Chapter 2
Chapter two
Katy
Katy
I’m halfway through dyeing my favorite pair of jeans when Jess texts me the SOS.
Jess: Emergency girls’ night. The Rusty Pine. 7 pm. Cocktails. Gossip. No excuses. Wear the red sweater. The one that makes your boobs look illegal.
I laugh out loud in my tiny rental cabin’s kitchen, the sound bouncing off the knotty pine walls. My hands are already purple from the dye, but the idea of getting out sounds like fun.
Me: You’re buying the first round. I’m still recovering from last week’s deadline hell.
Jess: Deal. Be there or I’m coming to drag you out by your curls.
I glance at the clock. Five thirty. Plenty of time to shower off the dye, tame the hair, and pretend I’m not a hermit who’s been living on takeout and freelance panic for the last six months.
Six months since I fled Denver.
Six months since the ex, the layoffs, the “you’re too much” comment that still stings when I’m tired. I came to the mountains for quiet. For space. For a fresh start where no one knows my name or expects me to be perpetually sunny and accommodating.
Turns out quiet is great until it’s too quiet.
I scrub my hands until the purple fades to lavender, shower fast under the weak water pressure, and fix my curls until they’re big and bouncy.
The red sweater is soft and clingy in all the right places.
Black jeans, ankle boots with a little heel, silver hoop earrings.
A swipe of pink gloss. Glancing in the mirror, I’m happy with what I see.
I grab my coat, a puffy down thing that makes me look like a marshmallow, and head out.
The drive into town is short but beautiful in that stark February way.
Snow dusts the pines like powdered sugar.
The sky is already fading to orange and purple, stars pricking through early.
My little SUV’s heater blasts, and I sing along to an old pop playlist loud enough to drown the voice in my head that says I should’ve stayed home with Netflix and a bottle of wine.
The Rusty Pine glows like a beacon when I pull up. String lights twinkle against the log exterior, smoke curls from the chimney, and the parking lot is dotted with trucks and a couple of snowmobiles. Classic mountain Tuesday night.
I spot Jess’s bright blue Jeep right away. She’s already inside, I can see her blonde head bobbing near the bar through the window.
I push through the door, and warmth wraps around me like a hug. Woodsmoke, fried pickles, the low thrum of conversation, and a hockey game on the TV. Jess waves me over like she’s landing a plane.
“Katy Moore, get your gorgeous self over here!”
I laugh and weave through the tables. She’s at a high-top by the window, two cocktails already sweating on coasters. One is bright pink and fizzy—definitely mine.
“You’re a saint,” I say, sliding onto the stool and shrugging off my coat.
“I’m a genius,” she corrects, sliding the pink drink toward me. “Drink. Then tell me everything. How’s the freelance life treating you? Met any hot mountain men yet?”
I roll my eyes, take a sip. It’s sweet, tart, perfect. “Freelance is… freelance. Deadlines, revisions, and clients who think ‘make it pop’ is a design direction. And no, no mountain men. Unless you count the guy at the hardware store who sold me caulk and called me ‘ma’am.’”
Jess snorts. “Tragic. We need to fix that.”
“We?”
She grins, all teeth and mischief. “Yes, we. Because tonight is special.”
I narrow my eyes. “Jess. What did you do?”
“Nothing bad!” She holds up both hands. “Just lied a little bit about our girls’ night.”
My stomach does a slow flip. “Lied how?”
Before she can answer, the door opens again, letting in a gust of cold air. I glance over and freeze.
He’s tall. Like, stupid tall. Six-four, maybe more.
Broad shoulders that fill out a dark green flannel as if it were custom-made for him.
Dark hair still damp from a shower, pushed back carelessly.
Beard trimmed but not fussy. Eyes shadowed under heavy brows, scanning the room like he’s looking for an escape route.
My mouth goes dry.
He’s exactly my type.
The brooding, built-like-a-woodsman, could-split-logs-with-his-bare-hands type I’ve secretly drooled over in romance novels since I was sixteen. Except this one is real, and he’s walking straight toward us.
Jess makes a tiny squeak of excitement.
I whip my head back to her. “Jess. Tell me you didn’t.”
She bites her lip, guilty as sin. “I may have signed you up for Mountain Matches. And maybe swiped right on a few profiles. And maybe one of them swiped back. And maybe I told him to meet us here.”
“Jess!”
“It’s not a setup!” she says too fast. “It’s an opportunity. One drink. If he’s awful, we laugh about it later. If he’s not…” She waggles her eyebrows.
I’m torn between strangling her and thanking her.
Because he’s close now. Close enough that I can see the faint scar above his left eyebrow, the way his jaw flexes like he’s already regretting this. Close enough that my pulse is doing cartwheels.
He stops at the table, hands shoved in his coat pockets, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Hi,” he says, voice low and rough, like gravel under boots. “Katherine?”
I swallow. Smile. Channel every ounce of sunshine I’ve got left after six months of hiding.
“Katy,” I correct, letting my voice go light and warm. “Friends call me Katy.”
He nods once.
Jess leaps up as if her stool were on fire. “Oh, look at the time! I just remembered I have… a thing. You two have fun!”
She’s halfway to the door before I can protest.
Traitor.
Nathan’s still standing there when the door swings shut behind Jess, the sudden cold draft swirling around my ankles like it’s trying to hurry her betrayal along.
The bar feels smaller now—quieter, warmer, the hum of conversation and clinking glasses fading into background noise.
It’s just us. Me on the high-top stool, legs crossed, pink cocktail sweating in my hand.
He towers over me in that dark green flannel, hands shoved deep in his pockets, looking like he’s debating whether bolting would be ruder than staying.
I tilt my head, letting my curls spill over one shoulder. “So. That happened.”
He exhales through his nose, almost a laugh, almost a sigh. “Yeah.”
I pat the empty stool beside me again, more gently this time. “Sit?”
He hesitates one more second, then moves. The stool creaks under his weight as he settles, long legs stretching out, boots scuffing the worn floorboards. Up close, he smells like pine and fresh snow and something faintly spicy. My stomach does a slow, delighted flip.
“I’m Katy,” I say again, even though he already knows. “And you’re Nathan. And apparently our friends are terrible people with zero subtlety.”
“Seems that way.” His mouth quirks, just the tiniest lift at one corner. “My sister’s gonna hear about this.”
I lift my glass. “To meddling friends and sisters?”
He taps his whiskey against mine. The clink feels intimate in the low light. “And not strangling them.”
I take a sip, watching him over the rim. He’s not drinking yet. Just holding the glass, thumb rubbing the side like he’s trying to decide what comes next.
“So,” I say, setting my drink down, “you look like you’d rather be anywhere else.
Which is fair. Blind setups are the worst. But since we’re both here and Jess abandoned me like a bad Tinder date…
maybe we make the best of it? One drink.
No pressure. If it’s awful, we can both blame our loved ones and never speak of it again. ”
He finally takes a swallow.
“Not awful yet,” he says, voice low and rough.
My heart gives a happy little thud. “High praise from the man who looks like he talks to trees more than people.”
A real smile this time, small and reluctant, but there. “Trees don’t talk back.”
“Lucky you.” I lean my elbow on the bar, chin in hand. “I talk back. A lot. Warning issued.”
He studies me for a beat, eyes dark and steady under heavy brows. “I think I can handle it.”
I’m going to have to buy Jess flowers for tricking me into meeting this man.
We talk for the next hour, or rather, I talk, and he listens.
Really listens. Not the fake-nodding thing guys do when they’re waiting for their turn.
He leans in a fraction when I describe the graphic design client who wanted their logo to “feel like freedom but also expensive,” and when I tell him about accidentally ordering fifty pounds of glitter last year, his shoulders actually shake once in silent, startled laughter.
I want to hear the real thing.
I want to hear it a lot.
“So,” I say when there’s a lull, swirling the last of my cocktail, “why’d your sister ambush you? She thinks you’re turning into a hermit?”
“Pretty much.” He sets his glass down and slowly rotates it. “I moved up here three years ago. Left the city, my job, and everything else. I needed quiet. She thinks quiet is code for lonely.”
“Is it?”
He meets my eyes. “Sometimes.”
The honesty lands soft and heavy. I nod.
“I get that. I came here six months ago for the same reason. Denver is loud. Too many people. Too many opinions. Too many exes who thought ‘you’re too much’ was a helpful thing to say on a regular basis.
” I shrug. “So I packed two suitcases, my laptop, and a vague plan to ‘find myself.’ Turns out myself likes mountains and talking to blue jays who steal my granola bars.”
His mouth curves again. “Reginald?”
I gasp, delighted. “You remember!”
“You’ve mentioned him twice. Hard to forget a judgmental bird with a British name.”
I laugh, bright and surprised, and he watches me like he’s trying to memorize the sound.
The bartender swings by with fresh drinks. Small-town hospitality, apparently. I raise mine.
We keep talking.
I tell him about the time I cried over burnt sourdough. He tells me, quietly, about the panic attack in a city elevator that made him sell everything and drive west until the pavement ended. His voice stays even, but there’s something raw underneath. I don’t push. I just listen.
And somewhere between my second cocktail and his third whiskey, the space between us shrinks. My knee brushes his under the bar. Neither of us moves away.
His gaze drops to my mouth once, twice, and lingers.
Heat coils low in my belly. I lean in a fraction. “You’re staring.”
“You’re worth staring at.”
My breath catches.
He clears his throat, looks down at his glass. “That came out wrong.”
“No.” I touch his wrist, light, tentative. “It came out exactly right.”
His eyes snap back to mine. Dark. Hungry. Cautious.
I smile slowly, sunny, sure. “I like you, Nathan Edwards.”
His exhale is rough. “I like you too, Katy Moore.”
The bartender calls last call. It feels like we just got here, and I’m not ready for the night to be over.
Nathan insists on paying, waving off my protest with a quiet “Next time”, and we step outside together.
The cold hits like a slap. Snowflakes drift in the streetlights. My car’s parked two spots down from his truck.
I turn to him. “This was really nice.”
“Yeah.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It was.”
Silence stretches—sweet, heavy, electric.
I take a breath. “Maybe we can do it again? Without the ambush?”
His gaze drops to my mouth again. Stays. “Maybe.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
“Goodnight, Nathan.”
“Goodnight, Katy.”
He watches me walk to my car. I feel it the whole way, his eyes on me, warm in the February dark.
I slide behind the wheel, start the engine, and sit there for a second grinning like an absolute fool.
Girls’ night gone wrong? No.
Girls’ night gone perfectly, gloriously, heart-poundingly right.
And I already know one thing for certain: I’m going to see that man again. Soon.