Unwrapping a Lumberjack (Christmas on Wilder Mountain #3)

Chapter 1

ONE

NATALIE

The GPS voice cheerfully informs me I have “arrived at my destination” at the exact moment the road disappears.

I slow to a crawl, squinting through the windshield. There’s supposed to be a driveway here. Somewhere.

And a cabin. Supposedly.

Evidence of human life. Allegedly.

Instead, there’s a wall of snow and a line of trees to a place called Nowhere, Population: Only you.

“Perfect,” I mutter under my breath, ignoring the shiver running down my spine. “Really love this for me.”

The rental SUV hums beneath me, tires gripping the rutted mountain road with all the confidence I wish I felt. My wipers squeak back and forth, shoving slush aside.

It’s pretty. In a breathtaking, glittering, I-hope-I-don’t-fall-off-this-mountain kind of way.

I tap the screen of my phone again. The little blue dot says I’m on Calder’s property. The map shows a barely-there offshoot of road curving toward a tiny cabin icon. In reality I see trees.

And snow. So much damn snow.

I pull as far to the side as I can without sliding into a drift and shift into park. The engine ticks softly. The only other sound is the wind whistling through branches and the faint hiss of falling flakes. For a second, it’s so quiet it feels like the whole mountain is holding its breath.

“Okay,” I tell the silence. “Plan A is a bust. Time for Plan B.”

I’ve built my career on Plan Bs. C, D, and occasionally J.

Weddings where the groom’s shipped suit went to his ex’s apartment?

Handled. Corporate Christmas parties where the CEO had three too many hot toddies and tried to sing “Baby Got Back” with the interns?

Neutralized. Engagement dinners where the caterer’s truck broke down in a snowstorm two towns over?

Reinvented with grocery store rotisserie chickens and a gas station bouquet.

I can do this.

I fish my gloves from the passenger seat, shove my hands in, and grab the printed contract I brought along like a security blanket. It’s already wrinkled at the edges from all the times I’ve checked it in the last twenty-four hours.

Calder West. Wilder Mountain, Colorado.

Private holiday family retreat.

Scope of work: Decorate cabin interior and exterior, plan and execute three days of festive meals and activities, coordinate arrival details for extended family, create “memorable Christmas experience.”

The phrase “memorable Christmas experience” is underlined three times in his mother’s loopy handwriting. She added a postscript in the margin during our video call: He’s going to act like he doesn’t need this. Ignore him.

I tuck the papers back into my tote and step out into the cold.

Winter slams into me like a wall. The air is sharp enough to bite. My breath blooms white in front of my face. Snow immediately tries to climb into my boots as I tromp toward the edge of the road, scanning for any sign of an actual driveway under the drifts.

There. A faint dip in the snow, like someone drove through a few days ago and the mountain’s been slowly trying to erase the evidence.

I follow the hint of tire tracks, my boots crunching softly. Trees crowd closer, tall pines dusted in fresh white. The path curves, then opens, and I get my first full view of Calder’s place.

It’s…not terrible.

The cabin is small but solid, squared logs and a steep roofline built to shed snow.

There’s a metal chimney pipe with a thin streamer of smoke.

A stack of split logs leans against one wall, covered in a blue tarp that’s definitely seen better days.

The porch, if you can call it that, is a rough plank platform with a single step made of an actual tree stump.

No wreath. No lights. No garland. No evidence that Christmas is nine days away.

My event planner’s heart flutters, half horror, half excitement. This is going to be a transformation. Before and after shots for my website. Maybe even a new featured testimonial.

Assuming the homeowner doesn’t throw me back down the mountain.

“You’ve got this,” I remind myself, climbing the stump-step. “Friendly. Professional. Nonthreatening.”

I raise my hand and knock.

For a long moment, nothing happens.

Then bolts slide. A lock turns. The door swings open.

And I am suddenly face-to-chest with a man who looks like he was grown in a laboratory marked LUMBERJACK, DO NOT OPEN BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

He’s tall. Obviously. Broad shoulders filling out a dark henley that looks like it was tailored by a very appreciative knitwear company.

His hair is a little too long, dark and rumpled like he’s run his hands through it one too many times.

There’s a short beard on his jaw, more deliberate than scruffy.

His eyes are a deep, serious brown that flick from my face to my tote to the SUV parked down on the road in a quick, assessing sweep.

He’s not smiling.

He’s also not saying anything.

“Hi,” I chirp, because silence makes me babble and this man is pure, weaponized silence. “You must be Calder.”

His brows tug together the slightest bit. “Who are you?”

Right. Start with that.

“I’m Natalie,” I say. “Natalie Hayes. We’ve been emailing. Your mom hired me to help with Christmas?” I lift the folder like a shield. “I’m the party planner.”

He looks at the folder, then at me again. His expression doesn’t change, exactly, but a subtle shift tells me he remembers the emails. He just doesn’t like what they represent.

“She actually went through with that,” he mutters.

I blink. “With… hiring me?”

“With hiring a stranger off the internet to come up here and ‘fix’ Christmas.” His mouth does a short, humorless curve around the word. “Of course she did.”

He scrubs a hand over his jaw, gaze sliding past me to the road again, like he’s trying to calculate how difficult it’d be to send me back down it.

Panic tries to pinch at my chest. I paste on my friendliest professional smile and lean into the script that’s saved me a hundred times.

“I promise I’m not here to ‘fix’ anything. Think of me as…logistical support. I just want to make things easier for you and your family. It’s your holiday, your traditions, your…vibe. I’m just here to bring the tools and maybe a few extra twinkle lights.”

His gaze returns to me at that. Lingers for one startled second on my face, like the phrase “your vibe” physically pained him.

“You drove all the way up here for twinkle lights,” he says.

“Well, that and the catering contacts, the activity schedule, the custom ornament bar, the—” I stop when his frown deepens. “Yes. Also the lights.”

He exhales slowly, a white puff in the cold air between us. His hand tightens on the door.

“Look,” he says. “I told her it wasn’t necessary. I told her I could handle it. I don’t know what she promised you, but I’m not hosting some…Hallmark movie.”

The way he says it makes it sound like a personal insult. My cheeks heat, the words hitting a spot I didn’t know was sensitive.

I take a steadying breath. “She promised me there’d be a family who wanted to spend Christmas together. That’s all I need.” I nudge my tote up higher on my shoulder. “They’re still coming, right?”

His jaw ticks.

“Yeah,” he admits. “They’re still coming.”

“Then I’m still staying,” I say, injecting more confidence into my tone than I feel. “If it helps, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll handle the logistics. You can pretend I’m not even here.”

His eyes travel slowly from my snow-damp boots to the messy bun threatening to fall out on top of my head. Something flickers there. Not attraction. Probably skepticism.

“Pretty sure that’s not going to be possible,” he says.

Heat slides through me that has nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the low, rough edge in his voice. I squash it down ruthlessly. Clients are not options. Grumpy mountain men are definitely not options.

“Well,” I say brightly. “We can workshop it.”

For a second, I swear his mouth wants to twitch into something resembling a smile. He strangles it before it escapes.

“The road’s already getting worse,” he says instead, looking past me again. “You shouldn’t drive back down in this. Not in that.” He nods toward the rental. “Chains or no chains.”

Triumph sparks under my breastbone. He might not want me here, but the weather just became my new favorite coworker.

“So I should stay,” I say. “For safety reasons.”

His eyes narrow like he recognizes the trap and is irritated he walked into it, but he doesn’t argue. Because he can’t. Not unless he wants the guilt of sending a stranger into a ditch to live on his conscience forever.

He steps back, opening the door wider. “Fine,” he says. “You can come in. We’ll…talk about it.”

I flash him a quick smile and step past him into the cabin.

The warmth hits immediately, a wave of woodsmoke and faint sawdust and something that smells like coffee left a little too long on the burner.

It’s not fancy. A woodstove glows in the corner.

A bank of windows looks out over the snow and trees.

There’s a big worn couch, a sturdy coffee table, a pair of boots tossed underneath.

An open doorway leads to what I hope is a kitchen.

There is also a duffel on the floor spilling flannel and thermal shirts, a stack of mail on a side table, and exactly zero Christmas decorations.

Not even a sad grocery store poinsettia.

My fingers itch.

“This is nice,” I say honestly, turning in a slow circle. “Cozy. Good bones. Great light.”

He closes the door behind us with a soft thud and leans back against it, arms crossing over his chest. The movement pulls his henley tight across muscles I do not have time to be noticing.

“Pretty sure ‘good bones’ is what people say when they’re about to insult a house,” he says.

“Not at all. ‘Good bones’ means potential.” I set my tote on the coffee table and start unpacking my clipboard, tablet, and color-coded project folder. “And you are overflowing with potential.”

I realize how that sounded right as his brows hike up.