Chapter 7
THATCHER
She’s better at this than I expected.
At pretending.
At locking things away behind calm eyes and careful smiles.
I know she’s carrying secrets. I can feel them—tight, guarded, humming just beneath her skin.
And I don’t push.
Not yet.
We don’t know each other well enough for that, but no one comes to Woodhaven without a reason. Not unless they have relatives here.
Anyway, I’ll let her keep them until she’s ready to hand them over.
Because she will.
I’m patient when something matters.
There’s something about her that feels different. Heavy. Significant.
Like she walked into my orbit for a reason.
And I’m a man who’s learned the hard way to trust his instincts—especially when they hit this sharp, this sure.
After giving her the tour of the cabin she’ll be staying in—which, if I’m honest, is a pretty fucking miserable excuse for housing—I remind myself it’s temporary.
It keeps her close to the mill.
Close to me.
Where I can see her. Where I know she’s safe.
My own cabin sits deeper in the mountain.
Fifteen minutes farther in. Bigger. Warmer.
Built for comfort and solitude.
Knowing she’s nearby—under my watch, on my land—settles something deep in my chest.
She may not belong to me.
But while she’s here?
Nothing touches her without going through me first.
I clear my throat and hold the door open to the lunchroom, making her walk past me again just so I can breathe in her scent.
The second crew is already settling in when we step into the lunchroom.
Metal chairs scrape against the concrete floor, steam rising off crock pots, the air thick with soup and sweat and pine sap.
A dozen men look up at once.
For a split second, I expect Willow to freeze.
New town.
New job.
A room full of rough-looking men who work with their hands and don’t bother polishing the edges.
She doesn’t.
She steps in beside me, shoulders back, eyes curious but steady. She smiles—soft, real—and that alone changes the temperature in the room.
“Alright,” I say, clapping my hands once. “This is Willow. She’ll be filling in for Kelly while she’s out.”
A few nods. A couple murmured hellos.
Mack grins first, pushing his chair back.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Mack.”
“Arthur,” another guy adds, lifting his coffee mug.
“Andy,” someone else says from the back. “Ignore Mack. He’s loud.”
Mack flips him off without looking.
Willow laughs—quiet, surprised—and introduces herself like she’s done this a hundred times.
“Hi. I’m Willow.”
No hesitation. No more apologies for existing.
I gesture to an empty chair beside me.
“Sit. Eat.”
She hesitates just a beat, glancing at the table like she’s not sure the invitation is real.
I hold her gaze.
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Her eyes widen slightly, then she nods and takes the seat.
I grab a plate, build her a sandwich without asking—ham, turkey, cheese, mustard—then slide it across the table. Soup next. Napkin.
She stares at it.
At first, there’s disbelief. Like she’s bracing for the punchline.
Then something else flickers across her face.
Gratitude.
Sharp enough it hits me right in the chest.
All because I handed her a sandwich.
A fucking sandwich.
She blinks fast, clears her throat.
“Thank you,” she says softly, like it means more than it should.
That shouldn’t be enough to make a woman look like she might cry.
But it damn near does.
And suddenly, I want to know what kind of world taught her that this—this bare minimum—was something to be thankful for.
“Coke or water?” I ask.
“Um—Coke is fine,” she says.
I crack the can and hand it to her.
She doesn’t drink it right away. Just stares at the red label like it might disappear if she blinks too long.
I frown. “Something wrong with it?”
“What?” She startles, then shakes her head. “No. Sorry. It’s just, um, I haven’t had a Coke that isn’t Diet in a long time.”
My brow furrows.
Then it clicks.
She’s been drinking that artificial crap because someone decided she should. Because some asshole told her what her body was allowed to want.
Because she didn’t fit their narrow idea of acceptable.
Because Willow is real. Curvy.
Perfect.
The knowledge settles into me slow and heavy, like something locking into place.
And whatever that feeling is—anger, protectiveness, want—I don’t have a name for it yet.
But I know this much, no one gets to tell her what she’s allowed to enjoy ever again.
And that certainty? That knowing I’ll never allow that to happen again?
It tightens my chest and lights a fuse in my gut all at once.
Makes me want to find out who said that to her.
Makes me want to learn everything I can about her.
Not just surface shit—where she’s from, what she does—but the real stuff.
The things she keeps tucked away behind that careful smile.
Just what have you been through, Baby Girl?
The thought hits hard enough that I have to take a sip of soup to ground myself.
I did a stint in the army when I was younger. I know people.
People who could run a background check on Willow Esposito in under an hour if I asked.
But that feels wrong.
Like stealing something that isn’t mine.
I don’t want answers handed to me on a screen. I want her to choose to tell me. I want her to trust me enough to open up, piece by piece.
And what the fuck am I even thinking?
This is ridiculous.
Women like her don’t end up tangled with men like me.
Guys who work with their hands.
Who come home sore and filthy.
Who spend days in the woods with nothing but mud, steel, and the elements.
The last woman I was involved with was years ago. My twenties.
Hell, I was even engaged for a hot minute—three months, to be exact.
She loved my money. Hated my life.
She thought lumberjack meant flannel for fashion, not function.
Thought I’d want to travel, go to parties, live some jet-set fantasy.
When she realized I lived on a mountain and rarely left it, her disappointment was immediate.
She was gone a week later.
Good riddance, Kelly said.
Took me longer, but I eventually agreed.
Which is why the way Willow pulls at my attention has me uneasy.
Curious is one thing. Interested is another.
This—this feels like a problem in the making.
I know almost nothing about her except how she makes me feel.
Is that enough to trust her?
Shit. What the fuck am I even talking about?
This is lust.
Plain and simple.
Just desire.
An itch to scratch.
Nothing more.
That’s what I tell myself as we eat soup and sandwiches at the scarred wooden tables.
Arthur and Mack ask her questions—where she’s from, how long she plans to stay, if she’s ever seen snow like this before.
She answers easily enough, polite but careful, like she’s learned to give people just enough without giving herself away.
They’re younger than me.
Mid-thirties maybe.
Closer to her age, I’d guess.
That shouldn’t bother me.
It does.
I watch Mack’s eyes follow her when she stands to toss her trash.
The way his gaze lingers, assessing. Interested.
Before I can stop myself, I stand too.
My hip knocks into the table, just hard enough to slosh his soup over the edge and onto his lap.
“Shit!” Mack yelps, jumping back.
“Careful,” I say mildly. “Soup’s hot.”
Arthur snorts into his napkin.
Mack glares at me, then thinks better of it and mutters something under his breath.
Good.
That’ll teach him to stare at my girl.
The thought lands heavy and possessive.
Fuck.
That’s not good. Not at all.
She’s not mine.
She’s my employee.
And I’m already reacting like she belongs to me, like I need to guard her from the world—and maybe myself.
There’s not much I can do about how my body responds, but I can control my actions.
I have to.
“Should I head back to the office?” Willow asks, standing near my side again.
“I’ll walk you,” I say. “I’ve got things to handle inside. And that way you can ask me whatever you need about the computer system and phones.”
She nods and steps ahead of me.
I follow.
Like a goddamn puppy dog.
And I know—deep down, in the part of me that never lies—that this woman is going to be trouble.
The kind I might regret.
The kind I might not survive.