Big & Burly (Cherry Mountain Lumberjacks #3)

Chapter 1

brEWER

The morning is swallowed in gray, dark clouds hanging low overhead as I chop wood outside my cabin. I work fast, slicing cleanly through the logs, trying to pour my frustration into every swing. But it’s impossible to concentrate.

Fuck.

I stop mid-swing and toss my axe to the ground with a grunt of annoyance, wiping the sweat from my brow.

I’m not doing it, I think bitterly.

There’s no damn way I’m going to Creekside Diner.

It’s the same mantra I repeat every morning, but it never works. I always break—my restraint snapping as easily as a splintered log.

With one last look at the unchopped wood still waiting in a pile, I stomp inside my cabin and grab the keys to my truck, jaw clenched tight.

Then I head back outside and open the driver’s side door, climbing into my seat.

I’m just about to slam the door closed when a voice calls my name from the trees.

“Brewer!”

I look up to see my brother Clay emerging from the fog, axe slung over his back. He stops at my truck, his hand reaching through the open door to slap my shoulder.

“Hey, buddy,” he says.

“Hey.”

Clay looks different these days. Ever since he met his new girlfriend last month, there’s a glow in his eyes that wasn’t there before, and I’m still struggling to get used to it.

I never imagined Clay would find someone.

He was always allergic to love…until a girl named Savannah hit him with her car and somehow stole his heart in the process.

“Where you headed?” he asks.

I keep my eyes on the dash. “The diner.”

“Again?” He cocks his head, watching me. “Seems like you go there every morning.”

“They do a good breakfast.”

Hell, it’s not a lie. The Creekside Special is the best breakfast in town—bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, pancakes, and black coffee. All the extra food is catching up with me, and there’s a stubborn layer of padding over my muscles that definitely wasn’t there before.

“You know,” Clay says after a beat of silence, “if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you had your eye on someone at the diner.”

I keep my expression neutral, but my pulse spikes. “Good thing you know me better, then.”

I’m not surprised by his suspicions. It’s out of character for a grumpy recluse like me to be spending every morning in town, instead of roaming the forest. Usually, I stay away from people—avoiding their double-takes and raised eyebrows.

A man my size draws attention for all the wrong reasons, and I can’t go anywhere without feeling like a damn circus attraction.

“So you’re not going to the diner to see anyone?” Clay asks, those bright blue eyes scanning me like he can see exactly what I’m thinking. It’s irritating as hell.

“No,” I snap a little too viciously. “I just like the food.”

“Hm. Whatever you say.”

I scowl at him, resisting the urge to slap that knowing smirk off his face. It doesn’t matter that we’re both in our forties—older brothers can be annoying as hell at any age.

“Anyway,” Clay says, pulling out his phone, “I came over to get your advice on something.” He taps the screen a few times and hands it to me. “What d’you think of these?”

The phone is too bright in the early-morning gloom, and I squint against it, scrolling through an endless stream of engagement rings—sparkly and elegant with eye-watering price tags.

“They’re rings,” I say.

Clay rolls his eyes. “No shit. Which one do you like best?”

“Wrong person to ask.”

Clay grunts, pointing to a gold band with a diamond on it, just like every other gold band with a diamond on the page. “I’m thinking this one.”

“They all look the same to me, buddy.”

“Yeah, me too.” He runs a hand over his beard, scowling at his phone. “That’s why I’m struggling. I want to get something special for Savannah.”

My brother has been determined to put a ring on her finger ever since they met. It’s all he talks about. I’m happy for him, but the personality change is still giving me whiplash.

“She’ll love whatever you pick,” I say.

“I hope so.” He swallows hard, eyes fixed on his screen. “Fuck, I hope she says yes.”

“She will.”

They’re crazy about each other. There’s no way Savannah would ever refuse him.

“Been dropping lots of hints,” Clay says.

“I think she knows it’s coming.” He glances back toward the tree line—toward his own cabin, a mile away—and his expression shifts.

Suddenly, he steps back from my truck, like an invisible rope is pulling him home.

I swear he can’t bear to be away from Savannah for more than five minutes.

“I’ll let you get to the diner,” he says distractedly. “Thanks for looking at the rings.”

“I wasn’t much help.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugs me off. “Like you said, wrong person to ask. Guess we’re not exactly big romantics.”

He raises a hand in parting and turns on his heel, striding impatiently into the trees.

Once he’s gone, I close the truck door and start the engine, heading up the dirt track until I hit asphalt.

The road down Cherry Mountain snakes between towering pines and firs, their branches choked in silver haze.

Drizzle spits against my windscreen as I near the bottom, my mind running over what Clay just said.

We’re not exactly big romantics.

It sure used to be true for Clay. Until he met Savannah, my brother never believed in romance and thought marriage was a sham.

He always assumed I felt the same, and I never corrected him.

But truth is, I always believed she was out there.

My dream woman. I could feel it lodged deep in my chest—a stubborn, irrational certainty that fate would bring her to me one day.

So I waited.

And waited…

And waited.

I started to lose hope after a while. Forty-two years of age, and I’d never even been tempted.

Never even slept with a woman. Hell, who’d want a man like me?

I’m the size of a goddamn grizzly, with a face to match.

People flinch when they see me. Step back when I enter a room.

Cross the street without thinking about it.

After years of shit like that, you stop expecting anything different.

You try to make peace with it: the solitude, the loneliness, the life built for one.

But everything changed when I walked into Creekside Diner last month.

Everything changed when I saw her.

My chest tightens as I enter the town, crossing the bridge over Sugar Creek.

The diner sits right on the water, still half frozen from last night’s frost. It’s a squat clapboard building, painted sage and set apart from the other stores on Main Street—the creek on one side, a thicket of pines on the other.

I park out front and get out of my truck, heart thudding. The bell jingles as I push through the door to the diner and duck into the warmth, the familiar smell of bacon and pancakes hanging in the air.

Then I see her.

Josie.

She’s pouring coffee behind the counter, her pink lips curling into a smile as she talks to a waiting customer.

Her long red hair is pulled into a high ponytail, a few loose strands softening her freckled face.

She’s wearing jeans, a dark green sweater, and her usual black apron with Creekside Diner emblazoned across the front—her thick curves filling out every inch of fabric.

Fuck. She gets more beautiful every day.

Every time I see Josie, it feels just like the first time—the same shudder moving through my body, the same helpless lurch in my chest. I’ve been obsessed since the moment I set eyes on her last month.

Hell, I wasn’t even planning to visit the diner that day.

I pulled in on a whim after delivering some wood to Stirling’s Lumber and Hardware—a split-second decision that turned my world upside down.

Swallowing hard, I head for my usual booth, feeling Josie’s eyes on me.

As I pass the counter, an old man sitting on the end stool glances up from his coffee and does a double take—eyes traveling up, and up, and up to my face.

I see him draw back almost instinctively as I pass, wilting like a dead plant.

I don’t react. Never do. You can’t argue with instinct, and when people see me, their instinct is fear.

I stopped expecting anything different a long time ago.

When I reach the booth, I suck in a breath and squeeze onto the dark red vinyl seat.

It’s way too cramped for a giant like me: the table digs into my stomach, my legs bending awkwardly against the seat opposite.

I’d be more comfortable at one of the regular tables near the back, but from here I get a clear view of the counter, and that’s where Josie spends most of her time.

I always order the same thing, but I look at the menu anyway, keeping my gaze down as Josie approaches. Her shoes click-clack against the black-and-white linoleum, then she stops beside my booth, a blur in my peripheral vision. Even when I’m sitting down, she’s still smaller than me.

Fuck, she’s so perfect.

All five-foot-nothing of her.

“Good morning!” she says brightly in that honey-sweet voice. “Do you want the usual?”

It drives me crazy when she’s this close. The diner feels like it’s pressing in on all sides, trapping me and Josie in the middle

“Yeah. Thanks.”

My voice is a hoarse grunt, but it’s all I can manage, and my gaze slides from the menu to the speckled, laminate table as I try to remember how to breathe. I still don’t meet Josie’s eye. Hell, I never do. I know that if I let myself stare, I won’t be able to stop.

“Perfect,” she says. “So that’s one Creekside Special with eggs over easy, an extra hash brown, and a strong black coffee. Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“Coming right up!”

“Thanks,” I mutter.

I catch her scent as she drifts back toward the counter—like pancakes and syrup—and I drag an agitated hand over my face.

Fuck, why do I have to torture myself like this?

Everything in me screams that this girl should be mine. I felt it the second I laid eyes on her—the second she walked up to my booth and asked for my order that first morning at the diner.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because I know damn well that Josie would never want a man like me.

She’s too young. Too beautiful. I’m twenty years older than her, a lumbering beast of a man: inked, bearded, and intimidating.

Hell, I was six-feet tall by the time I was twelve, towering over the other kids.

Big Brewer. Now I’m pushing seven feet, and life has taken its toll since my youth.

The military left scars, mental and physical, and years of labor in the forest have made me bigger and brawnier than ever, molding me into a giant of a man.

A monster of a man.

The thought curdles in my stomach like sour milk. It’s torture, wanting Josie this badly and knowing she’ll never be mine. But I can’t stop myself coming to this damn diner every morning just to be near her. The sound of her voice, a snatched glance when she’s not looking—it’s all I’ve got.

There’s nothing else I can do.

Nothing but sit, watch, and ache for her.