Chapter 1
THATCHER
“Kelly?! Where the hell is that invoice?”
My voice barely clears the roar of the mill, so I shout it again, leaning out of my office doorway.
The scent of fresh-cut pine and oil hangs thick in the air, sawdust drifting like fine snow through shafts of light cutting in from the high windows.
They say never work with family.
Those people never had my sister.
She’s a goddamn miracle on days I don’t want to throttle her.
I’m kidding. Mostly.
I wouldn’t actually kill Kelly—but I’ve thought about it ever since I was six and she was nine, and she lied about eating the last bag of strawberry fruit snacks after school.
Mom believed her. I got sent to bed without dessert.
I’ve never forgiven her.
“What did you say?” Kelly hollers back.
“The invoice for that prick, Lawrence!” I shout. “The one who thinks he owns half the county!”
The reason for the yelling is simple.
Our offices sit right inside the mill. On a slow day, it’s loud as hell.
Today is not a slow day.
The main saw screams as a massive white pine log gets fed through, teeth biting deep. I know bark and chips are flying about haphazardly without looking.
Forklifts beep as they haul stacked boards toward the drying racks.
The whole place hums with controlled violence—steel, muscle, and timber working together.
Dad built this mill from the ground up. When he retired a few years back, Kelly and I took it over.
He packed Mom up and moved her south to North Carolina where winters don’t bite and people think forty degrees is cold.
Me? I stayed.
Kelly stayed with her husband, Mike, and their son, Evan.
Said she wouldn’t want to raise her boy anywhere else. I get that.
The staying here part.
Not the having a kid part.
See, Woodhaven is buried deep in the wilds of Maine, surrounded by forests we manage responsibly—clear-cutting in cycles, replanting, keeping the land alive.
Logging isn’t just chainsaws and flannel.
It’s permits, inspections, schedules, contracts, and knowing exactly how long a spruce needs to cure before it’s worth a damn.
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Kelly appears in the doorway, tablet tucked under her good arm, the other secured in a sling.
She looks like she always does—competent, unimpressed, and two seconds from calling me on my bullshit.
“Oh, he already called,” she says. “Wants a ten percent discount because Emmet’s been an hour late on deliveries all month.”
I swear and rake a hand through my hair.
“This fucking prick. He knows damn well we don’t guarantee delivery times. We guarantee volume. I explain this every month.”
“Preaching to the choir, Thatch.”
She shifts the sling, wincing slightly, and my irritation instantly reroutes.
“How’s the arm?” I ask, voice dropping.
Kelly exhales. “Doctor Carl says I need surgery. With it being mud season and all, I scheduled it for Monday.”
That lands like a log dropped wrong—hard and jarring.
“I know it’s a bad time this year,” she adds quickly. “Spring cleaning and maintenance lists are ramping up, and—”
“Kels,” I cut in, stepping closer. “You need surgery, you get surgery. Don’t worry about me. Me and the guys will manage.”
It’s a lie.
Kelly isn’t just my secretary.
That word doesn’t even come close.
She runs scheduling, payroll, vendor contracts, compliance paperwork, and—most importantly—she manages the collective testosterone in this place.
She keeps men twice her size from punching each other on the daily. And she keeps me from chewing out buyers when they start whining about knots in the grain.
Without her, I’m one bad phone call away from putting J.T. Lawrence’s head through a wall.
Motherfucker is the top builder in the whole damn state, and his business keeps me in business.
She gives me a look.
It’s the don’t bullshit me look she perfected sometime in high school.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll find you a good replacement.”
My stomach tightens. “What? No. We’ll be fine. You just take a few days—”
“Days?” She snorts. “Thatcher, it’ll be six weeks before I can use my arm properly.”
Fuck.
I cross my arms, jaw tight. I hate strangers. I hate change.
And I really hate the idea of someone I don’t know digging around in our books.
“Kelly, it’ll be okay,” I say again, softer.
She shakes her head. “You’re terrible at lying.”
Then she smiles, and that’s never good.
“I talked to Lou over at the diner when I stopped by to grab some of those muffins you like,” she says.
“Muffins?” I inquire, but she ignores me.
Truly, my sister is evil.
“Apparently, someone came through town this morning asking about work.”
I blink.
“You’re joking.”
“She said they looked decent. Quiet. Polite. And they forgot their jacket, so Lou’s pretty sure they’ll be back.”
I scoff. “You’re gonna hire some fucking stranger who can’t even remember to dress for Maine in March?”
Kelly lifts a brow.
“Says the man who forgets to eat unless I physically put food in front of him.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
I open my mouth, then close it. Damn it.
“Relax,” she says. “They’ll come in. We’ll talk to them. Worst case, we say no.”
Something in my gut twists—not irritation this time.
Something else.
Restless. Unsettled.
Like anticipation and anxiety are wrestling inside of me, and there’s no discernible winner.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But if they’re useless, this is on you.”
Kelly grins. “Deal.”
She turns to leave, and I glance back out at the mill floor—at the logs rolling in, the saws screaming, the life I understand down to my bones.
Change has a way of sneaking up on you.
And I have the sudden, inexplicable feeling that whoever walks through that door next is about to complicate my carefully ordered world.