Rugged Mountain Man (Seduction Summit Lumberjacks #5)

Chapter 1

1

WILLOW

I ’d never sat at a bar by myself in my life.

Well, I wasn’t exactly by myself. I was surrounded by big guys in sweatshirts and vests and lumberjack plaid. They were from the local logging crew, someone said last night. They came here to eat dinner after work.

The weird thing was, they didn’t talk to each other. Didn’t they know each other if they worked together? Maybe there was an unspoken pact between them all.

“Another glass of wine?” the bartender, a friendly guy who was scrawny compared to the guys around me, asked.

I nodded and slid my empty glass that way. I didn’t normally drink, but this day had been a rollercoaster ride. I was sure I’d be eliminated right away, but somehow, I’d made my way into the top three finalists in the national baking championship that was happening in the tent near this ski lodge.

The other two finalists weren’t around when I breezed through the lobby. But I was early. I was hoping to grab a little liquid courage before dinner.

And that was how I’d ended up sitting on a stool, in a mostly empty restaurant, watching as it gradually filled up. First one mountain man on a stool, then another, then another. And now I was sandwiched in between two of them and scared to move.

The one on my right was hot as hell. Okay, so the one on the left was pretty good-looking too, but he wasn’t my type. My type was this guy with the dark hair and the tattoo that was peeking above the collar of his sweatshirt.

When had that guy become my type? I usually went for scrawny dudes like the one pouring Pinot Grigio into my glass. He wasn’t exactly my type either, but he was closer to it than these guys. I dated nerds, mostly because I was a nerd. Always had been, always would be.

“You here for the competition?” the bartender suddenly asked.

Oh. I hadn’t expected to be drawn into conversation. He didn’t seem all that interested in talking to me when no one was around. Was this something he was doing because it was busy? If so, why?

“Yes,” I said. “I’m a finalist.”

There were only three of us. I was damn proud to be one of them. But at the same time, I felt bad for all the contestants who hadn’t made the finals. Like me, they’d all gone to the trouble of traveling here with baked goods to give to the judges. They’d practiced and practiced, knowing this was their one shot.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the only shot, but it was a big shot. The winner got fifty thousand dollars and help with starting a bakery.

It was something I’d dreamed of doing all my life. Well, since I got a little toy oven for Christmas when I was six, anyway.

“That’s awesome,” the bartender said, setting down the bottle of wine. “You know, if you want to celebrate, I get off work at eleven.”

My eyes widened. Was this guy hitting on me? No, he probably legit wanted to celebrate. I wasn’t used to being hit on. Usually, I blended into the background. But tonight, I’d really gone all out—fixing my hair, wearing contacts instead of glasses, and putting on the makeup my friend had given me for my birthday. At the time, she’d dared me to wear it and even sent me a bunch of video tutorials. I’d practiced, but it was rare I actually went out in public looking this way.

“We start early in the morning,” I said. “And it’s the finals. There’s a lot at stake. I’ll be going to bed early.”

The bartender nodded. “Well, if you change your mind, give me a call.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the booklet servers kept their tickets in. He extracted a business card and set it down. Then, with a wink, he headed down the bar to a guy who had been motioning for him for the past thirty seconds or so.

I didn’t move to touch the card. Instead, I grabbed my wineglass and lifted it by the stem as my friend had shown me. Otherwise, the heat in your hand transferred to the liquid in the glass, warming it up, she’d said.

“You going to call him?”

I nearly choked on my swallow of wine when the hot guy to my right spoke. He didn’t look at me, so it took me a second to verify that yes, the words had come from him.

I shook my head. “You can have the card if you want.”

“Yeah, I don’t swing that way.”

This time, there was no danger of choking on my drink. I’d set it down and given my full attention to the guy next to me. Now, I actually dared to look at him.

“You don’t, huh?” I said. “Yeah, I would have guessed that about you.”

He frowned, but still didn’t look at me. He was staring straight ahead. If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I would have thought maybe I’d imagined he’d spoken to me.

Now that I stopped to think about it, maybe I had. Was I talking to a guy who thought I was crazy at best and annoying as hell at worst?

“So, you’re a baker, huh?” he asked. “Do you make a good apple pie?”

I couldn’t help but remember the competition from earlier today, when we’d been given pie crust, various fruits, and a bunch of items we had to fight over. I’d made a boysenberry pie. Not my specialty, which was one of the reasons I half expected to lose, but I guess I was better at it than I expected.

“The best you’ll ever have,” I said. “Lattice crust and all.”

“With ice cream?”

“The best homemade vanilla bean you can find.”

“You make your own ice cream?” He looked over at me. “As in, using an ice cream maker?”

I held back my response to that, although he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He’d turned to face front again, lifting his mug of beer to take a big swig.

“I make it on the stove and freeze it,” I said. “It’s pretty easy, really. Just some cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla extract.”

About halfway through that, he probably tuned me out. Or maybe he was listening, but he sure wasn’t making any expression at all in response. And that unnerved me a little. I was used to watching for body language. Most of the people I knew probably would say the same.

“This town could use someone like you,” he said. “Can’t get a good apple pie anywhere within city limits.”

“There’s no bakery around here?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said.

That had been mentioned at some point, but hearing it from this guy perked up my ears. Could I see myself living in this beautiful town, running a bakery with zero competition?

Hell to the yes, I could.

“What about pastries and doughnuts?” I asked. “A tourist town like this wouldn’t have something like that.”

He made a sound at that. It was something between a scoff and a laugh. Maybe more scoff than laugh, actually.

“This is a ski town right now,” he said. “That’ll probably change, but not many restaurants can survive in a town that’s slammed a few months a year and a ghost town the rest of the time.”

He had a point. And with that point, my hopes sank. So much for my competition-less bakery.

“But I guess you can tell there’s a lot going on around here, so maybe…”

His voice drifted off, but he’d said plenty to get my mind spinning. Hmm. This definitely could be an option, especially if I won the fifty thousand tomorrow.

“I could show you the town, but you’re probably busy with your competition.”

Suddenly, nothing in the world sounded better than being shown around a beautiful mountain town by the hottest guy I’d ever seen. Nothing. But he was right. A responsible person wouldn’t dare blow off dinner to run off with some random stranger.

“There’s a dinner,” I said. “I’m kind of dreading it, if I’m honest with you.”

“Why’s that?”

“It sucks being a finalist when you know other people are stuck here, watching you celebrate. They traveled all this way and worked so hard. I don’t know, maybe I’m just having imposter syndrome.”

“Are you an imposter?” he asked.

“I might be,” I said. I looked over at him then, and added, “How would I know for sure?”

“I’d say if you make the best apple pie I’ve ever had, you’re no imposter. You’re a damn good baker. One that deserves to win awards.”

He looked at me, and as our eyes met, something shifted in me. This wasn’t just some hot guy who was making my heart beat a little faster. This was a guy I’d been trying to visualize for years. The perfect man. The guy who would convince me it was worth giving up my virginity.

And that was why, even though I was due to meet up with the rest of the contestants in just a half hour or so, I found myself looking around and asking, “Is there a back way out of this place?”