerizing. Precise. Controlled. Powerful.
The chainsaw cut through wood like butter.
I got a little sad. Why? Because men who looked like that didn’t usually look twice at women who looked like me.
I knew that. I’d made peace with it years ago.
Curvy girls got attention, sure, but not from men like him.
Guys like him went for the willowy, athletic types with abs of their own.
I had hips that demanded a dress with a little stretch.
So, when he stepped back, killed the chainsaw, and turned to look right at me…
Naturally, I forgot how to breathe. And a new rule popped into my head.
Rule #22: Never drool over a man holding a chainsaw.
Who would have thought I’d need to add that as a rule, but I was mentally plugging it one of the spaces that Momma had left me.
Lou raised a hand in greeting. “Bridger! Got a minute?”
Bridger. Of course his name was Bridger.
He set the chainsaw down on the ground and pulled off his work gloves. Then took the orange ear plugs out. He walked toward us, all easy confidence and unhurried grace.
“Uncle Lou.” His voice was the kind of voice that made you think of dark rooms and… other things.
His eyes flicked to me, held for a beat too long, then back to Lou.
“This is Roxie,” Lou said. “Her car broke down. Needs a place to stay for the week, but the whole town’s booked up with that wedding and all.”
Bridger’s gaze swung back to me and heat crawled up the back of my neck. “My timing belt died.”
“That so?” His stared at me, those dark eyes assessing me. I refused to react. What he saw was what he got.
And if he wanted it? That sneaky little voice that had urged me to try spicy food in Texas that almost sent me to the emergency room, whispered in my ear.
“That’s what Lou said.”
I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, but I felt the weight of his attention.
Lou cleared his throat. “Bridger’s got a big place up the mountain. Plenty of room.”