Chapter 3
"Need you to make a supply run."
Iron looked up from the engine he was rebuilding to find Timber standing in the workshop doorway, sawdust still clinging to his jeans from the lumber operation. "What kind of supplies?"
"Construction stuff. Compound's got a dozen things that need fixing, and I'm tired of driving an hour to the big box store for materials they don't have anyway.
" Timber pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and tossed it onto Iron's workbench.
"Mullins Hardware over in Ridgeway. Family place, been there for generations. Fair prices, no questions."
Iron wiped his hands on a shop rag and unfolded the list. Lumber, hardware, plumbing fittings, electrical components. Standard compound maintenance supplies—the kind of thing that accumulated when you had forty people living on a property that law enforcement pretended didn't exist.
"Why me?"
Timber's mouth twitched. "Because you're the only brother who won't spend three hours flirting with whoever's behind the counter instead of getting what we need. Hacksaw wants this done today."
Fair point. Iron wasn't much for conversation on a good day, and errands that required small talk tended to last longer when other brothers handled them.
"I'll go now."
"Figured you would." Timber was already heading back toward the lumber operation. "Store's on Main Street. Can't miss it—only hardware place in town."
Iron pocketed the list, grabbed his cut from the hook by the door, and headed for his bike.
The ride to Ridgeway took forty minutes through mountain roads that wound past abandoned coal operations and hollers where families had lived for generations.
Iron let the rhythm of the curves settle into his bones, the familiar weight of solitude comfortable after a morning spent with brothers talking over each other in the workshop.
Ridgeway was a small town—one main street, a handful of side roads, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and strangers stood out like oil on water.
Iron's bike drew looks as he rolled down Main Street, the Thunder Ridge patch on his back making its own introduction.
Most people turned away quickly. A few nodded with the wary respect that meant they knew the club's reputation and wanted no part of testing it.
Mullins Hardware sat in the middle of the block, a two-story building with faded paint and windows full of tool displays that looked like they'd been there since his grandfather's generation.
The sign was hand-painted, the parking lot was gravel, and the whole place had the feeling of something that had survived by being too stubborn to die.
Iron liked it immediately.
He parked his bike and pushed through the front door, a bell announcing his arrival with a cheerful chime that seemed wrong for a building this weathered.
The interior was dim and cluttered in the way of old stores—aisles packed tight with inventory, ceiling fans turning slowly overhead, the smell of sawdust and machine oil thick in the air.
And behind the counter, a woman looked up from a catalog with eyes that assessed him in one quick sweep and didn't flinch.
Iron stopped walking.
She was tall—five-eight at least—with auburn hair braided back from a face that had seen hard work and hadn't apologized for it. Strong build, calloused hands resting on the counter, the kind of posture that said she'd spent her whole life proving she belonged in spaces men thought were theirs.
Something shifted in Iron's chest. Something that hadn't moved in years.
"Help you find something?" Her voice was direct, no-nonsense, with an edge that suggested she didn't have patience for browsers who weren't going to buy.
Iron pulled the list from his pocket and crossed to the counter, more aware of his own size than he usually was. "Need supplies. Club's got repairs."
She took the list from his hand—her fingers brushed his, brief and electric—and scanned it with the quick efficiency of someone who knew every item in her inventory.
"Lumber's in the yard out back. I can pull most of the hardware now, but these electrical components—" she tapped the paper "—you want the cheap stuff or the stuff that'll actually last? "
"What would you recommend?"
She looked up at him then, really looked, and Iron felt the weight of her attention like a physical thing. "Depends on what you're wiring. If it's permanent installation, you want commercial grade. Costs more upfront, but you won't be replacing it in two years."
"Commercial grade."
"Smart choice." She moved out from behind the counter, and Iron tracked her movement without meaning to—the way she walked, confident and unhurried, like the store belonged to her and she belonged to it. "Follow me."
He followed.
The aisles were narrow enough that he had to turn sideways in places, and more than once his shoulder brushed shelving units packed with inventory. She navigated them without thinking, pulling items from shelves and loading them into a cart that appeared from somewhere without him seeing where.
"You're Thunder Ridge." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"Heard of you." She pulled a box of wire connectors and checked the label before adding it to the cart. "My dad used to say you were the only reason some of the mountain families could sleep at night."
"Your dad knew us?"
"He knew everyone." Something flickered across her face—there and gone before Iron could read it. "This was his store. His father's before that."
Was. Past tense. Iron filed that away without commenting.
She led him through the rest of the list with an efficiency that impressed him, recommending alternatives when his choices were wrong, explaining why without making him feel stupid for asking.
She knew her stock the way he knew heavy equipment—intimately, instinctively, with the kind of mastery that only came from years of hands-on work.
He respected that. Respected her, the competence that didn't need validation or praise.
"Lumber's this way." She pushed through a door at the back of the store, and Iron followed her into a yard stacked with wood in every dimension and grade. "How much two-by-four you need?"
"Thirty lengths. Ten feet each."
She nodded and headed for the appropriate stack, and that's when Iron saw it: plywood nailed over what had been a window into the back office.
Fresh wood, new nails, the kind of patch job that said something had gone through that window recently and someone hadn't had time—or money—to fix it properly.
He looked at her again. Really looked.
The tension in her shoulders. The way her eyes swept the yard like she was checking for threats. The calluses on her hands that went beyond tool use into something more defensive, more recent.
Someone had been giving this woman trouble.
Iron felt something stir in his chest that he didn't have a name for—something protective, territorial, completely out of proportion for a woman he'd met ten minutes ago.
"Problem?" She was watching him watch the window, her chin lifted in a way that dared him to comment.
"Nice patch job."
"I've had practice." She turned back to the lumber and started pulling lengths with the ease of long familiarity. "You going to stand there, or you going to help load?"
Iron moved to help without another word. They worked in silence, stacking lumber onto a flatbed cart, and he was aware of her in a way that didn't make sense—the way she moved, the sound of her breathing, the smell of sawdust and something floral that he couldn't identify.
When the cart was loaded, she led him back inside to ring everything up. The total was fair—better than fair, actually, probably less than he would've paid at the big box store—and Iron handed over the club card without haggling.
"Receipt's in the bag." She pushed his purchases across the counter. "You need help loading?"
"I've got it."
"Figured." There was something in her voice that might have been humor, if humor had edges. "You don't seem like a man who asks for help often."
"Don't need it often."
"Must be nice." She held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, and Iron felt that shift in his chest again—that thing that had been dead so long he'd forgotten it could move. "Thanks for the business. Tell your club we appreciate it."
He gathered his supplies and headed for the door, and he was halfway there when something made him turn back.
"You got trouble?"
She went still behind the counter. "What makes you ask?"
"Boarded window. New damage. The way you watch the yard like you're expecting company you don't want." Iron held her gaze, letting her see that he wasn't asking to make conversation. "You got trouble, I know people who handle trouble."
For a moment, something cracked in her expression—exhaustion, maybe, or fear, or the desperate hope of someone who'd been fighting alone too long. Then she sealed it up again, locked it behind that competent exterior.
"I appreciate the offer." Her voice was steady, but he could hear the effort it took. "But I handle my own problems."
Iron nodded. He understood that kind of pride—had lived it himself for years before the club showed him that sometimes problems were too big for one person to carry.
"Offer stands." He pushed through the door, the bell chiming overhead, and didn't look back.
But he felt her eyes on him as he loaded his bike, felt the weight of her attention the way he'd felt the weight of the mountains since he was born. And something that had been cold and still in his chest for years was moving now, shifting, warming against its will.
He didn't know her name. Didn't know what kind of trouble she was in or who was causing it.
But he was going to find out.
Iron rode back to the compound with lumber strapped to his bike and questions burning in his head, and when Timber asked how the supply run went, all he said was "Fine."
He didn't mention the woman with the calloused hands and the boarded window. Didn't mention the way she'd looked at him, or the pride that kept her standing when anyone else would've asked for help.
Didn't mention that something inside him had recognized something inside her, and now he couldn't stop thinking about it.
Some things weren't ready for words yet.
But they would be. Soon.