Chapter 2
Chapter Two
OWEN
She eats like someone who forgot food existed.
Three bowls of beef stew. Four slices of bread with butter so thick it leaves prints on her fingers. A glass of water she drains twice without coming up for air. The whole time, her hands tremble around the spoon.
Carmen Reyes is sitting at my kitchen table in a wrinkled scrub top she clearly forgot to change out of, dark hair falling out of a knot at the back of her neck, and she's beautiful in a way that makes my chest tight.
Soft. Full curves under that thin cotton.
Exhausted eyes with lashes so long they brush her cheekbones when she blinks.
Brown skin that catches the late light coming through the window over the sink.
She smells like road coffee. Underneath that, something warm. Vanilla, maybe.
My jaw aches from how hard I'm clenching it, because the woman sitting in my kitchen drove fourteen hours alone across three states to take a job that doesn't exist because somebody in my family decided my love life was a community project.
Mabel swears it wasn't her. My cousin Colt won't answer my texts. Rhett sent back a single emoji. A bear. Helpful.
"You want more bread?"
Carmen looks up from the bowl. Her eyes are bloodshot. "You don't have to keep feeding me."
"You haven't eaten since Amarillo." Pulling the bread board toward her, I cut another slice. "That's not a suggestion."
Something flickers across her face. Not offense. Closer to confusion, like she can't figure out why a stranger is cutting her bread with this much intention. She takes the slice.
"Thank you." Quiet. Genuine.
"Don't thank me yet. We gotta figure out what happens next."
Her spoon stops. "I can leave in the morning. Find a motel in Durango."
"That's ninety minutes back down the mountain, and you can barely keep your eyes open." The chair creaks when I lean back. "Cabin six is empty. Clean sheets, hot water, woodstove. You stay tonight, get some sleep, we talk logistics in the morning."
"You don't know me."
"You don't know me either, and you're sitting in my kitchen eating my stew."
That almost gets a smile. Almost. The corner of her mouth lifts a fraction before exhaustion pulls it back down.
While she finishes, I clear the counter.
Wash the pot. Try not to think about how long it's been since someone sat at this table.
My parents used to host Sunday dinners here, back when the cabins were full every summer and the McCall name meant something in this valley beyond "the family that might sell. "
The developer's name is Greg Weston. Calls once a week from his Denver office with a number that keeps climbing.
Last offer was enough to pay off the property taxes I'm three months behind on.
Enough to fix the roof on cabin two that leaks every time the wind comes from the south.
Enough to stop lying awake at night doing math that never adds up.
"The ad." Carmen's voice pulls me back. She's staring at the table, tracing a knot in the wood with her fingertip. "It talked about the retreat. The cabins. How remote it was. It said the owner needed someone who could handle solitude and hard work."
My jaw tightens again. Whoever wrote that profile knew exactly what they were doing. Made it sound professional enough that a smart woman would apply. Made it sound like me without making it sound like a dating ad.
"Can I see it?"
She pulls out her phone, scrolls, turns it toward me.
The listing has my photo. Not a selfie. A candid someone took at last year's town barbecue, me leaning against the porch rail with my sleeves rolled up. Underneath, a bio that reads so close to my own voice it makes my skin crawl.
Owen McCall, 36. Runs a family cabin retreat in the mountains of Colorado. Looking for a partner who values quiet, hard work, and real connection. The right woman won't mind the solitude. She'll crave it.
Partner. Not employee.
"That's not what you thought it was."
"Obviously." Her cheeks flush. Dark rose against brown skin. "If I'd known it was a dating site, I wouldn't have..." She stops. Pushes the phone face-down on the table. "It doesn't matter. I'll be out of your hair tomorrow."
But she won't look at me when she says it. Her fingers are still shaking. The circles under her eyes are so deep they look bruised.
"What'd you do in Houston?" The question comes out before I think about it.
"ER nurse. Twelve years."
Christ. "And you quit."
"Left." The distinction matters to her. "Compassion fatigue is the clinical term. Means you've spent so long absorbing everyone else's worst days that your body starts shutting down the part of you that can feel it."
She says it flat. Practiced. Probably the same explanation she gave her supervisor, her family, whoever asked.
"Is that what happened?"
Brown eyes lift to mine. For a second, her face is completely open, and what I see there makes me want to put my fist through the table. She's hollowed out. Running on nothing.
"Something like that."
The silence stretches. Wind pushes against the windows. Down by the creek, an owl calls twice.
"One month."
Her brow furrows. "What?"
"The ad said one month. Room and board, help with the property." Standing, I move to the sink so I've got something to do with my hands besides grip the edge of the table. "The cabin's paid for. You drove fourteen hours. And I need help with this place more than my pride wants to admit."
"You're offering me the fake job."
"I'm offering you a real one. The cabins need work before winter. Linens washed, wood chopped, repairs I've been putting off. You do that, you get cabin six, meals, solitude. No strings."
"And the mail-order bride part?"
"We pretend that never happened."
She studies me. Not with suspicion exactly. More like she's running triage, assessing the situation the way a nurse would assess a patient. What's the damage. What's the risk. What's the treatment plan.
"One month. I'm not..." She straightens in the chair. The scrub top shifts across her chest. "I'm not here for whatever your family thinks you need. This is work. That's it."
"I don't need my family's help finding a woman." Probably should've said that with more conviction. Probably shouldn't be noticing the curve of her neck where it meets her shoulder.
"Then we understand each other." She stands. Sways. Catches the edge of the table.
Two steps and my hand is on her elbow. Warm skin under my palm. She sucks in a breath, and that close I catch her scent again. Vanilla. Clean underneath, like soap and something that's just her.
"I'm fine."
"You're dead on your feet." My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. "Let me walk you to the cabin."
"I can find it."
"Carmen."
Her name does something when I say it. Rolls off my tongue heavier than it should. She must hear it too because her lips part and her eyes drop to my mouth for half a second before snapping back up.
"Fine."
Cabin six is at the end of the row, closest to the creek. Clean. Quiet. Small porch with a rocking chair. Whoever posted that ad got one thing right. I unlock the door, turn on the lamp, check the woodstove.
"There's firewood stacked by the south wall. Extra blankets in the closet." Stepping back toward the door, I put distance between us because the cabin is small and she smells too good for a woman who just drove fourteen hours. "Kitchen's open at seven. Coffee's always on."
"Owen."
The sound of my name in her mouth stops me cold. Low, tired, a little raspy.
"Thank you. For the soup."
"Get some sleep."
The walk back to the main house takes forty seconds. I spend every one of them thinking about the flush on her neck when our eyes met. About the way her fingers curled around that bread like it was the first kind thing anyone had given her in weeks.
My phone lights up on the kitchen counter.
Mabel:
Heard you've got a guest. Pretty thing drove up in a Honda. Hank saw her at the gas station in town.
Me:
Mabel. Did you post my profile on Mountain Match.
Mabel:
I would never.
How's she settling in?
Me:
Mabel.
Mabel:
Goodnight sweetheart. Don't forget to check the pilot light on cabin 6. It sticks.
Tossing the phone on the counter, I stand at the sink looking out toward the row of cabins. One window glows at the far end. Cabin six.
Carmen Reyes came here to disappear into quiet work. That's what I'm gonna give her. One month of clean mountain air, honest labor, no complications.
The pilot light sticks on cabin six.
Grabbing my jacket, I head back out into the cold. Because that's who I am. The man who makes sure the heat works, the doors lock, the guests are comfortable. The man everyone depends on. The man who keeps showing up.
Halfway down the path, I catch vanilla on the wind. Faint. Coming from her direction.
One month. No complications.
My hands are already reaching for her door before I remind myself to knock.