3. Hunter
Hunter
Several weeks pass when Luke shows up at my house with fast food, a six-pack, and bad news.
I’m fifteen miles from town, surrounded by a forest. The nearest neighbor is two miles down a dirt road. Just me, the trees, and the kind of quiet that most people can’t handle for more than an hour.
I hear his truck grinding up the gravel drive before I see it, that diesel rattle I know well. The man’s a damn millionaire, but you’d never guess it from his rattletrap of a truck. We’ve worked on it together more times than I can count.
Dust plumes behind him as he parks next to my F-250, the sun dropping behind the ridge, turning the whole valley shades of amber and purple.
I answer the door in work jeans and a thermal, barefoot on stone floors I installed myself three years ago. The house smells like the cedar trees I’ve been sanding one-handed for the past week, just to keep from going stir-crazy. I’m not built for sitting still.
“You’re healing good.” He eyes my arm as I swing the door open wide.
“Kapoor says I’m ahead of schedule.”
Which is good, but I’ve lost muscle mass from all these weeks off the job. My shirts fit looser across the shoulders, and it pisses me off. I’m used to hauling logs and swinging axes ten hours a day. Used to my body doing exactly what I tell it to. One-armed push-ups only get you so far.
“Great news.”
We head to the back porch of my house, an old stone home built in the 1930s.
Over the years, I’ve renovated the inside and changed out the roof, but the multi-colored stone exterior is original.
It sits on a few acres of land at the edge of the town’s limits on the way to the lumber mill.
Being between town and my place of employment was ideal when I moved back here after my wife died.
Feeling a little lost, Luke gave me a job and a purpose. And at the age of twenty-four, I needed both. It’s been ten years, and he’s one of my closest friends. Solid as they come. He raised his nephews after his brother died, so he knows about deep grief as a twenty-something.
“Thanks for the food.” I plunk a french fry into some spicy ketchup, the air humid and still.
“If I know you, there’s a pot of chili that you’ve been eating on for two days sitting inside your fridge.”
I give a slow head nod, suppressing a smile.
“How’s the mill?”
Luke takes a long pull of his beer. “We need you back, but your ass is staying home until I’m confident you’re good.” He sets the brown bottle onto the wood table.
“I’m probably being released to light duty on Monday.” I don’t do well sitting around.
“You step one foot onto mill property, and I will fire your ass so fast your head will spin.”
“I’m on the Board.”
“Doesn’t matter. ” He leans back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head like he lives here. “You aren’t doing anything to compromise that arm.”
“Your nephews will side with me, asshole.”
“Their girlfriends will side with me.” We both laugh, knowing that’s a fact.
Luke feels bad about my arm even though we both know chainsaw slips are a risk of the job.
But it happened at his company on his property.
He dropped way too much money into my bank account to cover medical costs plus my salary for a year without me even asking, which is how he operates.
He takes care of his people first. That’s why people come work at Wilder Industries and rarely leave.
“We’re bringing on a safety consultant. New OSHA regulations mean we need someone dedicated to protocols, training, the whole nine yards.”
“Makes sense after my screw-up.” It doesn’t really, but what else can I say?
“It wasn’t a screw-up, asshole. You hit a nail nobody could’ve seen.
It would have been me if I’d have been working on that log.
But yeah, the insurance company’s insisting.
I’m betting it’s mostly because of McEntyre’s leg.
” Luke pauses, and I remember how our new hire didn’t follow safety protocols and almost ended up in a prosthetic.
“Guy’s name is Derek Chen. Starts in a few weeks. ”
I freeze mid-sip.
Derek Chen. Couldn’t be Claire’s ex-boyfriend. Right? But this is way too coincidental for my liking.
And how does my horny ass know about Derek-fucking-Chen?
I did what any rational man who’s obsessed with a woman would do.
I deep-dived her social media at two in the morning like a stalker.
Found exactly three photos of them together from two years ago, all deleted except for the ones other people tagged her in.
Derek Chen, some corporate safety consultant out of Austin.
Good-looking in that gym-rat, protein-shake way.
The kind of guy who probably never got sawdust in his hair or chainsaw kickback in his arm.
The kind of guy who hurt her bad enough that Esme and Piper both warned me off unless I was serious. Something ugly and possessive twists in my chest at the thought of Derek Chen anywhere near her.
“You know him?” Luke asks, too casual.
“Know of him.”
“He came highly recommended. Experience with timber operations, OSHA certified, the whole package.” Luke watches me over his beer. “This gonna be a problem?”
“Why would it be a problem?”
“Because you’ve been sniffing around his ex-girlfriend, and I’m not blind.”
I set my beer down harder than necessary. “I’m not sniffing. I’m pursuing. And why would Derek Chen have anything to do with that?”
“You tell me.”
Luke grins. “How’s that going, by the way?”
“She’s still running.”
“Smart woman.”
“She texted me yesterday about the wedding rehearsal schedule.”
“That’s not running. That’s coordinating.”
“She signed it ‘Dr. Elliott.’”
Luke laughs, his shoulders shaking as his head kicks back. “Yeah, you’re screwed.”
“How’s it going with the twins’ mom?”
“Fuck you.”
I tip my bottle toward him, smiling as the cool liquid slides down my throat. Luke and Emily have been dancing around their attraction for a while now, but I don’t push, just like he doesn’t do with me.
I lean back against the counter, running my thumb over the scar on my right palm. Old habit. Old memory. But when I close my eyes now, I don’t see Jenna’s funeral. I see Claire in that ER bay, looking at me like I’m dangerous. Like she wants me anyway.
Derek Chen can take his corporate safety protocols and shove them up his ass. Claire’s not his anymore.
She’s just not mine yet either.
“Hunter.” Luke’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “I’m serious. Is this going to be a problem? Because I can’t have my best foreman and my safety consultant at each other’s throats.”
“It won’t be a problem.” I meet his eyes. “I’m a professional.”
“You’re full of shit, but I’ll take it.” He raises his beer. “To professionalism.”
“To professionalism.”
We drink, and I make a mental note to text Claire tonight.
Just to coordinate wedding stuff, obviously.
And maybe to remind her that I’m still thinking about her.
Still waiting for her to stop running.
Still planning exactly what I’ll do when she finally does.
I step onto the porch, beer in hand, and look out at nothing but trees and stars. No streetlights. No traffic sounds. Just wilderness and silence and the kind of solitude that used to feel like peace. Now it just feels like waiting.