Chapter 6
BEAR
Itold myself I wasn’t attracted to her.
Couldn’t be.
Becca was exactly what I didn’t need—city shoes that didn’t belong on snow, a voice too bright for a place like this, and enough holiday cheer to make my molars ache. She was trouble, strung up in twinkle lights and good intentions.
I’d kept my distance all night. Or tried to.
But the second I saw Jinx leaning in close, making her laugh like that, something twisted in my gut. Her laugh—it wasn’t annoying like I’d expected. It was light. Clear. Like bells, almost. Didn’t belong in a bar like this. Didn’t belong in my world at all.
I told myself it was just the noise. Just Jinx acting like a jackass. Just a distraction.
But then she bent over the pool table to line up a shot, and every guy in the room watched her like they had a right to. My hand tightened around my glass. Jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
I wasn’t jealous.
I was pissed.
At Jinx.
At this whole damn setup.
At myself most of all.
And when Wolf laid his hands on her like she was some kind of prize—something in me snapped. Hot and sharp, like a fuse burning too fast. Before I knew what I was doing, I was across the floor, pulling her away from the noise and the crowd and the heat of it all.
Few words came out of my mouth: Time to go.
Now I was in bed, staring at the dark ceiling while the fire downstairs crackled low. The cabin creaked with wind and settling logs. I should’ve been asleep hours ago, but all I could see was her face. Those bright eyes. That stubborn chin. Like she was still right there in the room with me.
Then came the sound—soft, barely there—the bathroom door clicking shut. Water running.
I shut my eyes. Swore under my breath.
The air shifted. Subtle, but I noticed. Something warm. Vanilla. Maybe her lotion. Or her shampoo. Something sweet and wintery that didn’t belong out here, but clung to the air anyway. I told myself it was just in my head, that the scent got caught in the wood or the sheets or something.
Didn’t help.
I rolled onto my back. Stared into nothing.
This—this was why I didn’t let people close.
Because it only took one laugh. One look.
One storm-stranded woman in my cabin, and my head was a damn mess.
I turned to the wall and muttered, “Should’ve left her in the damn snow.”
But even as I said it, I knew I was lying. Oh a sigh, I got out of bed, pulled on my jeans and headed downstairs to the fireplace, ghosts and whiskey.
I smiled into the glass, a humorless twitch.
I’m the richest man in western North Carolina, not that anyone would guess.
The Boone land stretches from one ridge to the next—what’s left of it, anyway.
The town down below, the hospitals, the subdivisions…
all of it was once ours. Sold off piece by piece by folks who didn’t understand what they were giving away.
But not this mountain.
Never this mountain.
It’s in my blood. My last tether to the people who mattered.
I let my eyes wander over the mantel—old photographs in brass frames, my grandfather in his hunting gear, my mom in a red wool coat holding me on her hip.
We used to spend Christmases here.
Whole family packed into this cabin, lights strung on every beam, the smell of cinnamon and woodsmoke thick in the air. Snowmen out front. Sleds leaning against the porch. The sound of carols mixed with the crackle of the fire.
Best memories I ever had.
Before the wreck.
Before the funerals.
Before the mountain got quiet.
Now it’s just me and the ghosts.
And I keep everything the way it was, because if I change it, maybe they disappear for good.
I took another slow drink, stared into the flames until they blurred. The wood popped, sending up a spray of sparks.
For a heartbeat, I thought I heard laughter again—light, musical, not from memory but from upstairs. Becca.
I closed my eyes.
Yeah. Sleep I stayed there long after the whiskey was gone, just watching the fire chew through the last of the wood. The cabin was quiet except for the crackle and the hum of the wind pressing against the windows.
She’d called me Bear, and that was fine by me.
Better she never knew the name on the paperwork. One Google search and she’d see a line of old accounts and family trusts longer than the valley itself. I’d learned early that money made people look at you different—made them want things that had nothing to do with you.
Even the club didn’t know. They thought I just kept this place running for a living. The real Boone, the one with the title and the bank stock, was supposed to be off somewhere in Europe or down in Atlanta playing executive.
That’s the way I liked it.
The fire hissed; a knot of pine cracked open, throwing sparks. For a moment, it felt like the ghosts in the pictures on the mantel were all watching me, waiting for me to say something I didn’t have the words for.
A soft sound behind me—the faint creak of the top step. I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.
She came into view a second later, hair tumbling, hoodie hanging loose over her shoulders. Bare legs. She stopped when she saw me, eyes catching the firelight.
Her gaze went wide.
Caught staring.
I arched a brow. “Better head back upstairs, sugar.”
She smiled a little. “You forgot the plum part.”
That made me look at her properly. The fire threw shadows across her face, all soft edges and stubborn eyes.
I sighed. “You wearing shorts and a hoodie? You cold or confused?”
“Maybe both,” she said. “You offering to keep me warm?”
I shook my head. “You flirting with me now, Becca? Thought I wasn’t your type.”
She walked over, slow but sure, and before I could stop her she took the glass from my hand. Tilted it back, emptied the last swallow without flinching. When she set it down, she met my eyes.
“Maybe tonight you are.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The fire popped. The mountain wind howled once through the chimney, and the smell of smoke and cold air filled the space between us.
Every instinct I had told me to keep it easy, keep it distant.
But right then, with her standing there in my grandfather’s cabin, looking like trouble wrapped in Christmas, distance was the one thing I couldn’t find.
The silence stretched thin enough to hum.
I could hear the clock ticking, the fire shifting, my own pulse in my ears. She was standing close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off her, smell the faint sweetness of her shampoo.
I should’ve moved. Said something.
Instead, I sat there like a fool, caught between wanting her gone and wanting her closer.
When she tilted her head, lips parting like she was about to say something, I thought—just for a second—she was thinking the same thing I was. My hand twitched on the arm of the chair, ready to reach out—
And she walked right past me.
Into the kitchen. Opened the cabinet.
Poured herself a glass of water like we hadn’t just been standing on the edge of something dangerous.
“Came down for this,” she said lightly, holding up the glass. “Thanks for the whiskey, though.”
She turned and headed for the stairs, hips swinging with a confidence that made my chest tighten and my thoughts short out. The firelight caught her as she reached the landing, casting her in gold for half a heartbeat before she disappeared down the hall.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
“Damn,” I muttered to the empty room.
Didn’t see that coming.
The old arm chair hadn’t done my back any favors.
Neither had the whiskey. Half a bottle gone and I still hadn’t taken the edge off.
I woke before dawn, throat dry, head heavy, the cabin colder than it had any right to be.
Fire from last night had burned low, so I stoked the woodstove in the kitchen—the practical one—and then went outside to split a stack of logs. The air bit sharp enough to sober me.
By the time the sun finally crawled over the ridge, the storm had broken. The sky was clear, blue as steel, but the roads were another story—nothing but drifts and glare ice. No way we were getting down today.
Better safe than sorry.
Which meant a long day snowed in with Becca.
I was on my third armload of wood when the stairs creaked.
She appeared in the doorway, hair messy, face still soft with sleep.
“You sure the roads are really closed,” she said, voice teasing, “or do you just like my company?”
I muttered something that might have been a word and went back to stacking logs. “Gotta check the trucks.”
“The ones buried under three feet of snow?”
“Those.”
She laughed. “Good luck with that.”
I figured that would be the end of it. I threw on a coat and headed out to the yard, breath fogging, boots crunching through the crust. The line of trucks sat like sleeping beasts under their white blankets.
I grabbed a shovel, started knocking the snow off the first hood, and tried not to think about how the morning light had caught her smile.
Half an hour later I heard the door creak again.
She came trudging out wearing the same ridiculous snowsuit I’d stuffed her into the night before—zipped to her chin, hood up, mittens twice too big. The sight made me grin before I could stop it.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Helping,” she said matter-of-fact, and reached into one of the cabs.
She came out with a broom and an ice scraper, brushed off the windshield, slid into the driver’s seat, and turned the key like she’d done it a thousand times.
The engine coughed, then caught. She flipped the defrost, adjusted the wipers, and climbed back out, already moving on to the next truck.
I stood there, shovel in hand, feeling like an idiot.
A Charlotte city girl with a manicure shouldn’t know her way around a frozen ignition.
But there she was—working beside me, breath fogging the same as mine, cheeks red from the cold.
No complaints. No drama. Just quiet focus.
We worked in silence for a while, the only sound the scrape of brushes and the occasional slam of a door. Snowflakes drifted down again, thin and lazy, settling in her hair.
And damned if I didn’t feel something shift.
I’d told myself a woman like her would never fit this life—too polished, too soft for the mountain.
But as I watched her knock the ice off the wipers with the handle of the broom and grin like she’d won a fight, I realized I might’ve misjudged her.
Still, I reminded myself, this land is my blood. I’m not leaving it for anyone.
And Becca?
She’s not the kind who stays.
I went back to work, shovel biting into the snow, hoping the noise would drown out the thought that maybe—just maybe—I didn’t want her to leave.
By the time the last truck was cleared, my hands were numb and the sun had burned a hole through the morning haze. She brushed her gloves together, grinning like a kid who’d just finished building the best snow fort on the mountain.
“Guess I passed the test,” she said.
“You did all right,” I told her, though inside I was still a little stunned at how capable she’d been.
I stacked the last broom and nodded toward the cabin. “Get warm. I’m taking you to lunch.”
Her brows lifted. “Lunch? What, another private, invitation-only kind of place?”
“Something like that.”
“Let me guess—more plaid and no Christmas music?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
She laughed, that clear, easy sound that seemed to make the cold back off a little. Then she disappeared inside to bundle up.
A few minutes later we were back outside, helmets in hand. The Arctic Cat waited by the porch, the snow beneath it packed and glittering.
I swung a leg over the seat and looked back. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said, snapping her helmet strap and climbing on behind me.
The engine came to life with a growl, deep and steady. She settled close, arms circling my waist, her breath quick against my neck as I eased the throttle. The vibration of the machine ran up through both of us, the rhythm matching the pulse of the mountain itself.
We cut through the drifts, the world narrowing to snow and wind and the steady hum beneath us. Trees flashed past, their branches glittering in the pale sun. She held tighter when we hit the open stretch, and I caught the faint sound of her laughter through the helmet’s muffling.
The road to the Forge wound through the woods, familiar turns I could ride blindfolded. But today everything looked different—brighter, sharper. The cold bit my face, the air smelled like pine and woodsmoke, and somewhere behind me Becca was seeing it all for the first time.
Halfway down the trail she leaned in closer, her voice just loud enough for me to hear over the engine. “You do this a lot?”
“Every chance I get,” I called back.
The ride down was quick and quiet. The storm had finally loosened its grip; sunlight spilled over the ridge, the kind that makes the whole mountain look polished. For the first time in days, it felt like the world might be breathing again.
When we rolled into the Forge’s yard, the sound hit first—music, voices, the clatter of bottles. Same place, new day. And her, sitting behind me, laughing as she pulled off her helmet, shaking out her hair like she’d been born to live up here.
I cut the engine. Every head on the porch turned.
She was dressed different today—those dark leggings and that soft, cream-colored sweater that looked like something from a catalog.
It caught the light, made her look out of place and somehow perfect all at once.
The kind of thing that made a man’s hands itch, not for the fabric, but for the warmth underneath it.
And judging by the way the men on the porch went still, I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
I climbed off the sled, jaw tight, voice flat. “Inside, sugar plum. Lunch’s on the house.”
She smiled up at me, bright and easy, and I caught myself returning it before I could stop.
The chatter around us picked back up, but I felt the shift. She wasn’t invisible anymore. Every man in the room saw what I’d been fighting to ignore since the first night she’d walked through my door.
I told myself it didn’t matter. She’d be gone when the roads cleared. I’d go back to my quiet and my ghosts.
But as she pushed open the clubhouse door, sunlight catching on her hair, one thought hit hard and clear:
Yeah. Good luck with that, Boone.