Mountain Man’s Winter Darling (Wildwood Valley Firehouse #2)

Chapter 1

KAMERON

The roadhouse had never been this quiet.

No clinking glasses. No country music drifting from the jukebox.

No laughter from the firefighters who'd made this place their second home since the station opened across the street.

Just the hum of the refrigerator behind the bar and the occasional creak of the building settling against the snow piling up outside.

I'd sent my employees, Elsa and Allegra, back to the kitchen to start shutting everything down. No point keeping the fryers hot when nobody was coming through that door tonight. Not with the roads doubling as ice skating rinks.

Three days, maybe four if we stretched the kitchen stock for whoever got stranded here. That was how long we could hold out if this storm kept up.

For the first time all day, I was alone.

I let out a breath and leaned against the bar. My clipboard sat abandoned on a barstool, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd willingly set it down. That thing was practically an extension of my arm most days.

The ponytail I'd put up this morning had given up the fight somewhere around hour ten. Strands of hair fell around my face, and I didn't bother pushing them back. Nobody was here to see me looking like a mess.

I rubbed the back of my neck, working at the knot that had taken up permanent residence there. Running this honky-tonk during normal hours was exhausting enough. Running it during a snowstorm like this felt like steering the Titanic with one hand while pouring drinks with the other.

The jukebox was dark. The stage in the corner sat empty. Even the lights seemed dimmer than usual, casting everything in this warm, golden glow that made the roadhouse feel smaller. Cozier. Like the storm outside couldn't touch us in here.

I closed my eyes for just a second. One breath. Two. The tension in my shoulders started to ease, and I let myself lean a little harder against that bar, just for a moment—

The front door crashed open.

I spun around, my hand flying to my chest as wind and snow and a very large man came barreling through the entrance. He was stomping his boots and shaking snow off like a golden retriever after a bath, already talking before he even looked up.

"Kameron. Heads up, we've got—"

He stopped.

I stood there with my hand still pressed to my chest, heart hammering, hair in my face, looking nothing like the put-together manager who ran this place with an iron fist and a color-coded spreadsheet. His eyes found mine, and something shifted in his expression.

Conner. That was his name. One of the new firefighters from the station down the street.

He came in here with the rest of the crew a few times a week, always cracking jokes, always needling somebody about something.

The guy with the sharp tongue and the easy smile who seemed physically incapable of taking anything seriously.

Right now, though, he wasn't smiling. He wasn't saying anything at all. He just stood in the doorway with snow melting in his hair, staring at me like he'd forgotten how words worked.

The silence stretched between us. One second. Two.

I recovered first. "You've got what?" I straightened, smoothing down my shirt even though it was a lost cause. The professional mask slid back into place like armor. "What's happening?"

He blinked, then shook his head slightly like he was clearing it. “I…we've got incoming. Mason and Gabby. They're right behind me."

Mason and Gabby. Gabby was the server I'd sent home an hour ago because her tires were bald and her car was a death trap. I'd asked one of the firefighters to drive her, and apparently that plan had gone sideways.

"What do you mean, incoming?" I grabbed my clipboard off the barstool without thinking about it. The weight of it in my hands felt steadying. Normal. "I sent her home. Mason was supposed to take her."

"Yeah, well." Conner finally stepped all the way inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.

The sudden absence of wind made the Wildwood Valley Roadhouse feel impossibly quiet.

"They slid into a ditch about halfway up the mountain.

Tree came down across the road behind them.

We had to go up with the rescue truck and dig them out. "

My stomach dropped. "Is she okay? Is she hurt?"

"She's fine. Little shaken up, maybe. Mason's truck is toast, though.

Front end looks like a crumpled beer can.

" He pulled off his gloves and shoved them in his jacket pocket.

"Roads are completely shot. Captain's stuck at his girlfriend's place—can't even get his truck out of the driveway.

He's running command from her living room, splitting the rest of us up to cover different areas. "

I was already moving toward the kitchen. "Elsa. Allegra. We've got people coming in."

But Conner's voice stopped me. "Wait."

I turned. He was standing in the middle of the room now, snow still melting on his shoulders, and he was looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Not the usual smirk. Not the teasing glint that seemed permanently fixed in those blue eyes.

"What?" I asked.

"You looked…” He paused and ran a hand through his damp hair, leaving it sticking up in about four different directions. "Never mind. They'll be here in a few minutes. The guys are bringing them down in the rescue truck."

I waited for the punchline. The joke. The sarcastic comment about finding me without my inventory sheet or my manager voice or my shit together. But it didn't come.

"Okay," I said. "How many people are staying here tonight?"

"Just Gabby and Mason for now. The rest of the crew will drop them off and head to their posts." He unzipped his jacket, revealing a flannel shirt underneath that was somehow still dry. "Except me. Captain wants someone stationed here in case stranded travelers start showing up. I volunteered."

I nodded and turned back toward the kitchen, but I could feel his eyes on my back the whole way. It made my skin prickle in a way I didn't want to examine too closely.

Elsa looked up when I pushed through the swinging door. My bartender had that knowing look on her face, the one that made her so good at reading the customers. And apparently so good at reading me.

"Storm's getting worse?" she asked.

"We've got incoming. Gabby's okay—she slid into a ditch on the way home, but the firefighters pulled her out. She'll be staying here tonight."

"Poor thing." Allegra shook her head. "I'll put some soup on. She's probably frozen through after all that."

"Good idea. And we should set up those cots in the back storage room." I checked my clipboard even though I already knew everything on it. Force of habit. "Looks like it's going to be a long night."

When I came back out to the main room, Conner was sitting at the bar. He'd taken off his jacket and hung it over a nearby chair, and he was looking around the roadhouse like he'd never really seen it before.

"You need something?" I asked. My voice came out sharper than I intended.

He turned to face me, and there it was again. That look. Like he was seeing me for the first time, even though we'd been in the same room almost every day since he arrived in town.

"Just waiting," he said. "For the others."

Right. The others. Gabby and Mason, who'd be here any minute. I had bigger things to worry about than one firefighter with an unsettling stare.

I busied myself behind the bar, checking the coffee supplies, making sure the hot water was ready, doing anything to keep my hands occupied. Conner didn't say a word. He just sat there, and the silence between us felt heavier than it should have.

This was going to be a problem. I could already tell.

The way he'd looked at me when he first came through that door.

The way he was looking at me now. I'd seen that look before on dozens of guys who wandered into this bar thinking I was part of the scenery.

A pretty face to flirt with. A conquest to brag about to their buddies.

But something about the way Conner was watching me felt different. Less like a hunter sizing up prey and more like a man who'd just gotten hit by something he wasn't expecting.

I didn't have time for this. I had a storm to survive and staff to shelter and a hundred other things on my list that were way more important than whatever was happening in some firefighter's head.

Headlights swept through the windows. The rescue truck.

"They're here," Conner said, pushing off the barstool.

I straightened my shoulders, smoothed back my hair, and picked up my clipboard.

Time to be the manager again.